Okay, I'm just going to make this a top level post.

[conuly]

If you're referring to the customs of some other people in the past tense, you should stop and ask yourself first "Do these people exist? Do they still do this thing in the present day? How can I find out?" and then go google it. If you're not sure - and if this isn't your custom and your people then you should assume you're not sure - you should see if they have some website in the present day where they tell you what they do today. You should definitely not assume that their quaint old-timey custom is something they did in the past and don't do today, especially if there is a better than even chance that somebody might assume that this is because those people are all gone now.

Of course, on the flipside, if you're assuming people today live like they did in the past, that is also an error and you should look it up. In conclusion, no matter what, look it up.

Comments

[hashiveinu]

Thank you.

[redbird]

For the advanced course, don't assume homogeneity, ethnic or otherwise: I just read Sofia Samatar's memoir _The White Mosque_, which is about (among other things) the tendency of both Mennonites and outsiders to assume that Mennonites are a white (German and Dutch) ethnic group as well as a religious group. Samatar says that white Mennonites tend to look at her dark skin and think she's a visitor or maybe a recent convert, and to be relieved to be able to slot her into the family tree based on her mother's surname. However, Samatar also points out that she's not an anomaly, and there are a lot of non-white Mennonites. She doesn't mention anyone saying "but you don't look Mennonite," but it wouldn't surprise me if they did.

[8hyenas]

thanks

[sabotabby]

Yes good agree.

[acelightning73]

I really ought to have known better. I will go cook and eat some wild rice, with maize on the side.

[conuly]

Sounds a bit starchy, but delish!

[acelightning73]

Actually, for Turkeymas, I use wild rice in my stuffing, and I serve either corn-on-the-cob, or corn-off-the cob, or last year I made cornbread (my usual dinner rolls have too much butter in them, and I'm afraid they might cause me distress). And I had some string beans and pumpkin pie!

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Good advice in theory, but extremely difficult to apply. I do a lot of looking up cultures and customs for writing research. It is often impossible to find anything. If there is material, it almost always disagrees with each other. Even "official" sources can be dead wrong. Finding horse's mouth material is hard, because people rarely advertise that, and then -- because it's individual opinion -- it's not consistent either. So then you're left trying to triangulate across multiple sources to find what seems, at least, to be a common opinion.

This takes a large amount of time, energy, and skill. It's feasible to do for a few things. It's not for everything -- you will run out of time. You have to pick and choose what's the most important to pin down as best you can.

One reason people talk about things in the past tense is that it's often easier to pin down that way. Archaeology, for instance, is tolerably well organized as long as you don't hit one of the parts people are screaming at each other over (like when humans first arrived in the Americas). I've found some extremely helpful websites where I can point on a map and scroll through the history of that place over the centuries, which is super useful for writing historic literature. It has names and dates and everything. But I've never seen a modern equivalent that would, say, make it easy to find out which cultures consider eye contact mandatory, permissible, or rude.

Re: Well ...

[conuly]

In this extremely specific vagueposting context it was extremely easy for me to google to find out a. which specific group of "Native Americans" harvests wild rice b. that they still do it c. using traditional methods

Nobody needs perfection, but a teensy effort is appreciated, especially when lots of people have this weird idea that Native Americans are a. all the same and b. dead. I feel it's important to push back on any statement that appears to be making that assumption, even if the person probably wouldn't do it intentionally and does actually know that it's false. Especially then, perhaps - it's a bad habit of speech that needs to be broken with great force.

Re: Well ...

[acelightning73]

I do agree.

[silveradept]

But if you make someone do research, then they might decide they shouldn't stomp all over another culture in ignorance, and if they do that, then publishers might have to accept more work of people from that culture, and then people might get upset about the tokenism currently present in publishing. Do you want to destabilize the entire publishing industry with your radical suggestions? [/sarcasm]

[conuly]

I'm an American. Have you checked out the geopolitics lately? My people destablize shit for kicks.

[chasing_silver]

I saw your thread about Anishinaabe wild rice collecting. As someone who is Indigenous, Anishinaabe in particular, and whose cultural traditions have and still include wild rice collecting, thank you for advocating for this. We aren't dead and gone. We are here and we exist.

[conuly]

Thanks, I do try.

[dorchadas]

I run into this relatively often with well-meaning liberal friends or acquaintances trying to dunk on Christian conservatives being like "What about not eating shrimp? What about not wearing mixed fabrics? What about ransoming your firstborn son?" And I'm like "Hello, yes, I follow all those rules."

(Well, I don't have a son so I didn't have to ransom him, but there are people in my synagogue who have had the ritual performed during services)

[conuly]

Okay, but we can agree that they're hypocrites for saying on the one hand "none of that stuff counts because Jesus" and on the other saying "But totally, gays can suck it, amirite? I mean, it's in the Bible!"

[dorchadas]

I have opinions on the way Christians interpret Tanakh, but it's my understanding that they do have some kind of consistent worldview stemming from Paul since he said both of those things. Though googling it now it looks like there's a lot of argument about what exactly Paul was talking about.

[conuly]

Or, indeed, which writings can really be attributed to him or not and, if so, if he really intended them to be The Rules For Everybody or just Advice For Your One Problem.