1692 and All That
By Publicola

Published 7-19-15

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to the Harry Potter books and films (but you knew that). Nor do I own the rights to my own title, as W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman were the ones to pen '1066 and All That' that I am most sincerely flattering above. I do own the world-building that is not Rowling's own, and I do own the Map of Magical Europe (linked from my profile) that inspired the story itself.

Note: This fic is a companion piece to 'Magical Me,' though neither one is necessary to understand or appreciate the other.

Tribes and Totemism: A Magical Prehistory

"Who can tell me how magic started?"

The sudden question broke over the quiet murmuring of the early morning class, as Professor Toke unceremoniously dumped his papers on the desk at the front of the room.

"To put it another way, what was the first field of magic? Was it transfiguration? Perhaps one of the dark arts? Anyone? Yes, Miss Turpin."

"...Charms?"

"Good guess, but not quite. Anyone else? Yes, Miss Bones."

"Herbology?"

"Very close; two points to Hufflepuff. It is vital for us to remember that the dominant concern for most people for most of human history has been one of how to get enough food to survive. It was this that led our ancestors to abandon their hunter-gather ways of life and build the first cities. Despite what most people think, early civilization did not make people healthier or happier – in fact, people in those first cities often lived shorter lives than their nomadic cousins. It was not that living in a city made their diets more nutritious; rather, farming made their food sources more reliable. Wheat and barley don't run away from you, after all."

Professor Toke paused to take a breath. "So you're right, in a way. Herbology undoubtedly developed at the dawn of civilization, making it one of the first branches of magic in existence. But there was one other that preceded it. Any ideas?"

Silence, then a shy hand was raised. "You… you mentioned hunter-gatherers. Was the first magic related to hunting?"

"Very good! Take five points for Ravenclaw, Miss Li. How many of you have seen the list of Hogwarts' elective classes? They only become available to you next year, so you aren't expected to – one, two, three, four, five – huh. Didn't expect everyone from Ravenclaw to know the list. Yes, Mr. Corner?"

"Err, Professor Flitwick sat down with us at the beginning of the year so we'd have time to think it over."

"Very good; thank you Mr. Corner. For those who don't know the list, one of the offered class is called 'Care of Magical Creatures.' Though not quite the same, it certainly does bear resemblance to the first branch of magic developed. These magics developed primarily to make the tribe more efficient at hunting the herds that ranged nearby. Soon however, they took on a different aspect. It was clear very early on that any tribe that could tame an animal would have an immense advantage – its food source could be kept nearby, and more of the animal could be brought back for the whole tribe's use. The danger was that many of the animals hunted were too dangerous to be kept near the women and children of the group. Thus it was by the genius of these early magicians that such animals could be made peaceful – usually by some totemic ritual, taking on an aspect of the herd's alpha. Tribes assisted by these earliest totemists would thus flourish, and so the practice spread."

"Skip forward several centuries later. By now, many types of animals are pastured near the various tribes, but those tamed herds are still merely a food source. It was still necessary to go on long-ranging hunts in order to capture more of them. But at last the great innovation came, when someone realized that some of these animals could be something more than food, that they might help in the day-to-day work of the tribe. I say someone, but in fact we have a pretty good idea of who this person was. We don't know how her name would sound in original Altaic, but for now we can use our own spelling and phonetics. Can everyone say with me, Aramate?"

The class echoed uncertainly.

"Very good. Aramate was a young girl, probably a student like any one of you, being taught in the art of magic by an older and more experienced shaman. She did, however, possess a rather unique talent."

With an abrupt twist Professor Toke turned his back on the class and raised his wand. A hazy glow settled at the front of the desk, out of which coalesced a monstrous shape.

"This, witches and wizards, is a chanko. It was the ancestor for most wolves found in Eurasia, though it most closely resembles the Tibetan woolly wolf. This was Aramate's talent: where other magicians struggled, she found it remarkably easy to forge the totemic links between it and herself. She was the one who proposed using these wolves to keep the other herds in line – imagine it, a little girl with such confidence in her control of this that she would suggest using them to guard their own natural prey. But she did, and it worked. Some time later Aramate proposed a second great innovation – if the wolves could be used to herd tamed animals, couldn't they also be used as part of the hunting party, to corral wild animals for capture."

The glowing wolf disappeared, and the students refocused on their professor, now intently gazing back at them.

"This was the first instance of domestication anywhere in the world. And so it was: the tribe prospered, the practice spread, and Aramate became the first person in history whose name we know. Her fame spread first in oral tradition, as the greatest of the totemists, then in written tradition as the oldest and most storied of the gods. She became the Hindu goddess Sarama, mother of all dogs and domesticable beasts. She became Artemis, virgin goddess of the hunt. She became, quite simply, the first legend."

A pregnant pause followed.

"We skip ahead several thousands of year – and not a few, more like a couple dozen. By now dogs are thoroughly domesticated, and various tribes in various regions have tried their hand at doing the same for other animals – most successfully in East Asia with the pig and the Middle East with the sheep. Still, neither of these animals were game-changing, so society remained firmly rooted in the hunter-gatherer tradition. Can anyone guess what changed that? Yes?"

"Was it the horse?"

"Very close, Mr. Hopkins. Take four points for Hufflepuff, you were on the right track. It was the addition of a domesticated draft animal, but the horse still had several thousand years to go. No, it was the cow that sparked this great tidal shift, called the Neolithic or Agricultural Revolution. We're not sure which came first, but in quick succession two kinds of cattle were domesticated – one in the Middle East, near the headwaters of the Euphrates, the other further east, near the delta of the Indus river valley."

With an absent wave of his wand, a map of the region appeared in midair, with the two regions briefly glowing to point out their location before the whole set-up popped out of existence.

"No longer would tribes be forced to migrate every year, to forage for new sources of food. The introduction of a draft animal made it possible to plow, to plant, to irrigate – in other words, to do all the things that made farms and thus cities a real possibility. It still wasn't easy, and the barrage of new challenges left many tribes and their totemists behind in the ash-heap of history. The greatest magicians set their minds to the task, and it was their efforts that led, as Miss Bones pointed out at the beginning, to the modern-day field of Herbology. They were not, however, working without precedent. Eyes front!"

As before, Professor Toke turned and waved his wand. The hazy glow settled as before, but this time –

"Augh!" "What?" A chorus of shocked voices and incredulous giggles broke out.

"Pff, don't be so easily offended. Children…" he said with a dismissive sound. "Now pay attention. This is the Venus of Dolní Věstonice, and it is the first surviving ceramic figure produced by human hands. It dates back as far as 29,000 BC, but it is only one of hundreds of such prehistoric 'Venus figurines' that survived to present day. More incredibly, the magic in them still works. These statuettes were designed and produced by almost all prehistoric tribes, for totemic use during childbirth. Note carefully the exaggerated thighs, hips and breasts. Can anyone tell me why these characteristics are important? Yes, Mr. Boot."

"Guh… uh… I…"

"All right, we'll try again later. Yes, Miss Jones."

"Uh… If these were used to help with childbirth, then… how? They didn't have wands, right?"

"Go on," Toke nodded encouragingly.

"Okay, so if they didn't have wands, then they must have used this like a wand, to channel magic. But you said it was ceramic – which is like clay, I think? – and that doesn't channel magic very well, so it must not work a wand, even if it does help magic along. The only thing I can think of… I think it was the book we use for Charms that mentioned... something called 'magical harmonics'? Is that right?"

"Very good, Miss Jones! Ten points for Hufflepuff; excellent work. The standard term for it is 'the sympathetic property,' but 'magical harmonics' is also acceptable usage. Put simply, when two objects are sufficiently similar and a connection is established, then magic that is applied to one will also apply to the other. So the over-exaggerated features of the Venus figurine, which might make it seem obscene to our modern eyes, was intended to ensure that it would more closely resemble a heavily pregnant woman of that tribe shortly before she was to give birth. It was the development and totemic use of these statuettes that led to a population boom among Eurasian hunter-gatherers, an explosion in the use of stone and flint tools, and the dawn of the Upper Paleolithic Age. It was, in short, a rather big deal."

Professor Toke took another breath. "These statuettes also served another purpose: establishing the first and most fundamental principle of magic usage, that like produces like and magical effects resemble their causes. With this principle in mind, the first herbologists of the new agricultural age found quick success in their efforts to boost crop production. This led to the sure success of early farming communities and the rapid spread of that way of life. Communities sprang up along all the major river valleys – the Nile in Egypt, the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia, the Indus and Ganges in India, and the Yellow and Yangtze in China."

He waved his wand as he spoke, and a similar map as the first appeared out of a haze, each region again glowing in time with his words.

"Of course, with this new reliable and abundant source of food, it was inevitable that human population began to grow at an unprecedented rate. Even more astoundingly, a significant portion of these new generations did not have to spend every moment of their lives in constant pursuit of new sources of food. This introduced, not incidentally, the very concept of leisure to the human race. Of course, because we humans are rather easily bored, we started using this leisure time to develop a slew of new activities. Some people started specializing in various crafts – metal-working, cloth-making, that sort of thing. Other people focused their energy on transportation and trade – now that tribes were settled in known locations, it was possible to travel and exchange goods with more regularity. And finally, especially with these new trade connections, it was soon found necessary to develop the greatest innovation of all. This was the advent of writing."

With an almost disgruntled look, Professor Toke paused. "I should clarify that there is a great deal of controversy about precisely when writing was 'invented'." His scare-quotes around the word were audible. "While it is clear that writing in its modern sense appeared only after the rise of agriculture, we do know of multiple nomadic societies that made use of symbolic scripts, what historians sometimes call 'proto-writing.' The difference is… well, it's kind of like the difference between writing single-words labels on a filing cabinet and writing entire pages of words to store within those cabinets. What makes the matter even more confusing is that we know some – but not all – of these scripts were developed by totemists, as they do appear to have distinct if crude magical function, almost always relying on the sympathetic property. This has led certain luminaries in the field of Ancient Runes to claim that theirs is the oldest field of magic. This is widely disputed in professional circles, especially by those outside that field, but it must at least be mentioned."

The professor took a moment, his relief at moving on apparent to all. "All this is well and good, but by now you should have figured out that something is rather amiss with this history. In fact, I have skipped a topic that could have easily comprised the full lecture."

At this, several Ravenclaw students sat notably straighter in their chairs, and the few fading Hufflepuffs lost their slouches.

"Any ideas? Anyone? … yes, Miss Brocklehurst."

"Err, did it have to do with fishing an' stuff? Water is lots a' places, and you said the first farmers were 'long rivers and valleys, right?"

"Indeed, Miss Brocklehurst, I did not mention fishing, though that is usually treated as part of nomadic hunting activity. Nice catch, though. Anyone else? Yes, Mr. Smith."

"Was it about stealing?"

"Correct. As long as there have been humans living around other humans, we have had to deal with the problem of crime. Why bother hunting and gather for yourself after all when your neighbor is returning from a hunt with plenty of food and barely any energy to defend their claim to it? But it's bigger than just a simple matter of theft. Five points to Hufflepuff, by the way. If between now and the end of class, I were to steal one of your quills, Mr. Goldstein, you might be annoyed, but I very much doubt you'd die of it. But when your tribe is already on the brink of survival, when everything you do is focused on finding and keeping enough food to keep you and your loved ones alive, then theft of any of that becomes itself a matter of life and death. Why should a tribe bother hunting and gathering, when its neighbors could easily show up while they're away and take it all away?"

"More importantly from a magical point of view, in many cases when these raids happened, their target was not primarily the others' food supply. Given, as we've seen, the importance of the early totemists in ensuring a tribe survives and grows, it shouldn't survive us that in many cases those early magicians were themselves the primary target of many raiders. If you could steal food, you might eat for a week; but steal a magician, and you would eat for years. More often than not, it was precisely these raids that led to the spread of magical innovations like the early Venus figurines or the domestication of dogs. For their part, the totemists were often helpless before these raiders – much like the king in a game of chess, their skills made them valuable beyond all compare, but earning those skills took time, time they could not dedicate to hardening themselves for war."

A wry grin appeared on the Professor's face. "As before, there are certain professors in the field of Charms – Mr. Flitwick is not one of them, you need not worry – who insist that it was during this phase of human history that the first cantrips came to be used. While this is certainly possible, it seems highly unlikely. We will cover this to a greater extent in the next class, but especially in this period of history a single cantrip could easily take a magician's entire life to develop for use, a lifetime that they could not spend helping the rest of the tribe survive. Unless a single tribe could enjoy such a prolonged period of peace and prosperity, while also enjoying the presence of not one or two but many individual magicians that one could be spared for decades on an otherwise fruitless task – without that, it's hard to imagine a cantrip being developed before the rise of agriculture."

"After agriculture," Professor Toke smiled again. "After farming is an entirely different story. More food meant more people, more people meant more magicians, and the rise of specialization and leisure meant that those magicians could focus on other magics, could spend their lives in other fields. It was, in other words, quite inevitable that war-minded magic would come into being. Yet even here, Charms was not the first field to arise. No, that honor was kept for the discipline of the Dark Arts – or rather, because light magic spells arrived at the same time, we should more properly call it the discipline of the Emotive Arts."

"For that is the different between a cantrip and a curse or cure. The field of Charms is defined by the question of Intent – to make a cantrip work, you must forge a sure and certain link between your own internal intention and the effect you wish to create. A dark or light spell, on the other hand, is defined by a matter of Desire – your magic is shaped, not by mental effort and force of will, but by the strength of your emotion leading you to act. Thus, it is possible to learn the name and incantation of an unknown dark spell, use it for the first time in a moment of high emotion, and the magic will express itself perfectly on that occasion. This could not happen with a normal charm. It is for this reason that curses are often seen as more powerful or versatile than the corresponding charm. This is false, but that is a subject for another day – I would encourage you to ask Professor Lockhart if you're still curious."

"With the proliferation of such spells and counter-spells, curses and cures in ever-increasing number, it could be easily predicted that the magicians – those former totemists and herbologists – would find themselves on the front lines of battle, would be pitted one against another in combat, would define by their success or failure the fate of the entire raiding party and the city behind them. From war it was only a short step to politics, and in politics the entire complexion of magic changed."

"But that… is a subject for another class period."

Professor Toke was pleased to hear a few scattered "aww"s and "darn"s as the students realized that their class time was up.

"By now most of you should have a copy of your new textbook, but for those who do not, I have copied the assignment and relevant chapter for you to pick up from the front. Enjoy the weekend!"

A/N: Thanks for reading, and please review – I look forward to your feedback. I didn't anticipate taking an entire chapter to deal with human prehistory through the rise of farming, but as I did the research I kept finding more and more bits I wanted to include, and pretty soon I had to hold off my long-awaited next chapter (on the true history of ancient and classic magic) for another day. It turns out it's actually kinda fun to twist real history into a magical mold. Lots of real facts here, scattered between bits of fantasy nonsense; it's a pattern I plan to continue for the rest of the story.

This fic was inspired by the 'Map of Magical Europe' that I created to illustrate some of the world-building I'd done for my self-insert fic 'Magical Me'. There's a link to that map on my profile, or you can simply type the following in to your browser's address bar: imgur . com / a / r9XnQ. More content, including explanations of the various names and features on the map, can be found on my Discussion Forum, also linked from my profile.

As I mentioned in the last chapter, I can't exactly promise to be a reliable in updating regularly. That's even more true given the year and a half that's elapsed since my last update on either of my main fics. I may be MIA, but I wanted to make it clear that my stories are not abandoned (darn it). Think of it more as an unanticipated indefinite hiatus. Sure. That works.