![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Several years ago I began writing an Angel Sanctuary fic called "Debts," which was a rather insanely ambitious attempt to tell the stories of all Alexiel's human incarnations. I got through the first three fairly easily, largely because I cheated and set one in ancient Rome and another in Corinth right around the birth of Christianity; I did not have to do much special research since I have some general knowledge of those times and places from my own pleasure reading. (The other incarnation was set in ancient China around 200 BC, and there I also cheated by having the main character get captured by the Xiongnu and not understand their language or culture.)
Then I stalled out, because I'd decided the fourth incarnation should be from central/southern India around 180 CE, and my knowledge of Indian history is, frankly, pathetic. I poked around Wikipedia a bit, and tried a couple times to get through a general introductory history of India, but I kept giving up after the first couple chapters before I got to anything specific and/or useful. I think, in retrospect, that I was reading the wrong book -- my general (and quite possibly inaccurate) impression of the scattered bits of translated French scholarship I've read is that French historians are into grand unified theories with extra helpings of psychology whereas I wanted something more fact-based and ethnographic.
Anyway. The point I am trying to make here is that a couple days ago I bought a secondhand ethnographic study of a central/southern Indian village around 1960, before modernity had made much impact on the traditional way of life. So I am using that and Wikipedia and extrapolating backward as best I can. So far, I have 500 words, and I know precisely the trouble Uriel's curse is going to cause this time around. The lovely thing is that it's a very culturally specific trouble; in a society with a different way of tracing heredity and defining incest, it would not be nearly so problematic.
...
I expect I will stall back out again when I'm done with this incarnation, though, as the fifth life is supposed to be in West Africa around 310 CE, and there I am even more at sea than I was with India.
However! I have preemptively bought a few general histories of Africa -- one on western Africa, one on central Africa, and one on southern Africa (the third is for a later incarnation) -- so hopefully I will be able to learn enough to be culturally respectful and not sound as if I am talking completely through my hat.
Then I stalled out, because I'd decided the fourth incarnation should be from central/southern India around 180 CE, and my knowledge of Indian history is, frankly, pathetic. I poked around Wikipedia a bit, and tried a couple times to get through a general introductory history of India, but I kept giving up after the first couple chapters before I got to anything specific and/or useful. I think, in retrospect, that I was reading the wrong book -- my general (and quite possibly inaccurate) impression of the scattered bits of translated French scholarship I've read is that French historians are into grand unified theories with extra helpings of psychology whereas I wanted something more fact-based and ethnographic.
Anyway. The point I am trying to make here is that a couple days ago I bought a secondhand ethnographic study of a central/southern Indian village around 1960, before modernity had made much impact on the traditional way of life. So I am using that and Wikipedia and extrapolating backward as best I can. So far, I have 500 words, and I know precisely the trouble Uriel's curse is going to cause this time around. The lovely thing is that it's a very culturally specific trouble; in a society with a different way of tracing heredity and defining incest, it would not be nearly so problematic.
...
I expect I will stall back out again when I'm done with this incarnation, though, as the fifth life is supposed to be in West Africa around 310 CE, and there I am even more at sea than I was with India.
However! I have preemptively bought a few general histories of Africa -- one on western Africa, one on central Africa, and one on southern Africa (the third is for a later incarnation) -- so hopefully I will be able to learn enough to be culturally respectful and not sound as if I am talking completely through my hat.
