Tlingit Spirituality and Shamanism in the 21st Century 

Ya still don’t

U are learning. Don’t stop or think u need anyone to teach u

Yes, conservative Christian thought combined with capitalist colonialism was the end of thousands of cultures, peoples and lives :(

I think the non- tlingit they may want to take ownership of their culture! So I think that Tlingit should not let strangers to "train" something of their spirituality, your culture is fantastic, don't let whites people, or others take it from all of you!

This is both unproductive and illogical thinking. Culture is learned, not inherited genetically. Shutting your culture off from outsiders simply means that it's more likely to be lost. I should also point out that this is the exact same line of thinking that lead early colonialists to denny native peoples sovereignty, because they believed they couldn't understand Anglo-saxon values and as such were incapable of self governance.

@@yamiyomizuki There have been and continue to be many many Culture Vultures who try to exploit indigenous cultures. This is not a new phenomenon and you can research the amount of people who have done this. If non native people want to connect with their own culture of origin that makes more sense as they have a direct connection to it. Cultures have a right to protect their practices and some knowledge is simply held as sacred, to be passed only to descendants. Cope with that, not everything is for every person to access.

@@dntskdnttll the only argument you actually have is the exploitation and commercialization of culture to which my response is that indigenous people can and do commercialize their own culture in a manner every bit as crass as outsiders, and people from outside of a culture can study it just a sincerely and respectfully as people born into it. after that you get into pseudo mysticism and espousing racial exceptionalism for "woke" reasons.

Late to the discussion, but for what it's worth... Protecting identity, heritage and spirituality is deeply important, of course. That said, in modern times such things are being shared and blended whether we want them to or not. Consider, also, that all identity, heritage and spirituality originated from a previous blend of sorts, however long ago, and have been influenced by other cultures periodically over the centuries. It's only through the gift of lengthy, relative isolation that any group can consider themselves unique. As a Non-Tlingit I can only say that I come with a particular interest in the parts of humanity and spirituality that we might share, not to imagine some sort of deep understanding or "appropriation," as some extraordinarily defensive folks might put it. I can't speak for others. Nor can I speak for those in the spiritual realms who might accept or reject the hearts and minds of knowledge seekers who don't have the more recent, requisite genetics.

Who says there not?