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[Shechinah]

That's from the Dalish Origin, right? Where you spared the humans you and Tamlen found, then in thanks for your mercy they rallied a mob to chase your people away with torches and pitchforks? 

 

Yep. While I don't blame the humans for being sore with Mahariel and Tamlen for holding them at arrow-point, they don't exactly incentivize the Dalish to show mercy to the next batch of humans who wander too close to their camp. Tamlen even tells them to their face that he wants to kill them so they can't go home and tell their villagers where they are ("leave no witnesses" and all that), but Mahariel can convince him to let them go since they haven't done anything wrong... then they thank Mahariel's mercy and vindicate Tamlen's fears by immediately raising a mob to violently chase your people out. So much for being nice to humans. It clearly works out in the Dalish's favor. [/sarcasm]

 

In regards to this incident and if my memory of the event is correct, I feel the villagers are not to blame for their mistaken impression of the Sabrae clan nor are the three humans because, as you say, the humans were held at arrow point for being in the woods and Tamlen's words to them did nothing to counter that. It is not so much the matter of being sore, in my opinion, as much as it is the matter of being terrified for one's life.

 

Imaging if you were exploring a forest near a town and two armed people held you at gun point and accused you of stumbling too close to where they lived. They interrogate you about why you were exploring and then one considers killing you lest you tell where they live. One persuades the other to let you go and you run. Your impression of these people are going to be rather marred by the fact that one seriously considered killing you for something you might do. If it was me, I'd personally be telling people to stay away from the forest and I'd be telling them the reason.   

 

From the perspective of the three humans; As far they knew they were exploring the woods near a village and stumbled upon something where upon a cave wherein they ran across something terrifying and tried to escape it only to run into two elves who holds them at arrow point while and after interrogating them. The two elves then discuss killing them for something they might do.  

 

Furthermore, they were afraid and when you are afraid you tend to not think or even remember a situation properly and even if they had, they had no idea which of the two elves were the exception:The elf arguing the other were too soft in their view of humans or the elf that considered the other to judge humans too harshly.  

 

While their belief that Sabrae clan as a whole were aggressively hostile towards humans was mistaken, they were justified from their perspective, in my opinion, in believing that they were.

 

Additionally, most humans do not have direct contact with Dalish and so rely on stories from others to learn about them which likely tends to lean towards hostile bandits. Tamlen did nothing to help that impression because with the exception of thievery, he acted every bit the part of a hostile savage who'd think nothing of killing humans.

 

While it may be that fear of the Dalish would still have incited the village to rise up as a mob, there still remains the possibility that had Tamlen not acted as he accused humans of acting towards elves then it might never have come to the threat of violence. Tamlen's own acts realised his own fears.  
 

[Gervaise]

I'd like to make the point concerning Dalish alleged racism, that in the history of Arlathan Part 1 it specifically says that the first thing they noticed from their contact with humans was that they were susceptible to human diseases and for the first time in their history they started to die from natural causes.   Then they noticed that elves were dying of old age and the equated it to the same cause, namely human contact.    This wasn't racism since initially they were happy to mix with humans but their ancestors withdrew from contact because it seemed like contact with humans was causing them to die.   In the case of the diseases, it was perfectly true.    Clearly the elves did not connect the raising of the Veil and the loss of their magic with their loss of immortality, probably because they only realised they were dying some years after the event.

 

It was unfortunate that these events also coincided with the disappearance of their gods.   Whilst the elves did seem aware of the reason for this, because they did have the legend of Fen'Harel shutting them away, they also had an alternative explanation that the gods had abandoned them because they were unworthy.   This was probably partly because their priesthood wanted to keep a hold on power over their former subjects and also out of a sense of disbelief that they could have been tricked in that way.   So instead they suggested the problem lay in their contact with humans and that if they withdrew from them, they could reverse the decline.   Then many years down the line, after the ancient ones had kept themselves alive through entering uthenera, the spreading human empire of Tevinter encroached on the remains of Arlathan and in the ensuing conflict it was destroyed, whilst the surviving elves were enslaved.    Very little occurred in subsequent history to improve the elven opinion of humans.

 

So far as I am aware, the more inflammatory idea of humans "polluting" the elves is put into the mouth of the Keeper in Masked Empire by Patrick Weekes.  He does come across as racist and elitist but he had to be written that way, together with the rest of his clan, in order to reduce our sympathy for them when Celene's party left them to be ripped apart by a demon they had released.    None of the clans we had previously encountered had been so outspoken and prejudiced as Thelhen and his clan, even Zathrian and that is saying something given his history.   Clearly Thelhen comes from a more extremist isolationist tradition among the Dalish.   This is confirmed in World of Thedas 2 in the entry about Neria, an agent of the Inquisition.  Gisharel who is so often quoted as imparting the legends of the Dalish, had shared their lore and culture with human scholars in the hope that it would gain them greater respect, but had been censured by the more isolationist clans.   Clearly opinion among the Dalish is divided, so making a blanket condemnation against them all is unfair.