It's been a great year to be a nerd!! With Marvel's "Civil War" and DC's "Batman v Superman" there has been plenty of content for us nerds to consume and recently Author J.K. Rowling has released information about the American Wizarding School Ilvermorny on Pottermore: you can check it out here.
Just like with Hogwarts, there are four houses, but, unlike Hogwarts, these houses are not named after the founders of Hogwarts, the house names are from magical creatures from North America. These creatures are the Thunderbird, the Wampus, the Horned Serpent and the Pukwudgie.
The Thunderbird is a creature that can create thunderstorms as it flies; the Wampus is a panther that is extremely fast, very strong, and nearly impossible to kill; the Horned Serpent is a giant magical snake with a jewel in its forehead; and, lastly, a Pukwudgie is similar to a goblin: grey faced with big ears and not too fond of humankind whether magical or not.
Each of these four houses represent different things just like at Hogwarts, but what they represented is just a tad bit different. The Thunderbird house represents the soul of the witch or wizard and generally favors adventurers. The Wampus house represents the body of the witch or wizard and favors warriors. The Horned Serpent house represents the mind of the witch or wizard and favors scholars. Lastly the Pukwudgie house represents the heart of the witch or wizard and favors healers.
Now, most of us know that, at Hogwarts, to get sorted into your house you put on the sorting hat, and the hat tells you which house you belong in. It's quite a bit different at Ilvermorny. At Ilvermorny, the Great Hall is set up differently with it being completely open with a balcony up above for the students to watch the sorting. The students walk into the hall that has statues representing the four houses: the Thunderbird, the Wampus, the Horned Serpent, and the Pukwudgie. The students then stand on the Gordian Knot in the middle of the hall then the statue that corresponds to the house that the student belongs to will react to let the student know that they belong to that house. Unlike Hogwarts, some students can belong to more than one house in which case the individual student will be able to choose which house that they would like to be in, just like what Harry did in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone." These instances have been very few and far between, but they have occurred on occasion.
There is also an Ilvermorny sorting quiz on Pottermore where if you would like you are able to find out if you belong to Tunderbird, Wampus, Horned Serpent, or Pukwudgie.
