Every Day is a Good Day Chapter 2

In the beginning, the author talks about spiritualism and how Native American spiritualism has been copied and exploited by outsiders. In one of my other CES classes we watched a video about Native Americans and the struggle to keep their land, their culture, and their traditions. One specific part in the movie shows a group of Native Americans in a sacred natural place in the mountains during the spring. They had the elder medicine woman with them and they went up there to pray and conduct their traditional ceremonies. Not far from them was a group of whites yelling and hopping around while beating on drums and smoking. They had their infant children all laid out on blankets while they rolled "sacred crystals" at their feet to give them protection from evil spirits, and they had their faces painted and flowers in their hair. All in all, it was a mockery of true Native traditions. Those folks really thought they were doing something, making all that racket on the side of a mountain running around barefoot becoming one with nature. "Outsiders sometimes focus and even try to replicate discrete practices or ceremonies of traditional tribal groups, with little attempt to understand the complex belief systems and lifeways they represent" (Mankiller, pg. 13).
I have heard a lot of my white friends and collegues say that they are not sure what their culture is. This conversation was sparked off of the question "how come there isn't a European American student center at WSU?". A passage in the chapter from Gail Small reads: " In ancient times white people probably also had an understanding that everything was connected. They have lost their culture. They had to leave their land and move to a new continent. It would be almost impossible to keep their culture intact." (Small, Mankiller, Pg. 13). Something that I wonder is if there were ever any tribes or Europeans that lived a primitive lifestyle. I have seen primitive lifestyles from most ethnicities but nothing really stands out as being the beginning of white culture or tradition.