By Renata Leśniakiewicz-Drzymała (Jagiellonian University)
During her mission to defeat the Order of the Ancients in AC Valhalla, the main character Eivor finds herself in Vinland, a Viking colony in North America. The players taking on her role must not only start from scratch, without their previous equipment, but also find their way in quite new surroundings. The natural environment that Eivor experiences is different from what she has known from her travels in Northern and Western Europe: unknown landscapes, previously unseen animals and birds (such as moose or turkey). But even more interesting is the cultural environment: meeting the indigenous inhabitants of these lands. Eivor has the opportunity to see the architecture that astonishes her and wear Indian clothing (fig. 1) or even use an Iroquois canoe (fig. 2).
Figures. 1 and 2
However, the most interesting aspect of the stay in Vinland is the language. Eivor (and the player) constantly listens to dialogues that are not translated into English, and can only read the intentions of the interlocutors from such subtle signals as intonation or body language (fig. 3). Local names and item descriptions also remain untranslated. This creates a very intense sense of immersion and experiencing the emotions of a person who feels like a “stranger in a strange land”. The culminating point of the encounter with the Native American culture is an evening by the campfire, during which Eivor listens to a long story without understanding a word of it (fig. 4) and is asked to tell her own. Despite the complete lack of communication on the linguistic level, a clear bond is created between the characters based on cultivating the tradition of oral transmission of important stories and sharing the emotions associated with them.
Figures 3 and 4.
Characteristically, in the game we never have the chance to learn not only what the indigenous people we meet are trying to tell us, but even what specific Native American culture we are dealing with, apart from the fact that it is an Iroquois tribe. It was only the efforts of the Access the Animus fan community, with the help of the Montreal’s Kanien’kehá:ka Onkwawén:na Raotitióhkwa Language and Cultural Center, that revealed that the language present in AC Valhalla is Mohawk and led to the translation of all the dialogue in the game. From a video posted by Access the Animus on YouTube, we can learn that the story around the campfire is a Mohawk creation myth, showing interesting connections to one of the previous installments of the Assassin’s Creed series, as well as to its internal mythology of the Isu, the First Civilization. Thus, the game creators’ use of the Kanien’kehá:ka language not only provides a unique experience of immersion in the world of Vinland and of contact with a non-anglophone or non-European culture but also serves as a way to hide additional secrets for inquisitive fans of the series.
Bibliography:
https://www.eurogamer.net/assassins-creed-fans-translate-all-of-valhallas-vinland-dialogue
https://www.pcgamer.com/fans-translate-assassins-creed-valhallas-mohawk-language-sequences
Both having not played and not being a Native American culture specialist, a question I’m really interested in for this: did the designers draw heavily on archaeological records dating back this far – and indeed how much C8-10 archaeology is there for these peoples? Or are we seeing more of a post-colonisation Mohawk culture being translated back into the medieval? I think there are some interesting and complex questions regarding the handling of premodern indigenous cultures often being made exceedingly “timeless” in various media for a variety of reasons.
I am not a Native American culture specialist either, so it’s hard for me to say. However, as a specialist in Old Norse studies, I can say that the creators of the game, when creating the world of the Vikings, both approached the archaeological material and were influenced by contemporary ideas about the ancient Scandinavians (e.g., by taking inspiration from the hairstyles from the “Vikings” tv series, or dressing women not entirely in accordance with the actual women’s clothing of the time). I think it may be similar with the Mohawk culture in the game. Especially since there is a certain freedom in the approach to the source material in AC Valhalla – according to the sagas, the Vikings tried to colonize the areas of present-day Newfoundland, which, as far as I know, were not Mohawk teritories.
Thank you for your paper, Renata. Languages are one of those accommodations in accuracy that we accept in favor of accessibility, I believe few of us have the linguistic ability to be able to play a game in the language of the period it represents. I find this decision of keeping the language barrier intriguing, though. How did it impact your gaming experience and your interaction with this historical period? Did it provide you with any insights about how people in the past could communicate with one another without using modern tools like translators? And finally, what do you think this can tell us about the power of simulations to approach lost worlds from the past?
As a language enthusiast, I certainly appreciate all the manifestations of using languages of the Viking Age, of which there are many examples in AC Valhalla (Old Norse, Old English, Welsh – conversations in the background, also untranslated). Nevertheless, I admit that the inability to understand the Mohawk language was frustrating, especially since one could assume that an important story was being told around the campfire. On the other hand, it is certainly a device that allows you to experience the game world more deeply on other levels – as you write, focusing, for example, on the problems that people of that time had in communicating with “outsiders”. Not understanding the language, we feel lost, and at the same time we activate other skills – we focus more on intonation, facial expressions, body language, we try to catch any words that sound even a little bit similar to what we know. In this respect, the game’s creators managed to convey the experiences of real life very well, and I think it was an extremely enriching experience in the game. Although frustrating at the same time. However, this frustration also allows for greater immersion in the world of the past, to feel like a man/woman in the times when there were blank spots on maps and there were no “Google Translate” option :-D.