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Grey areas
Boozhoo niji,
I do not think the definitions you gave wholey apply to this world today. There are too many grey areas. Who says that you have to live all the traditional ways, the cerimonies, etc, and not do email, cell phone and watch TV on your dish network?
Who says that you have to have a 40 hour a week job and not be able to sweat in the lodge every other weekend?
I for one believe a lot of the old creation stories, at least the Ojibwe ones, the ones I am learning. I believe in them the same way a Christian would believe the old testament. Yet I also believe in a lot of the science that goes on today. There is the whole universe bit, and things with atoms and quantum physics and what not. I dont see why all of that cannot work together. Everything revolves around the Creator. Science is just a way of forming rules on how everything works.
As far as your defination of traditionalism goes, it is dead. We get most of our food from a store of some sort, pay for it with some kind of money, either earned or government provided. Most of the cerimonies are still preformed, but I can imagine a few have been lost over the years, for different reasons.
I believe traditions are important, because you never know, things might go back the way they used to be, possibly overnight. Who knows? I know who knows, and I trust him, thats all that matters.
Derek
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