Hello. I'm writing a short story about the brazilian wizarding school from Harry Potter, and I'm researching the inhabitants and cultures of its time of foundation.
The school is believed to have been founded in the 9th century, and is historically known to accept students from all of South America, being culturally diverse, so I was thinking of describing its foundation as some sort of agreement between the magical communities of the continent that existed around that time.
What kinds of notorious societies existed around this time in south america? To the biggest, most structured to nomad groups. I have a very basic understanding of mesoamerican history, since I'm brazilian, but I'd like to be pointed out to some interesting reads on the matter, please. Articles, books, papers. Anything to get me long enough of a list of peoples to start researching.
As it's fiction, and the very nature of the franchise is to always have a hidden truth to what non-magical history says, some flexibility is allowed. I just wanted to have a solid historic base to avoid any gross mistakes and to get some interesting ideas from it as well.
Thanks in advance.
Hi there - we're happy to approve your question related to your novel, and we are happy for people to answer. However, we should warn you that many flairs have become reluctant to answer questions for aspiring novelists, based on past experience: some aspiring novelists have a tendency to try to pump historians for trivia while ignoring the bigger points they were making, while others have a tendency to argue with historians when the historical reality does not line up with what's needed for a particular scene or characterization. Please respect the answers of people who have generously given you their time, even if it's not always what you want to hear.
Additionally, as amazing as our flair panel is, we should also point out that /r/AskHistorians is not a professional historical consultation service. If you're asking a question here because you need vital research for a future commercial product such as a historical novel, you may be better off engaging a historical consultant at a fair hourly rate to answer these questions for you. We don't know what the going rate for consultancy work would be in your locality, but it may be worth looking into that if you have in-depth or highly plot-reliant questions for this project. Some /r/AskHistorians flairs could be receptive to working as a consultant in this way. However, if you wish for a flair here to do this work for you, you will need to organize this with them yourselves.