#57 - Conversation on Traditions: Walking Belly First with Indigenous Practitioners and Scholars

Well , I don't know who coined it , but a guy named Joe Watkins kind of popularized . Joe Watkins Made it mainstream . Indigenous yeah . Indigenous archaeology .

You could pick him right out and you say , oh , that's a , that's an indian man . You could just tell . And that tune , you could play that tune , and you could just tell , I mean , it matched his walk . You know , you know how them kind of kind of indian guys walk there .

They got a little bit of a belly , you know , and they got a shirt with the sleeves cut off and you can I bet you can guess what kind of shoes they're wearing , given that the oh , they're wearing those , um , they're they kind of look like .

And then what he's got on his feet oh yeah , big trunks , you got trunks on and then what he's got on his feet oh yeah , big trunks , and on his feet wow , this guy could either have basketball shoes or flip-flops oh , now let's okay . Not basketball shoes , but crocs . No , no .

To be a little bit more specific now , this is probably a guy , maybe about , I don't know , maybe about six years younger than I , six to ten , somewhere around there , not basketball , oh man , not basketball shoes . No .

You know it's more of a bounce kind of a bounce . You do it more when you're walking with your pals , but if you're by yourself it's not so much .

Those buttons are just tight . You know , you dare not button that sport coat . It won't hold at all .

He's not going to work . This guy's going to court . Hey man , I texted a song . Is there a way to play it ? Yeah , yeah .

kind of floats around .

Yeah , and this might contradict even what I've said in the past . But the Blackfoot people have a distinct beat , like kind of a tempo to their style . But the way songs are composed it seems like it fits like how Rocky Boy people sound and sing . It's more like I don't know , it just has a different . It's pretty nuanced .

I guess what that is , because powwow music sounds like powwow music to everybody . But you can tell People know like people pay attention to singing . There's a certain it's hard to explain , like I was even trying to explain it . There's a young drum group here .

They're just starting out out like they made their debut , like last week and yeah , they sound pretty good for a new drum group and one of my relatives sings with them and he came up he said well , how did we sound ? I said you guys sound good young , sound young . And he took that as like a . I think he took that as kind of like a diss .

But it's like no , no , like your song style is young , it's like young people shit , you know yeah , yeah like if you came out to me and you were singing . If your sound not and I don't mean sound like yeah literally like the way the songs you're choosing to sing .

The songs they were young , real young , modern , and I wouldn't even say contempt , but there's almost like Mystic River , straight but young voices . Some of them are older dudes , but their voices are young .

composed or something like that . You know , that's what it reminds me of , kind of I don't know , not refined , you know in a way , yeah and it's hard to explain unless you know singing .

And you can tell like their voices are still young and they're still developing their voices , but like their beat is a lot more like there's a bounce to it . Now the songs they're choosing to sing have a little more liveliness to them .

Whatever that is and that's hard to explain , but the the young , young people and I I'm guilty of it too yeah , songs that are fun to sing when you first start singing are like painted horse .

You remember how like painted horse used to sound yeah , yeah the way , the way we are , songs , you know like hey , uh , wait , wait , oh wait , uh , hey , we oh wait , uh , hey , yeah , oh wait , oh well , hey , you know , I'm just making it up , but there's like , uh , like , and you're just kind of like like it's hard to explain , but you're like yeah like

let us , let us bring it home .

And I'm sure you've heard of him , Austin Little Light Nighthawk Juniors , you know . Oh yeah . Like he was like the main guy .

We're close in age but yeah , when they , when he first started that drum group with his brother and there's like there's a handful of them , yeah , I I started singing with them at the very beginning , you know , and I and I so I remember like that kind of that , the excitement of starting a drum group together , you know , or the excitement I I wouldn't say I

started the drum group with them . I just kind of . It was almost like we we had like three , four guys we were singing on our own for a short time and they had their .

They were like , hey , let's get together and sing , ended up not working out , but that excitement of , like we know , five songs yeah , right , and it's like and just thinking about like how much ? Because you know I'm a human .

So I started thinking about like , oh man , like he's gone , like I remember singing in his living room , or he come to our house and singing and I was thinking you don't know anything , like you don't know nothing so then , when you think about someone who starts a drum group , whether that drum group is good or not .

It takes a lot of balls to start a drum group oh man , yeah , especially in communities where there's a lot of experienced singers which are all judges . They're all judges and coaches and critiquers of what you're gonna do yeah , so for for him to start a drum group at that time .

I think it , it it's a it takes a lot man , takes a lot of guts to do that , because it's easy just to wait for somebody else to do it and then just sit with them just jump in sit with them you know , but like to say , no , we're going to do that and then to name your drum group after a really well-known drum group in Indian country , but also like

kind of a foundation traditional drum , like people who know and are really respected , you know , yeah , the Night yeah , but also like kind of a foundation traditional drum , like people who know and are really respected , you know yeah the nighthawks , nighthawk singers and all that .

So , yeah , so today , when I saw those young drums singing and then thinking about my own time starting out singing and not knowing anything but being like super jacked about it , like just wanting to sing , and just like , oh god , I don't care , I don't know , I didn't mean to cuss , but like , and for me it was always like round dance singing .

You know , that's what got me started . But yeah , I was thinking about . I just watching those two young drums today and I was thinking they're like it just reminded me of when I was 20 or 18 , 19 , you know . Yeah . And thinking damn like .

But in that amount of time , from 2000 to now , these are the two youngest drum groups to start . There's no , there's nobody singing , hmm .

So then that makes me think as a singer , or somebody who has experience in singing , when somebody asked my opinion , maybe I shouldn't give my opinion , maybe I should just say man , you guys sound good , keep it up , they're not asking for coaching yeah they're not asking for yeah , yeah because we just want , we didn't get a self-esteem boost yeah , because man

them singers like sargi o'horn and and uh , gary pretty paint , yeah and um frank caplet and clayton mountain pocket , they were like not patient , necessarily Good singers , but they weren't patient , so like if your stick was off they'd hit your stick , you know . Oh yeah , and so like .

No , no , pass things around like yeah , right and so , and people are very upfront like hey , don't do that , don't do that , don't do that so there's got to be that's kind of encouragement I , I don't know , it's kind of a problem .

You know that's an issue you think it is .

There's all this drum culture that's almost separate from even powwow yeah regular culture . There's this yeah drum culture . It's like drum rules even like where you're sitting at the drum is orchestrated and a lot of times you don't even have to talk about it , right ?

I'm not gonna like try to take down beats or like ask for leads or say like hey , sing this song . It's like I'm just here , I'm just hitchhiking man , I'm yeah , I just want to sing a song and and so you learn . Like these weird rules , like that . I notice young kids don't learn because they're learning how to sing in school .

What yeah , like say , they go to school and they join an Indian club and they learn ?

You start singing with , like experienced singers who , where their foundation is like ceremony , yeah , and then also like their dedication is to the drum , so like if these old guys would be like we're going to set up this weekend .

Whatever they said , they really do , like they really sit there and they really , you know young guys , they just and I'm guilty of it too , because I I learned the hard way too I had people I got kicked off of a drum before for that like just being too relaxed . So chill yeah .

So I wonder if these young guys , if they were ever to experience that , would it discourage them to the point where they quit singing ? Or would they be like , well , that's just the way singing is , so I gotta step up . I don't so my in my mind . I don't think that's how they think . They think all those guys are a-holes I'm not gonna be , around them .

But then when you realize you're like no , that's the culture of singing . There is a hierarchy in singing whether we like it or not , there is yeah , yeah yeah , yeah , I , you're right , man , that and that I don't know .

You know , it sounds like yeah , I guess , but that's not . I don't , that's not true , man . I don't think it's true . I don't think , unless I don't know , unless maybe the thing you're talking about now is , uh , and I don't want to say it , but I'm gonna say it , I hope I don't set you off Are you ready ? Maybe it's a colonial construct .

It seeped its way into tradition .

I just don't think it was like that , you know yeah I , I , I think of course there's an unspoke , there's unspoken shit , you know yeah yeah , and without a doubt , whether whether we want to believe it or not , in singing there's a hierarchy .

There is , there is yeah and like , and if there was ever A really , really Astute Native researcher that understood singing and wanted to write about it , I don't think it would take much To like , see it , to like Okay , this is how , like me , someone like me . Yeah , we'll go to what people call a traditional powwow , right ?

of it .

Okay , 100 or I don't know , 30 year , a 30 year , 30 years in the in the business plumber um is not just gonna invite to you know someone who's just starting out to go do a real tough job . Right , there's a hierarchy , there's a , there's a order . You're gonna choose someone who's a bit more senior to help them with the tough job .

It's just about experience .

So , like certain plumbers , right , yeah , you could put five years in , I could put 15 years in . After a certain point you're just experienced . But then also , what did you do in that time ?

yeah and people recognize that , like I think I'm not even a big powwow guy , but I think it's also a good way to like gauge social behaviors of contemporary native people , because it's the largest social thing we do , right yeah , yeah , cross tribal , intertribal social affair , yeah yeah yeah at least , at least in yeah , at least in the plains , and and the

rockies here and the rockies , yeah , yeah yeah , you get outside of that too , though it starts to change , because then it it's it's so new with their people that they haven't they actually don't have those hang-ups yeah , yeah and so that's why some people say go to certain regions to powwow , because they like them .

I think partly because there's a freedom to it yeah , yeah , there's not those hang-ups .

There's not these weird hang-ups , you know sure , sure anyway , I never intended for this to be um a podcast about singing , but yeah , I was thinking about it because austin , the passing of austin little light , and then actually there was another passing of a guy named mike mike tucks , different , who oh yeah pretty respected singer from fort belknap yeah , he passed

away too , so two well-known singers yeah um , yeah , yeah , two very different cultural journeys .

The thing you're talking about is very specific but , like you said , that phenomenon of the gathering of Native people to do this very specific thing , there are expressions of the way we think and the way we act and our mannerisms still exist there today . Now we don't want to get into the debate about whether it's ceremonial or not .

You know , I think we we talked about that , but that's less of the less of the of a of a thing that I that I kind of emphasize .

It's more that that the way people are really interested in , in , in how , um , native or indigenous people think , and there's a lot of um I think there's a lot of generalizations that don't quite capture the complexity and the thing , and the thing you brought up right now is a good example of that Like relational thought , you know , and holistic thought ,

non-reductive thinking , you know .

You can go on and on about these different attributes that are common in academic literature , about an Indigenous way of knowing and doing things , and one of them I guess that you hear a lot that I was kind of mentioning is this non-hierarchical sort of fluffy love , love , sort of lovey feeling that you get when you're interacting with native people .

I think it's far too romantic . You know we're humans and we have . You know , we got feelings and we have experience that tells us Well . So this is a good example . If you don't discipline your kid , if you just give them love , are they going to grow up right ?

Native people . We're not just all free , loving , relational , uh , um uh . Non non-hierarchical beings . We're subject to the rules of humanity , just like anybody else . I see it far too much . I see it far too much and people write about it still today . Indigenous scholars write about it and it just Everybody's voice matters . Everybody .

So there's , there's this weird Thing in academics where Native scholars if you were to take the number of Native scholars , just for this sake of conversation , master's degree and higher that are practitioners of their beliefs , not by their own standards but by their community standards Like , say , their community says like , if we went to the communities and said , hey ,

you pick out four scholars from your community , yeah , that you would say are practitioners , not people who are just talking about . Yeah , I think you'll find that the overwhelming majority is people who their own communities don't see them as practitioners of their culture , right ? Do you think that's fair to say ? Like , just from your observations ?

Is that unfair to say ?

Well , there's , I guess there's two different routes , right , some people want to play catch up and try to revive things that have been lost . There's another group of people maybe they're sort of the same ones , but they're trying to revise or or uh , or uh , repurpose traditions to meet today .

Not consciously , it's just like this unconscious effort that's going on , right , so there's kind of those two little streams of people and in the meantime , we have this other thing happening , this other thing happening with , with the things that we need to to live in a modern world , right , education , education , people .

I mean , you remember when you're a kid , everybody tell you got to go to school , you got to do this , that well , yeah , and I'm a crow .

They never had the opportunity to go to school and I don't know if they were interested if that , if I had the same opportunity that we had today , would they go to school ? I don't know , I have no idea , but you have like these two sort of things that are mismatched , right .

So traditionalists generally , that that from what I call , like what I think of traditionalists that were , you know , raised by their grandparents , whose grandparents were raised by a generation that was the closest , as we know , to sort of the , the tp days , or , you know , the like the , the posts , like really post reservation days , when yeah , yeah things were as

intact as we can I mean you're limiting the the field like quite a bit now yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . So you got , so you got this phenomenon going on and so meanwhile these two tracks are sort of moving forward , and so you just don't have that opportunity for those things to intersect . And additionally , I'm going to throw something else on top .

If you think about those who had the opportunity to become educated , those who have multi-generational success in achieving advanced education , those aren't , those aren't generally what you think of as the traditionalist type of people . No , no , I mean not . Not , I'm not making any judgment about any of it , but I'm just saying that's the fact .

It seems like the facts I should say yes yeah , and I think that's what .

I don't hear people have these conversations , do you no ?

no , no , no , it's a tough conversation to have , I think because it it also points , sheds light on your own stuff yeah you know , and it's like people don't want to sit around and talk about , especially in academics , because everybody's right , everybody has a voice and and everybody , yeah , okay , so for example in the grass dance ceremony . Okay .

Like in Crow , here we have like districts yeah , so the last two districts that are , I would say , somewhat active , meaning that that ceremony has Been practiced in the last 30 years . Is the Lodgegrass district and the Black Lodge district . I hold a position In that society , in that ceremony for the Lodgegrass district .

So in some ways , right yeah , I hold some authority with that ceremony . Okay , I'm the drum , I'm the drum owner , right Okay . But do I know everything about what I'm even supposed to do , or even about that ceremony ? No , yeah , I've never actually done the ceremony , I just hold the position , I have the title .

So how many scholars do you know they'll meet them both , like where there's experience plus title . So you have the authorization of somebody , like if some yeah oh man , we actually had this , this . This brought up a pretty . This reminds me of a pretty controversial topic that you and I were part of .

Yeah , and that is to me like mind blowing . Yeah , I don't know why what we were talking about just now made me think of that . Yeah . But it's like who holds more authority in that research , the IRB or that person ? Yeah . I'm like why it's his . Yeah , he's the owner of it . Yeah .

yeah , yeah At what point if they were practitioners , the institutional review board at a tribal college , if they were practitioners at a basic level , they would say , well , at the end of the day , he holds the authority of that particular ceremony and if he's doing research on his own ceremony , that's who we would consult

with . Anyway , if somebody came in and wanted to do the research on that ceremony , they would say , well , we would actually need to . We should figure out what the practitioners or the owners of those ceremonies think of that .

Well , this is the owner that's asking the question and why he it's so bizarre man , I forgot about that we're going to need him to read an informed consent to himself and , in addition , himself . Well , because the hangup was that he was going to talk about sacred knowledge , right and like things that the public doesn't need to know . Yeah , yeah .

But that he also is the person who can say who gets to know ? Yeah , because he's the owner of that , and we respect that authority . Yeah , it was recognized , people understood that that person owns that ceremony , so it's like , okay , well , I have no say over him , and that you know . Yeah .

Whether I believe he should have done it or not , it's , it's yeah it's not my place to say right that's like this , yeah , yeah , oh , I'm sorry , no , no , in fact no , let me hear the fact and , in fact , another issue that was brought up about this , this idea of understanding your community and where authorization is , and practitioner versus non practitioner .

We had another researcher that just wanted to film somebody yeah , doing sign language , and but , because that person yeah was seen outside of the popularity circle , it was like , no , we're shutting it down oh , yeah , but it was like . Well , that person's not even going after knowledge from the video .

The person they're videoing , she already knew the signs she was just having this guy act out the signs for plain sign language and I was like I'm taking crazy pills yeah , yeah and then . So then I thought , wait , wait , a second . The irb has now lost touch , the board has now lost reality of what their job is supposed to do .

Yeah , yeah , their job is not supposed to protect native scholars from native people yeah our native people from native scholars yeah if their job is supposed to , is people take being advantage of ? Are people fully aware of what they're sharing ? Who they're sharing information ? to and for what and for why ? Yeah .

But at no point should we be telling our own people that they can't talk to their own people . It was crazy to me . It was , it was . I forgot about that man .

Number one this uh phenomenon of of singing and , uh , young singers um falling into a hierarchy of when , what , how , when and where to do things right . Yeah , there's a heart . You can't just walk into any old , any old powwow and sit down with anybody , you know . It just doesn't work like that .

Now , I had a question about that before I get to walk into the number . The second thing we talked about what if this happened ? Because they see this a lot and I want you to take on this because this falls in line to what I'm going to talk about about this . Next , this next idea of tradition .

So let's , let's okay , entertain me on this one so let's say there's let's go back to the scenario of the of this , this celebration . There's a famous drum group there , well-known across Indian country and into North America or American Canada , yep , okay , and then some I don't want to say a nobody , but nobody knows this person comes in and wants to sing .

So they approach this drum and if they're seeped in the literature of indigenous matters , academic indigenous matters , they would bring the lead singer a gift of tobacco and ask to sing with them . Now , would that drum group , do you think , in your opinion , allow them to sing with them ?

Now , would that drum group , do you think , in your opinion , allow them to sing with them ?

Thanks , man , I appreciate it . Come and sing a couple of songs with us , yeah , yeah .

Um , I feel like the further away that drum group gets from home , the more likely they are to actually let somebody sit down with them . Oh , yeah , yeah , that's true . Because , yeah , because I think , um for one , the people who are going to approach a drum group like that and try to sit down are typically singers , people who know how to sing .

Yeah , you know because someone who doesn't like singing doesn't know the difference between um young spirit and dirty corner singers . You know they don't know the difference , so like so , and if there's there's nothing on on line on the line , you know it's it's . It's more likely to be like that's cool .

But I actually think they probably the local , they're closer , they are to home most people know if they're an inviting drum group or not , like most people know like don't even go ask them yeah , yeah like if if this actually happened to me once my nephew came up , I'm gonna go ask such and such . Sing with them .

I said don't do that yeah , because you knew and he said he said why ? And I said they're not gonna let you sit down anyway and they're just gonna get your feelings hurt . He said he kind of laughed at me , said no , I'm gonna go . So he did and guess what ? They denied him to get his feelings hurt and got his feelings hurt . Yeah , not really .

I don't think he actually got his feelings hurt . Yeah , not really . I don't think he actually got his feelings hurt , but it was it was it's a real thing , it's a real thing , where people do deny , and so I think that was Sure , but at the same time , that's how you find out . You just go try , just ask . Yeah .

Cause he likes singing right , he likes to sing so in , and he's like I'll sing with whoever man , I'll just go and sit at a drum and have a good time . Yeah . Because that's the vibe of the pala , or the vibe of the dance , if it's a non-contest dance and everyone's just kind of singing .

You get to a point , though , where you're good enough to sing , even at those things where they'll probably say yeah , you know . Yeah , yeah . They'll say , yeah , anyway , I didn't mean for this to be like , let's just talk about singing and stuff .

You can't just show up with a little bit of tobacco and say I want to lead all your songs , the next five songs , yeah .

We've talked about this a lot . It doesn't matter what you do . So okay , here's a good example . In a class I had the other day I showed a picture of , um , these fisheries biologists right and they're , they're cutting open this fish . You know , they got a notebook , just the picture . So I'm asking my class are these guys scholars ?

and they see the you know the trappings of scholarship uh field book and the right in the rain was the right yeah it's probably right in the rain and a scalpel and they're wearing rubber gloves , you know , looks like they're doing something scholarly , you know , studying fish .

Then I showed them a picture , I mean , yeah , a picture of , uh , some native fishermen , you pulling a bunch of salmon out of the sea . I said are these guys scholars now ? Oh no , those aren't scholars at all . And I say which one do you think understands fish population better ? And they pause for a second . Okay , yeah , those Fisher people .

Of course they understand fish population .

Scholars don't know nothing . 90% of the time man scholars don't know anything . Yeah . Not anything useful . I mean for real dude , get them . Well know , think about this . Like we were talking before we recorded we were talking about horses .

Yeah , bits you know put in a mouth yeah there's a big difference in somebody who like rides horses and somebody who like rides horses and somebody who makes horses . You know what I mean ? Oh , yeah , yeah , yeah . So like somebody who understands bits like what there's for like yeah , how to get a horse and into that bit ?

Yeah , you could ride a bunch of horses like your whole life . You could ride horses all the time yeah that don't mean , you make horses , though right , there's a special group of people that make horses so to me it's the same thing . It's like I can understand it . I can even say all the stuff .

The horse stuff I don't make horses , though , man yeah , yeah , yeah I've tried , I've done all right with a couple I've also ruined some , you know what I mean . So it's like um yeah , it's the same thing like these , these who would you call the scholar versus , again , the practitioner , and who knows more about it ?

Man , I'm starting to think the practitioner knows more . It's the same thing with the fish , the fisheries people , man , yeah , yeah , the scholar or the practitioner , sure , and that's sort of the , the , the um , what is the word that mike likes to use ?

That's not the same as the fisherman , or I should say fisher person , because they're doing what they're doing for a different aim . However , their understandings might overlap somewhat , but and I mentioned this in the class I said how long does it take to get a PhD in fisheries biology ? I don't know . Three to six years , you know .

And then , how long does it get ? How long do you have to be a fisher person to understand fish population and movement ? And I don't know how long it takes . No , I don't know .

But the fact is they're still fishing and they're still utilizing that knowledge in a particular way , whereas the fish biologists maybe , they study only one certain fish , I don't know . Then I got caught in this trap of of I don't knows , I don't knows , and I think it's the same thing .

You're talking about the practitioner versus the non-practitioner , the scholar versus the , the doer and at some point I think , in , in um , in indigenous academics . You know , you get .

You get the few moments where you know that the scholar is also a practitioner and you can tell by the manner in which they speak of things and the authority in which they have in those things and the confidence yeah , yeah , yeah . So I don't know that was asking the right questions . Asking the right questions and the right question and of the right thing .

Yeah , not wasting time . You know , not wasting time . That was the second point , and then the third point I don't know what it is yet I'm trying to get to this third point and well , yeah , I interrupted you man . Well , no , no , no , it's all right , that's right .

I didn't have a very coherent plan , so this is the one thing I wanted to talk about and sort of ties into both of these . So singing is a is a um , would you ? Would you classify that as a tradition ? Yeah yeah , it's a tradition . Yeah , yeah , it's a tradition , right ? And practitioners , of course , also engage in tradition , right ? Would you say yes ?

What about scholars ?

sure . I picked up this manner of speaking where I say this a lot , sure from uh , um , these international students , they would say that a lot and I thought it was kind of funny . It's sort of it's all from my perspective , they're all international students .

That's what Grams did . You guys remember her heart , Such a big heart . Everyone knows Christmas was her favorite holiday and she loved to have a Christmas ham . We'd have a fire outside and she'd tell us stories of her childhood and just that .

We should be thankful , because she lived through the depression and she said there was a time she couldn't afford clothes and so they had to wear their clothes for school and for sleep and for play .

They're clothes for school and for sleep and for play , and so that's why we wear pajamas flannel pajamas on Christmas as a reminder of what Graham and what mom wanted .

Something like that , right , and the important thing , I guess , guess is that traditions can change , or they ought to change , depending on the needs of of people and individuals yeah those are all true . Um , how do , how do , how do we define or can we define ? This is the , this is the thing .

So there's this thing called um traditional ecological knowledge , right ? there we go there we go , there we go , boom . So what ? What would make something traditional about a piece of ecological knowledge ? It could be something that was revealed in a past generation , right ? Yeah , yeah Could be . Yeah , could be right .

Or it could be something that was generations old . One of the two , right ?

I think , and I that's a very modern approach to to to those things , some sacred objects , they'll say , well , they don't work anymore yeah this guy died from smallpox . Why would we want to keep his medicine ? It didn't protect him .

So then they would say that they would say , well , we'll just get rid of it , you know yeah so because you value what works you . So you look at somebody . You say they're successful in life . What do they have , what do they use ? So that's what holds value there's .

Look at people's good fortune and their luck versus their bad luck and their misfortune , and all that you . It's not as simplified as that , but it is simplified too at the same time right just look , you just look . Just because it old . It's old doesn't mean it works , you know .

And right um right , or vice versa , just because it's new doesn't mean it's bad .

That's up to them , you know . I think that's kind of what Loie's talking about . So he's talking about practices and beliefs and ceremonies are based off of success and not off of antiquity , meaning just because it's , just because it's old and yeah to me , it's a very practical approach to your own belief I think so .

And , um , I think we sometimes equate that with a time from the past , but it reminds me of the fisher people , the practitioners , and they probably are carrying or generating new knowledge of their ecologies in which they survive off of , and I think those would probably be more relevant today than a piece of TEK from 200 years ago . I don't know .

It could have come from a generation previous . It could even come from the current within your generation . Right , you could start a tradition within your family , and as long as you did it from year to year , it doesn't have to be from generation to generation .

I don't think the term routine and tradition are that far off in some sense .