Welcome to Malagentia
The Province of Malagentia is a local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism, a living history organization devoted to the study and recreation of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. We are a branch of the East Kingdom, located in Southern Maine.
Are you new to the SCA or just want to learn more about this non-profit organization? Click on the link below to contact our newcomer guide, or “Chatelaine!” They can answer your questions, or help you find answers!
Malagentia holds monthly (except August) business meetings on the first Thursday of the month. Meetings are currently being held online. Malagentia has two “ridings” (sort of like a state has counties): Ravensbridge, in the greater Augusta/Lewiston-Auburn area, and Giggleswick, in Southern York County.
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History
The name of our province is inspired by a 1524 trading encounter between indigenous Wabanaki people in what is now called southern Maine and Florentine seafarer, Giovanni da Verrazano.
The Wabanaki’s attitude toward the European explorers was markedly different than the indigenous people he had met in the south. Perhaps they had heard about the young boy that Verrazano had already kidnapped from his home to the south and his attempted abduction of a young woman at the same time. They may have learned of the kidnapping of roughly 50 indigenous tribe members from what is today the Bangor area by a Portuguese explorer, who then attempted to sell them as slaves in Europe but was stopped by Emperor Charles V of Spain.
Whatever the reason, the Wabanakis in what is today greater Portland actively decided to abandon social niceties and deny Europeans access to indigenous spaces that day, including “mooning” and taunting the shipboard explorers, and only trading with these newcomers cautiously, at a distance. As we look back through the history of colonization, this is one of the few documented initial encounters where the indigenous people secured and maintained the upper hand with colonizers.
Centuries later, when the SCA was created, it was under the early construct of essentially recreating a Victorian ideal of the Middle Ages. Our province founders were working under that construct; they discovered actual period writings and maps from explorers who, following the out of the ordinary welcome they received, referred to this part of the world as the “land of bad people.”
In this story, the founders of our province saw their own defiance of imposed cultural norms. Especially how people can be labeled “bad” when actually they are determined and independent.
According to our province’s historical records, our founders “consulted what maps and books were available to them, and took inspiration from the courage of those people who drove de Varrazano from their shores, and called our group Malagentia in their honor.” They embraced the spirit of the indigenous people who defied the colonizers and took the name “Malagentia,” reflecting the “land of the bad people,” and took as our heraldry the full moon.
Today, we like to think that we couple the strength that so inspired our founders with generosity and care of community, which indigenous community members also model so well – historically and currently.
If you’d like to learn more about the history of this area, Indigenous diplomacy, and colonial attitudes, here are some places to start:
- https://www.mainememory.net/sitebuilder/site/893/page/1304/display and explore the “Time Periods” tab.
- https://www.columbia.edu/~lmg21/ash3002y/earlyac99/documents/verrazan.htm a small portion of this account describes Verrazano’s experience in Maine.
Today, Maine is home to a thriving Wabanaki community that is working hard to preserve and advance its culture, people and heritage. If you are interested in learning about some important Wabanaki nonprofits’ work, you can visit:
Thank you, and welcome.
What is the SCA?
The Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc. (SCA) is a non-profit educational organization devoted to study of dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts, skills, and traditions pre-17th-century. Most of its activities take place in the context of a social structure adapted from the forms of the European Middle Ages, which allows participants to take a first-hand look at various aspects of the life, culture and technology of the times under study. It is part of the “living history” movement, which means that members try to reproduce various aspects of the culture and technology of their period, as well as doing more traditional historical research.
The SCA sponsors events such as tournaments, feasts, and university sessions where folks dress according to medieval and Renaissance styles, and participate in activities based on the civil and martial skills of the period. Events have a number of focal areas, including combat (heavy armor/weapons, fencing, combat archery), costuming, armoring, archery, thrown weapons (axes, spears and knives), calligraphy, dancing, music, cookery, and board and field games, plus a variety of technical and social skills which help establish the ambiance of life at a period court. Society events are open to the public, but, in keeping with the emphasis on living history rather than dramatic performance, all attendees are expected to make an attempt to preserve the atmosphere and fit in with the SCA’s standards of dress and behavior. We also regularly hold less formal and more locally accessible practices and get-togethers, working on areas including fencing, heavy combat, dancing, calligraphy and illumination, archery, thrown weapons and more.
Our activities range very widely, including a much broader span of time and culture than most groups in the “living history” movement try to sample. The people we’ve chosen for models were fond of play-acting and pageantry; they would happily base tournaments and revels on ancient history and distant lands, so we can use themes from outside medieval and Renaissance Europe. They also reached remote parts of the world, despite the limits of their technology, and people born to other civilizations traveled too, so we can allow for individuals and information from almost anywhere. The task is to weave all this together, so that the events we sponsor are recognizably our own.
There are tens of thousands of active SCA participants, who administrate local chapters of the SCA in all fifty states, plus dozens of countries abroad. There are over 30,000 paid members of the corporation, and the total number of participants is around 60,000 people.
THE SCA PROHIBITS HARASSMENT AND BULLYING OF ALL INDIVIDUALS AND GROUPS. Participants engaging in this behavior are subject to appropriate sanctions. If you are subjected to harassment, bullying or retaliation, or if you become aware of anyone being harassed or bullied, contact a seneschal, President of the SCA, or your Kingdom’s Board Ombudsman.