#mink falls into more than a few racist tropes which again. gotta save for another post

[kokushibitch]

my dmmd au where mink is actually a brown guy instead of being vaguely yellow and grey. left edit is just a skintone edit while the right contains more natural looking feathers. i also gave him a stronger face

i spent a while trying to pinpoint his nation. unfortunately his design contradicted itself a bit and the slapping of random feathers and dreamcatchers everywhere pisses me awf. i wish that the artists had chosen to stick with one specific nation, and the closer i looked it actually wasn't as bad as i initially thought, but there were still some pretty egregious errors made with his design that could be avoided with CURSORY research, and for a company like n+c, big as they are with the resources to do better research, is unacceptable. to be quite honest, i almost hesitate to even make this post because i really don't want people to run with the information ill be discussing. while i am a native dude that enjoys DMMD, i know so many others that dislike mink, his design, and story because he falls into quite a few racist tropes. also, just because i can kind of glean some information about mink's culture based on his character design/home design, does not mean that it's a 100% accurate portrayal of said culture.

TL;DR: i used to think he was supposed to be ojibwe, but upon further inspection i headcanon mink as navajo/dine and afronative, my reasoning below the cut. im gonna make a later post discussing the nuances of his route and the meta racism in DMMD cause its been a loooooooong time since ive played his route. while im not navajo myself (im tsalagi) i at least have the life experience to tell the goddamn difference between nations lol. i also love the inclusion of a rainbow in his design as a fellow indigenous rainbow enjoyer

note: dine and navajo are the same thing, but im gonna use navajo because thats what more people are familiar with.

the easiest way to start would be with his most obviously unique feature, his locced hair. loccing among NA nations wasn't super common, but it did happen due to the culture & rituals around hair (no cutting unless under specific circumstances, braids/plaits end up "locced" from saltwater, etc etc). to me, however, his locced hair didn't feel like a purposeful design choice. meaning, i dont think the artist chose the locced hair because they wanted to convey something traditional about mink's culture, i think they chose it just because it looks cool, or because mink kind of just falls into the "vaguely brown" category. i'd also be okay with interpreting him as black/native, which i think im gonna do because i know that there are (or was, dead fandom) plenty of black dmmd fans that identify with him

his second most unique cultural indicator is his dreamcatcher. unfortunately, dreamcatchers have kind fallen into that "vague native design" bullshit, but they do have a tribal origin: aanishinabe. again though, due to the sheer abundance of people slapping dreamcatchers onto vaguely native characters, i cant say that this is a strong enough point for me to say definitively that he's aanishinabe. also, you dont fuckin wear dreamcatchers. end of, they're not supposed to be on your body.

THEN there are even more important indicators to me that denote exactly which nation he's from.

just judging base on the patterns used on his traditional tapestries, blankets, and runners, would denote some sort of southwestern nation. now they're not accurate designs necessarily, but i can understand and see clearly where they took inspiration from.

the peace pipe on the wall in both his home and his hideout immediately indicate navajo, a southwestern nation. the fact that he has a strong religious orientation to smoking herbs (im assuming in place of tobacco) is also very navajo to me. the pottery in his home & hideout are also very strongly southwestern, as pottery was a very common art in the southwest. the fact that he has an altar at all is unique because altars are actually not common practice and are usually only found in the southwest, which is actually a good detail point whether it was intentional or not. ignore the dreamcatchers which were, again, thrown in randomly

and of course his homeland contains mountains and more importantly, cliffs and canyons which is another southwest feature. there's also his fuckass cowboy boots which are VERY southwestern

IGNORING the dreamcatcher in his hair AGAIN, he's also flexin beaded jewelry. to me, these are just like regular beads, but you could interpret them as turquoise if you wanted. traditional turquoise jewelry is usually inlayed onto silver bands or pieces as well as strung together like so. his white belt also contains a very southwestern design.

as much as some elements of his design annoy the fuck out of me, i love, love, love, love the inclusion of the rainbow in mink's character design. the rainbow is so important to so many different nations, and mink being a religious person, it actually makes a lot of sense for him to have this sort of draw to rainbows or rainbow colored items. specifically in navajo culture, rainbows are used as Bridges between The Navajo and The Holy People, basically communicating with a higher power. a rainbow is also a symbol of the 7 sacred rituals in navajo culture, one color per ritual. here's a youtube video about it, learn something

i do have some thoughts on mink de-loccing his hair in his good ending, but i think i will have to save that for another post further down the line

anways, ive made my case. mink is navajo