So, in an old WIP that I've recently taken up again, my MC wakes up in the middle of the forest being cared for by a "feral" woman. She speaks a different language from him. He's been able to communicate to her his needs through hand signals and symbols, and pointing like "food" "clothes" "hunt" "water" etc. In this one particular scene, he observes her kill her hunt and then give thanks for her kill. She spills a little of the kill's blood into the soil, then mixes it with fresh dirt. He basically asks her why she does this and I want her to explain to him her belief. She is giving thanks to nature for this kill that is going to nourish them by offering the first "taste" of the kill back to nature in hopes that she will be blessed once again with another kill in the future. belief is a tough concept as it is. its not tangible and there isn't really a universal sign for "belief." (these are fictional cultures, in a fictional place, in a time period based on the the iron age)
Who is the narrator? How are you conveying the story itself? Unless the MC comes from some religion-absent culture, I would think it would be obvious to the MC and the reader what the woman was doing. You can just have the MC 'get it' and say so. MC with some kind of gestures, "Is that how you give thanks for the food?"
Story is 3rd person but focused on the MC. The MC comes from a polytheistic culture. He's not a fan of superstition, though (one of his subordinates from before he was lost in the woods talked about spirits in the forest that lured men into the mist and killed them and my MC relieved him of his position saying he didn't believe in that superstitious bullshit). I ended up writing that he may not have understood exactly what she was doing, but he recognized the pattern of ritual. I left it at that for now.... but i dont want to just have him assume things or just suddenly know things, you know?
That sounds recognizable enough as a ritual that it feels like a fair assumption. I think if you wanted to write it like he had knowledge of how some of the superstitions worked, you might even be able to write him putting some pieces together and coming up with a guess for why. If they're not able to communicate beyond some very basic concepts though, I do doubt if she'd be able to explain her belief to him.
If they are communicating without words, and assuming she can figure out what he wants to know without words, she could: pat the ground give him the sign for food or eating then pat the ground again In other words, she is 'feeding' the ground/earth.
I don’t know that it needs explaining. When something of value is disposed of in a ceremonial sort of way, the most logical assumption is that it’s religious, and probably a gift or offering to a religious entity. She could be more overtly ceremonial—stylized gestures, a song, a chant, an outcry, raising her arms to the sun or moon, kissing an amulet.....
From your initial description "She spills a little of the kill's blood into the soil, then mixes it with fresh dirt." I immediately associated that with a ceremonial action and hence belief. To me, that phrasing is powerful enough to imply belief to him. Should he choose to give it the weight it deserves is another question I find it intriguing that your MC is polytheistic but might regard another possible belief as superstition. Might there be a nature deity in his pantheon? And a realisation that his superstition is founded on a lack of realisation that not all worship is the same? She, on the other hand, may well be defensive if questioned...after all, belief is a very strong thing. Is the intersection of beliefs core to the story? Apologies - I seem to have gone off on a ramble, but this snippet of story has really caught my imagination. I hope we may read it all one day....
Your description reminds me of a scene in Moby Dick that never seems to make it into the movie versions. In short, I think that as long as your character is familiar with religion, especially coming from a polytheistic society where the different god(esse)s might have different rituals, he'd understand the general idea of what was happening, even if the specifics were lost on him. Going to quote Melville at length here. Moby Dick is in public domain, so there are no copyright concerns, but I copy/pasted from here. The narrator is lying in bed in a room at an inn he's been told he'll be sharing with a harpooneer, but his roommate is unaware that he's there, and they've not met yet. Queequeg, the harpooneer, is a heavily tattooed Pacific Islander. Also, I'm going to spoiler-wrap this for language. Melville was no bigot, but some of the language he uses may be offensive to modern readers, so proceed at your own risk. Spoiler: Queequeg and his idol Yojo But there was no time for shuddering, for now the savage went about something that completely fascinated my attention, and convinced me that he must indeed be a heathen. Going to his heavy grego, or wrapall, or dreadnaught, which he had previously hung on a chair, he fumbled in the pockets, and produced at length a curious little deformed image with a hunch on its back, and exactly the colour of a three-days-old Congo baby. Remembering the embalmed head, at first I almost thought that this black manikin was a real baby pre- served in some similar manner. But seeing that it was not at all limber, and that it glistened a good deal like polished ebony, I concluded that it must be nothing but a wooden idol, which indeed it proved to be. For now the savage goes up to the empty fire-place, and removing the papered fire -board, sets up this little hunchbacked image, like a ten-pin, between the andirons. The chimney jambs and all the bricks inside were very sooty, so that I thought this fire-place made a very appropriate little shrine or chapel for his Congo idol. I now screwed my eyes hard toward the half-hidden image, feeling but ill at ease meantime to see what was next to follow. First he takes about a double handful of shavings out of his grego pocket, and places them carefully before the idol ; then laying a bit of ship -biscuit on top and applying the flame from the lamp, he kindled <the shavings into a sacrificial blaze. Presently, after many hasty snatches into the fire, and still hastier with- drawals of his fingers (whereby he seemed to be scorching them badly), he at last succeeded in drawing out the biscuit ; then blowing off the heat and ashes a little, he made a polite offer of it to the little negro. But the little devil did not seem to fancy such dry sort of fare at all ; he never moved his lips. All these strange antics were accompanied by still stranger guttural noises from the devotee, who seemed to be praying in a sing-song or else singing some pagan psalmody or other, during which his face twitched about in the most unnatural manner. At last, extinguishing the fire, he took the idol up very unceremoniously, and bagged it again in his grego pocket as carelessly as if he were a sportsman bagging a dead woodcock. edit: forgot to include the link to my source.
My MC and his household believe in one thing, but that is not always the case with the townsfolk. The townsfolk believe the forest and the marshes are haunted because it is unknown, and people go missing. The townsfolk do things like leaving offerings at the edge of the forest in exchange for safe travels through it and stuff like that. My MC, who has grown up in the forest and lives in the marshes thinks its stupid and gets annoyed when people say that and regards it as silly superstition. The woman is not from the region all together, and he originally thought her feral, but the more time he spends with her, he realizes she has her own ways (hunting, medicines, rituals, language, etc.) that are (in his mind) exclusive to her as he has not met anyone else like her before in his life.
As a reader, I am happy that I get it and I don't feel the MC has to understand it completely right away. I would feel better if he discovered it as an epiphany and completed the ritual with his kill.
Maybe you could make it a recurring scene then that moment when she sees the curiosity in his eyes, maybe she wonders why he's not doing the same? Why's he looking at me like that? Is he touched in the head or something? Then she does the ritual again while looking at him, eye contact, like a mother teaching her young. She repeats it until he understands, then she rewards him with a patronizing smile or something else that can pull out an emotion from either that the other one has not seen yet and in turn he or she reacts. They come to an understanding of sorts, and then their bond deepens. A 1 heart event!
to all those who responded (thank you!), I'm thinking about changing my MC's religion by giving him a real-world religion and not a made up-polytheistic religion so that it makes his meeting the feral woman and her customs seem more strange (it also makes his thinking the villagers are irrational for their superstitions, make more sense) As someone who is not affiliated with any church/religion, I want to make him Christian because of colonial history of Christians converting "primitive" cultures. My new question is... in this fictional setting in a period reminiscent middle ages (changed from Iron Age), would it make sense to have a real-world religion, Or should I make up a religion that is based off of Christianity?
Not 100% sure, but I imagine a middle-ages character would be relatively ignorant of his/her religion. The masses were still in Latin, as was the Bible, so I think most of the populace (even the upper classes, anyone not a priest) would probably only know to show up on Sunday morning and titithe.
when i think of the middle ages, I think of the Crusades, "Madonna and Child" paintings, and gold crucifixes (among other things). Faith was romanticized in writing and i art. Is it worth looking deeper into the religion of that period to add to my fantasy story? or should I keep it "fantasy" and nix the Christianity aspect?
I think the Christianity aspect is risky in terms of offending readers (and I realize you may or may not care about that) and in terms of just plain accuracy. I wouldn't be offended by a book that seemed to dislike Christianity, but I would be annoyed by one that failed to research it. Now, that's assuming that you need to go into some detail. That may not be true. Reading through, I have another issue--it sounds like you plan to have your kinda-Christian character have some contempt for the other characters for being "superstitious"--which is fine--but it sounds like you, too, are assuming that he would have more modern, superstition-free beliefs. And that isn't making much sense to me. I think that plenty of Christians did (do?) believe in ghosts, demons, and the like. Edited to add: For example, you could Google "testimony salem witch trials"
I was thinking in terms of this guy (the MC) who is so rigid in his beliefs and looks down on the villagers for theirs.... but then meets this feral woman and becomes more accepting of other ways of thinking. The character's cousin is kind of a "kill the non-believers" and "collect strange/otherworldly creatures" type of person, and the MC's newfound appreciation of this woman and her beliefs is what makes him hide her from his cousin. I want the MC's internal conflict to be about his beliefs and what is truly good/evil. He also thinks the world he woke up in after the woman saved him to be Eden because of its otherworldly perfectness, which is strange to him because "how could a heathen be in Eden." I'm thinking, what if I dont name the religion..... but then, since I've included Eden, i've basically called it out....hmmmmm
I think that you'd be better off using your own religion if religion is going to be a major theme simply because of the chance of errors. I have an alpha who is well-versed in Christianity who has told me that there are so many flaws in my theology that she can't really help me. However, since those flaws are the central conceit of my story, I've had to decide that she's just not my target market.
Part of my issue, though, is that his beliefs seem to be a quite modern version of Christianity--at least from the admittedly small bits you've provided here. And I think you're not going modern?
