The previous Africa-setting thread was designed to troll, so can we have a thread about black cultures (African or diaspora) that's not that?
Personally, I think it's sad that a lot of the indigenous beliefs of the continent are so irrevocably mixed with christian/muslim beliefs. But fortunately, a lot of the old beliefs are preserved and revived in living religions of the new world syncretists. In particular, I'm quite interested in the Cuban version (Santería/Lucumí/'Regla de Ocha) and I have some links about it.
Notice the parallels between Obatalá to Odin (wise father who is also feminine (Odin takes an effeminate sexual role to learn female magic, Obatalá has female incarnations) and between Changó and Thor (masculine warrior kings, the most popular of the pantheon, and associated with thunder).
I mean, come on, he had a magic flywhisk of casual resurrection. Who doesn't love that?
Isaac Adams
>Mwindo was the son of Shemwindo, a powerful chief who had seven wives. Shemwindo decreed that his wives should bear only female children and that he would kill any male child they produced. Six of his wives gave birth to females. Then his favorite wife, Nyamwindo, had a boy. The child emerged from her middle finger.
Dylan Foster
I was creating a story once that eventually split to one being All religions were real and that what types of magics you could do/specialize in was based on that god. (Jeudisim were really good at Plagues) and then the other being more based on cultures with minor splashes of religion (With Romans declaring that women had to learn certain types of magic/"Women used magic to craft" which fucked them over as they had large numbers of female magic users.)
Africain and Aboriginal mythology lends itself very well to being used. As they are so colorful.
Blake Brooks
I like Anasazi the Trickster Spider just for being a cunning spider. You see malevolent spiders in Western lit, and the odd doting Charlotte's Web spider, but Tricksy Spider is a relatively untrod path. His stories are fun too
Luis Wilson
Yeah, those old stories are fun to draw from.
It's Anansi. The Anasazi were a native American tribe.
Daniel Campbell
isn't there a story to do with him walking through a town disguised as an old man wearing an outfit which is half one colour, half another, for no other reason than to make people on opposite sides of the town argue about what colour that weird old man was wearing
Camden Ross
You're right, sorry, I dug up the name from memories of a children's book
Asher Murphy
I've heart Tortoise stories and he's a horrible little con artists shithead.
The story goes that Tortoise wanted to build a big house, but he didn't have enough money. He goes to Wildebeest and asks to borrow the money, saying that he'll be able to pay him back some time after the house is done. Then he goes to Lion and gives him the same story. Then he goes to Man and gives him the same story. They all decide to give him the loan.
When the big fancy hose is built using the combined money he got he invites them over so he can pay them back. He sends his fates messenger to Wildebeest. Wildebeest shows up and Tortoise tells him to wait while he goes and fetches his money. At that time Lion shows up, brought by Tortoises second fasted messenger, and Tortoise tells him that he'll find his payment inside. Lion goes in, spots Wildebeest, and kills him just a Man shows up with the third fastest messenger. Tortoise gives Man a sob story about how he had Mans payment all prepared when a Lion showed up and stole his house. So Man takes his spear and enters the house, killing Lion, and leaving with Wildebeest as that little fuck Tortoise looks on smugly.
Brayden Barnes
I could see some awesome dark fantasy stuff going down in a "mythic" Africa setting, but the author would need to bite the bullet and not be afraid to be controversial.
Jeremiah Bennett
>"dark" fantasy
Jack Bell
It's no wonder nobody in Africa trusts anybody else.
Nathan Howard
Somewhat literal in this case. I could see some cool shit going on with the Zulu warriors.
Jeremiah Hernandez
I don't know much from that far south. Aside from the story of Shaka Zulu and his wars, what's there to work with from down there?
Oliver Parker
>black culture >diaspora
You mean like... US pop music culture?
James Bennett
Free styling and shape shifting. Lots of shape shifting. Also, look up the myths concerning some of the ticks and other skin infecting parasites. Their origin stories and the way refer to them is pretty cool. Like temptations to help a bothers thirst or keep him warm so they can get "inside" of him.
Easton Hughes
>implying US blacks have kept their culture More like Caribbean and South American blacks. Although the notion that a person can "have soul" does relate to the indigenous Yoruba notion of aché.
Adrian Hall
have your pc's run into brer rabbit, plenty of shit in these stories to use as inspiration, and good look at that mix of african and southern american culture.
Nathaniel Robinson
>muh Odin was gay
Elijah Allen
>fags like WE WUZ GODS N SHIT
Evan Ramirez
No, user, Odin was a trap.
Besides, Vikings didn't have christian sexual mores, so their views on the subject would've been pretty weird to begin with.
Well, even in the worst cases they still have loki.
Xavier Russell
Loki wasn't gay. He only had sex with males while wearing a female form.
Jordan Miller
>I think it's sad that a lot of the indigenous beliefs of the continent are so irrevocably mixed with christian/muslim beliefs.
It's tendency towards syncretism is one of my favorite things about many African religions. It helps show just how universal (and flexible) the nature of human belief can be.
Especially the new world traditions like Santeria and Haitian Vodou. They combine Middle Eastern, European, West African, and Indigenous American beliefs into a faith that really is a better representation of the mixing of cultures in the New World than any other phenomena I can think of. Forget Mormonism- Voodoo is the great American born religion.
On those grounds, I'm not even particularly averse to those who get a little more Eastern Spirituallity with it. I think there's some interesting comparisons to be drawn between traditional west African faiths and some Eastern traditions like Confucianism.
Besides, the orisha and their relationships changed too, as they're basically supernatural family/ancestors on top of our mortal ones and out relationship with our family/ancestors is always changing. That and the fact that the traditions were largely transferred orally or through actual practice, which lends itself to permutation over the ages more than if things were written down.
But I'm thinking you're talking more about the marginalization/violence that many practitioners face, in which case I agree.
Bentley Ramirez
>Notice the parallels between Obatalá to Odin (wise father who is also feminine (Odin takes an effeminate sexual role to learn female magic, Obatalá has female incarnations) Not really. While magic is considered a feminine thing in germanic culture, the runes are another thing
Alexander Sanders
>I could see some awesome dark fantasy stuff going down in a "mythic" Africa setting, but the author would need to bite the bullet and not be afraid to be controversial.
Or they could just do like Nyambe or Spear of the Dawn. Not really controversial at all, but they also draw more on actual African culture/mythology
But seriously, anyone here who hasn't gotten their hands on Nyambe: African Adventures or Spears of the Dawn and is interested in this stuff is doing themselves a disservice.
Jeremiah Campbell
Hercules also fucked dudes. A lot. He was really good at it.
Jordan Hall
>Indigenous American If you were talking about south American (and especially Brazilian) stuff, sure, but what new world native beliefs are involved in Santería or Vodou?
>I'm thinking you're talking more about the marginalization/violence that many practitioners face Well, that and the fact that because of it, us ivory tower westerners don't really have access to good information on how the faith is actually practiced, without seeing it through an (intentionally) obscuring rebranding as abrahamic monotheism. Not that there's nothing interesting in that context too (Santa Muerte and La Lloronoa and other central American religious characters are still interesting) but it's a lot harder to find enough to build something Veeky Forums-relevant.
In Lozi Mythology, the creator God, Nyambe, actually fled creation to get the fuck away from humanity. When humanity was created, the first man Kamunu loved Nyambe, and wanted to emulate him and do everything he did. *Everything*. But because he was mortal and fucking stupid, he kept doing it wrongly.
See god making tools and farming crops? Fucker accidentally makes a spear, kills something with it, and realizes meat tastes fucking great. So he started killing and eating EVERYTHING.
So humanity was banished. But he came back. So God tried teaching humans, but he kept killing and eating things. So God said fuck it i'm out, and left. AND HUMANITY FOLLOWED HIM. Which spread humans throughout the world. Eventually Nyambe got so fed up he left the planet entirely.
Charles Harris
the website has several more, should I spam them?
Jackson Butler
Well religion-wise, your major west African faiths believe there's a single all powerful creator who does jack shit and that most of the work in the world is done by a bunch of lesser deities/ascendant ancestors. Priests form relationships with or bargain with these entities and some are nicer than others, but they all tend to be rather human-centric as opposed to distant unknowable omnipotent things. So right there you have your built in model for how 99% of fantasy settings religions work.
Magic is not the sole domain of priests and wizards. Basically, when the creator made everything, he decided what stuff was and wasn't magical and some stuff was more magical than others. So a tree may have magic leaves that allow you to cast X spell if you brew them or gain a bonus to fertility if you chew them or whatever. A certain animal may give good luck if eaten or treated a certain way. Most people know SOME of this stuff. People who can call themselves witch doctors/priests/magicians know A LOT MORE of this and how to use them to best effect.
When it comes to combat, you don't usually see crossbows or plate armor, but various types of materials, including metal were used to make different kinds of mail. If you enjoy anything like Dark Sun/Conan that allows you to play characters that can be useful when not covered by armor and make armor actually useful, there's stuff to work with there.
In addition to the usual assortment of spears optimizied for various ranges and styles of combat, Africans also used swords- mostly straight swords and leaf shaped ones and later on, curved ones. They also used bows, but rather than rely on raw power to kill, they tended towards using them as a poison delivery method.
Cavalry also exists in the form of Sahael-style horse riders. They were really the only people who had horses in the sub-Saharan world and many African empires like the Mali and Hausa Kingdoms were built on the backs of mounted cavalry.
Luis Lee
>I think there's some interesting comparisons to be drawn between traditional west African faiths and some Eastern traditions like Confucianism. Just don't start writing about すんぢあたけいた instead of using Roman letters.
Aaron Brown
>If you were talking about south American (and especially Brazilian) stuff, sure, but what new world native beliefs are involved in Santería or Vodou?
Haitian Vodou is largely derived from disparate west African tribes and combined with local beliefs of the mountain dwelling Arawak/Taino peoples.
Their influences include stuff like the drawning of veves in cornmeal as neither the concept of veves or the existence of cornmeal was a thing back in Africa.
The Taino also taught them which plants on the island were sacred/magical, and these continue to be sacred/magical in Vodou.
Tobacco and rum spiced with chili peppers are also very important in Vodou as offerings and use in rituals. Both tobacco and chili peppers came from the Indigenous peoples.
Here's some more stuff I got with a quick google search.
What you must keep in mind with African folklore is that the "Gods" aren't the central focus. The non-human spirits & deities have their place. But the biggest chunk of African mythology centers around the origin of humans, and how the first man lived his life. The general Niger-Congo pattern usually goes as follows.
>World already exists or gets uncovered >God is bored or lonely so he creates a human who is his spiritual son >First human is a trickster and a demiurge whose exploits create the world as we know it >God and humans live together in harmony >Chameleon screws up the message of immortality >Or humans are too loud >Or little old lady beats her pestle & mortar with too much force and bumps into God >Or God just stops giving a shit >Either way, humans lose their immortality and God stops interfering with the world directly >Some humans might try to build a tower to reconnect with heaven but fuck it up >Patriarchs & Matriarchs of the different clans have encounters with animals/plants that leads to the founding of each clan and their totem spirit
There's basically a hierarchy of spirits
>Big G creator God >Celestial deities >Earthly deities >Ancestor spirits >Petty spirits often used for fetish magic
Landon Lee
European folklore lends itself better to dark fantasy. African folklore is somewhat more optimistic and lighthearted all things considered.
Isaiah Morales
>Personally, I think it's sad that a lot of the indigenous beliefs of the continent are so irrevocably mixed with christian/muslim beliefs. Same; it's impressive that the ragheads managed to make the nogs even MORE barbaric.
Grayson Hughes
>Well, that and the fact that because of it, us ivory tower westerners don't really have access to good information on how the faith is actually practiced, without seeing it through an (intentionally) obscuring rebranding as abrahamic monotheism. Not that there's nothing interesting in that context too (Santa Muerte and La Lloronoa and other central American religious characters are still interesting) but it's a lot harder to find enough to build something Veeky Forums-relevant.
Honestly, the best place to start is anywhere. If you know pretty much nothing, then almost anything you read is going to present you with new information and be very enlightening.
Basically what I did. I went to the library/half priced books, and picked just about every non-fiction book related to "Haitian Vodou" I could. All of them were immensely enlightening because I was coming from a position of near total ignorance.
I'm still very much a neophyte- anyone who actually studies this stuff in college or something can easily put me in my place. But compared to friends and family and players, you'd think I'm some kind of scholar because I can tell Damballah's veve from Erizule or point out Niger on a map.
Cooper Torres
If I'm not asleep I'll talk about the Lokundo saga
