I have enjoyed learning about Native Americans since I was a child, so I already knew quite alot about their culture and beliefs, but I wanted to conduct some own private research to make sure I knew as much about their culture as I could as I didn't want to end up creating something that was insulting or offensive. I also like to have a surrounding knowledge about the subject matter I decide to do a project on, because I'm sad lol.
There was a wide variety of information about the Native Americans online, but I'll include here research that is relevant to our project.
- The Native Americans that people usually associate in their minds when hearing the title, are from the wide period of 1500AD- 1900AD. The village that we will design and create could come from any time from 1500- 1800. After that time it was common for Native Americans fight off the white settlers with guns. We decided as a group that we wanted our Zombie Native American to be very traditional, although we were unsure about this for our lead good character. We decided that she should be from the present. Working out how the village is still intact and undisturbed was a matter we would worry about later when we would try to get more of a story into place.
- Native Americans comprise a large number of distinct tribes, states and ethnic groups. As our village is nowhere specific, (although we preferably want somewhere hot and dry and mountainous, to keep to a lighter colour scheme), we will probably incorporate cultural elements from different tribes etc, to make the village more recognisable to our audience, although these differences were usually very subtle, e.g the way a tepee was designed etc.
- European settlers brought over diseases such as smallpox which the Natives had no immunity to fight. Approx 80% of some Native populations died due to European diseases. After showing this information to the group we wondered about whether our Zombie could have died from smallpox and wanted to get revenge on the ancestors of the white settlers? We chose against this idea as our story would be getting political. We wanted to design an enjoyable game level, that caused no disrespect to either culture, even though I personally feel for the Natives.
- In some tribes beautiful sand paintings were created in special ceremonies, focused on maintaining a harmonious relationship with the spirit world. The colours in the pictures represented different spirits, and the creations were erased at the end of each ceremony.
- The Native Americans were superior weavers and had many embroidered decorations. Rich dyes were used for textile arts. Turquoise and shell jewelry were created, as well as high-quality pottery and richly decorated masks used for ceremonies celebrating their ancestors spirits. According to legend, dream catchers, meant to protect you from nightmares, were given to the Natives by the spirit of a spider.
A 'peace- pipe'. It is sacred and often used in special ceremonies. The pipe is broken into two pieces, symbolising a male and female. The pieces are joined together in the most sacred part of the ceremony to represent unity.
- Most Native American tribes had gender roles. As expected, the men usually hunted, traded and made war, while the women looked after the children and elderly, made clothes and cured meat. However, apart from making homes, the women had other just as important roles that added to the protection of their tribe. They made weapons and tools, took care of the roofs of their homes, helped the men hunt buffalo's, were medicine women and in some tribes women were encouraged to learn to fight and ride. Although the fighting was mainly left for the males, women would often fight with them when the existence of their tribe was threatened. This could tie into how our zombie can fight so well... trained as a warrior, and now with powers, her skills have been intensified.
- Weapon wise, the Native Americans used to fight with spears, knives, bows and arrows, and tomahawks. The spears were decorated with scalps and feathers.
- Funerals and burial rituals were very diverse between different tribes. The Plains Indians and certain tribes from the Pacific Northwest practised above-ground burials using tress, scaffolds, canoes and boxes on stilts, which decayed over time. Other tribes layed the dead to rest in caves or were buried under trees so that the nutrients etc were taken by the trees and so the person lived on in the growing tree.
- The Native Americans believed that everything has a spirit. Some of these spirits had specific stories that were told about them, detailing moments in their lives etc. I research some of these spirits, hoping to find inspiration for a story idea among them and that if our Zombie had any powers, maybe she could use some that the Natives believed were available through the spirits. Here were my favourites:
Oamaits was a very butch warrior goddess. She beat up giants and turned them into mountain landscapes. She doesn't think much of humans and leaves a trail of natural disasters after her.
Waukheon are the thunderbirds that are usually found sitting on top of totem-poles. They are powerful symbols of nature, war, strength and victory.
Gendenwitha was a princess who was in love with Sosondowah, a hunter who had been recruited by the goddess Dawn to act as a guard in heaven. In his spare time he flew down to visit Gendenwitha in a blackbird or bluebird form. One day he took her on a flight to heaven. Jealous of their relationship, Dawn used her immense power to turn Gendenwitha into a gem, set in the centre of her forehead, dangling forever out of Sosondowah's reach. I particularly liked this story because at an earlier group meeting we kept coming back to the idea of having a gem in the zombies eye, which our heroine would rip out at the end and win the level. I thought this story could link in with the story we were trying to form.
We re-grouped to discuss more ideas etc and to show our research. Whilst myself and Dan Ryan had found research that would help on the more creative aspect of things, props and characters etc, Dan C and Jake had researched more technical things to see if what we wanted to include was possible. Myself and Dan R particularly wanted dust particles to be used. Dan especially, as he has wanted to include extra details like this in our previous projects but we never had time to include them. The gem in the forehead idea caught on well, and although we were coming up with many varied ideas, an actual story or how to win this level was still undecided. We spoke to Jarred in a tutorial and told him that we were going to watch films etc involving Native Americans for inspiration, and he warned us not to watch any with Victor Mature as he made things be included in his contract such as shoulder pads etc to make himself look extra strong or attractive etc, which wouldn't be helpful in getting more realistic interpretations. I wanted to stay away from most of those old films anyway, as I used to watch them as a kid, and I never liked the way they always made the Natives out as savages. Jarred also told us that the technicians at uni wouldn't allow us to make a game level on actual software that would allow game play so we would have to make it in Maya and show our audience what it would be like if the level could be played. He also told us to look at the game 'Brave' another game made focusing on the Native American theme.
Luckily, the game is in a completely different style to ours. Actually, it is total opposite. Looking at the image above we can see very dark, bold colours, the direction we wanted to avoid for this project any way,
As a group, we watched on 'Youtube' clips from the films 'Dances with Wolves', 'A Man Called Horse', 'Pocahontas', and 'Apokolypto' as well as other clips celebrating the Native American way of life. I had seen the above films before, but watching them as a group was beneficial as we could point out elements we liked or didn't and I got to recap.
Whilst I was watching, I was taking notice of the appearance of the Native people. Throughout our group meetings, we had naturally begun to fall into certain roles within the group. I think this will probably be obvious by the different ways our blogs are beginning to form. Dan C and Jake mainly looked at the way things could be created while myself and Dan R noticed what should be created. We assigned roles formally, even though we pretty much knew what we would be doing. Myself and Dan R are the modellers. We are going to (hopefully) design and create a character each (mine the goody, Dan the baddie), along with weapons and the village. We will also be texturing everything. Dan C and Jake will be the animators and in charge of the technical elements like dust and blood etc. If there's time, me and Dan want to animate our characters faces. Lighting and sound and post production will be done as a group together like always.
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