Do you know anything about the Harry Potter controversy surrounding Rowling's American wizarding school Ilvermony, where the school's houses and backlore supposedly havr ties to indigenous history? This probably sounds like utter gibberish if you don't know anything about it, sorry about that. I was hoping for some possible clarification, I'm not educated enough about either topic to understand the problems there.
HOO BOY, ANON, YOU HAVE STUMBLED ON SOMETHING THAT ABSOLUTELY INFURIATES ME.
I’m going to start this out with a disclaimer. I love Harry Potter and the HP universe; it’s even one of my oldest special interests and has been a hugely important part of my life and my development as a person.
With that being said, Rowling is absolute shit at putting decent representation in her books and she needs to stay 5,000,000 miles away from Native people.
The most obvious issue with Ilvermorny is the mascots; every single house is represented with a spirit from indigenous cultures. The Thunderbird is common in numerous Turtle Island tribes and is actually an extremely important figure in my own culture, to the point where it’s on my nation’s flag. Pukwudgies are creatures from Delaware and Wampanoag beliefs. The Wampus cat is from South Eastern Native folklore, particularly Cherokee. Horned Serpents, like Thunderbirds, are found in a lot of Native cultures, particularly those in the Southeast and by the Great Lakes.
These are all sacred spirits in their respective cultures and having a white British woman use them as mascots in her white, settler school is extremely insulting. Which brings me to my next issue.
The story of Ilvermorny starts with a Pukwudgie, a Native spirit, becoming indebted to an Irish settler:
“The Pukwudgie now declared himself bound to serve her until he had an opportunity to repay his debt. He considered it a great humiliation to be indebted to a young witch foolish enough to wander around in a strange country, where Pukwudgies or Hidebehinds might have attacked her at any moment, and her days were now filled with the Pukwudgie’s grumbling as he trudged along at her heels.”
Which is fucking gross, lbr. This Pukwudgie then goes on to introduce this European woman to a whole fucking bunch of sacred spirits who just adore her for some reason. She could even understand the Horned Spirit because she’s ~special~
“William began to introduce Isolt to the magical creatures with which he was familiar. They took trips together to observe the frog-headed Hodags hunting, they fought a dragonish Snallygaster and watched newborn Wampus kittens playing in the dawn.
Most fascinating of all to Isolt, was the great horned river serpent with a jewel set into its forehead, which lived in a nearby creek. Even her Pukwudgie guide was terrified of this beast, but to his astonishment, the Horned Serpent seemed to like Isolt. Even more alarming to William was the fact that she claimed to understand what the Horned Serpent was saying to her.
Isolt learned not to talk to William about her strange sense of kinship with the serpent, nor of the fact that it seemed to tell her things. She took to visiting the creek alone and never told the Pukwudgie where she had been. The serpent’s message never varied: ‘Until I am part of your family, your family is doomed.’”
(She named the Pukwudgie William. Because of course she did.)
This Irish woman, alongside her adopted European settler sons, founded Ilvermorny and decided on the “mascots” of the house without any input from Native peoples.
Then, it gets even worse. Because the Horned Serpent that Isolt could magically communicate with gave her its own horn to turn into a wand for her son.
“The Horned Serpent was waiting there for her. It raised its head exactly as it had done in her dream, she took part of its horn, thanked it, then returned to the house and woke James, whose skill with stone and wood had already beautified the family cottage.
When Chadwick woke next day, it was to find a finely carved wand of prickly ash enclosing the horn of the serpent. Isolt and James had succeeded in creating a wand of exceptional power.”
The next students of the school were from the Wampanoag and Narragansett tribes, and the school continued to grow with both European and Native students. There is no mention of why these children were suddenly being sent to a European school instead of being taught by their tribes, which clearly must’ve been the practice prior to Ilvermorny’s founding.
I also need to seriously stress that there is a very horrific history around Native children being sent to European-run schools, particularly boarding schools. This is a trauma in our communities, not something for a white European woman to use as a plot point in her shitty lore.
Now. Let’s move away from Ilvermorny because it gets even worse when we take a look at Rowling’s History of Magic in North America, particularly the Fourteenth Century – Seventeenth Century article..
In the second paragraph, Rowling immediately makes a statement about Native communities.
“In the Native American community, some witches and wizards were accepted and even lauded within their tribes, gaining reputations for healing as medicine men, or outstanding hunters. However, others were stigmatised for their beliefs, often on the basis that they were possessed by malevolent spirits.”
Now, this isn’t inherently bad, but we need to keep this statement in mind when we take a look at the next paragraph.
“The legend of the Native American ‘skin walker’ – an evil witch or wizard that can transform into an animal at will – has its basis in fact. A legend grew up around the Native American Animagi, that they had sacrificed close family members to gain their powers of transformation. In fact, the majority of Animagi assumed animal forms to escape persecution or to hunt for the tribe. Such derogatory rumours often originated with No-Maj medicine men, who were sometimes faking magical powers themselves, and fearful of exposure.”
First of all, what the fuck? “[…] No-Maj medicine men, who were sometimes faking magical powers themselves, and fearful of exposure.” I shouldn’t have to explain why this statement is absolutely disgusting, but I’m going to anyway. Medicine Men are among the absolute most important people in any Native community. They are revered and respected spiritual leaders, vital to the running of the tribe and the main reason why we as Native people have any bits of our spirituality and religions left. And Rowling essentially called them con artists and liars.
And the idea that sk*nwalkers are just regular Animagi that those ~evil savage Medicine Men~ spread ~nasty rumors~ about is just as disgusting. It is literally rewriting Najavo folklore to make actual Native people look like liars and bigots who are just persecuting those poor misunderstood sk*nwalkers :(((
The article ends with discussions of wands, emphasizing that even though Native peoples had been doing perfectly fine without them and that wandless magic is typically seen as something incredibly powerful, Native people still needed em. In the Ilvermorny article, it’s specifically mentioned that the Native students receive wands made by the Irish woman and her family.
In the other articles about North America, Native people are mentioned exactly twice, once to mention that tribes would take in their “European brethren” and again when discussing a Choctaw woman making wands with Thunderbird feather cores.
“Shikoba Wolfe, who was of Choctaw descent, was primarily famous for intricately carved wands containing Thunderbird tail feathers (the Thunderbird is a magical American bird closely related to the phoenix). Wolfe wands were generally held to be extremely powerful, though difficult to master. They were particularly prized by Transfigurers.”
Sorry, correction; *a woman of Choctaw descent.
So. Tldr; Rowling is fucking racist and I am going to physically fight her with my bare hands.
With Rowling openly siding with terfs now, here’s a reminder that she’s also violently racist. And a lot of other things too tbh.
I mentioned before on a different blog but the whole Ilvermorny bullshit can be summed up visually with her literally redesigning the Great Horned Serpent in a Celtic knot:
(Also do not ask me where the two ram horns came from, I can only assume she and the artist decided they just look cool.)
It honestly hurts my eyes to look at.
Anyway here is preserved ancestral artwork of Jipijka’m from my people in case anyone was interested in an authentic rendering (though keep in mind that as @finding-my-culture said, various different Nations have various Great Horned Serpent legends):
(Jipijka’maq are eels, not snakes. Well again at least for us.)
Thank you so much for this information! The fact that Horned Serpents aren’t usually actual snakes in their respective cultures just makes this even more of a mess.
And the Horned Serpent isn’t the only one that got the colonizer treatment.
All the house “mascots” have Celtic patterns, and seeing the Animikii turned into that is genuinely devastating for me. That is genuinely the ugliest “Thunderbird” I’ve ever seen, especially when compared to depictions from actual Native artists.
(Thunderbird, Jim Oskineegish, 2016)
(Man Changing Into Thunderbird, Norval Morrisseau, 1977)
(Thunderbird Drum, Nick Vonda)
Turtle Island Natives have such incredible, beautiful artwork and amazing ways of depicting our sacred spirits so that their strength and importance are obvious, and then settlers come around and do that boring, colonizer bullshit and take all the beauty and love and passion out of our cultures.
It’s disgusting.
