Despite a spate of announcements putting Rowling back in the Harry Potter universe – the author recently announced she was helping with the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, an “eighth Harry Potter story” that will continue Potter’s story when he is middle-aged, and the film Fantastic Beasts, which she wrote the screenplay for – History of Magic in North America is the first expansion of the canon and her first depiction of the magical community in North America.
– Native American Harry Potter fans are feeling hurt, betrayed, and angry over JK Rowling's newest entry to her magical universe. History of Magic in North America: Fourteenth Century-Seventeenth Century was published online this week and focuses on Native American wizards, the Guardian reports. According to Mashable, the short story describes how Native American wizards are experts in magic relating to plants and animals. They're also great with potions and can often turn into animals at will. Rowling discusses the Navajo belief in skin-walkers, people who take on the forms of animals, but replaces it with her own concept of "Animagi," saying skin-walkers were "derogatory rumors" started by non-magical people. The story has led to accusations of colonialism and cultural appropriation from Native American readers and others, BuzzFeed reports. "I'm broken hearted," one fan tweets. "JK Rowling, my beliefs are not fantasy." "Thanks to [Rowling], hordes of non-native adults and kids are going to completely misunderstand and assume they are experts on Native Americans," tweets another. Adrienne Keene writes on Native Appropriations that the story is exacerbating the problem of Native Americans often being seen in a fantasy or magical context. "But we’re not magical creatures, we’re contemporary peoples who are still here and still practice our spiritual traditions, traditions that are not akin to a completely imaginary wizarding world (as badass as that wizarding world is)," she says.