We just got back from a trip to Oklahoma for a tribal holiday. Four days of politics, dancing, meetings, reunions and tons and tons of family. It was exhausting and hot and very nice to be back again.

One of the issues I've been thinking a lot about lately is assimilation. There is assimilation in the historic sense, when the US government policy was to encourage native peoples to integrate with the mainstream culture to the degree that traditional practices were lost. That isn't really the type of assimilation I've been pondering because it is a moot point now. We are all traditional people functioning with varying levels of success within the larger American population. I have a job, I go to school, I drive a car, I wear calvin klein khaki pants and drink iced decaf nonfat lattes. I live in a large northeastern city and study in an ivy league institution. To examine my life as an outsider, I could be considered completely assimilated.

Our tribal chairperson has been accused of being assimilated. Like me, he has spent a large part of his adult life living in a large metropolis. He made a conscious decision to leave his lucrative job in a lucrative business environment to return to Oklahoma. He ran and won the position of tribal chair after my aunt died unexpectedly. He is a practicing buddhist. his wife is white. He doesn't dance or sing or apparently practice any of the spiritual traditions that help to define my own connection with the tribe. Yet he was elected as tribal chairperson and has been somewhat successful in that position for the past year. His assimilation-ness only rarely surfaces to the forefront, and only when directly confronted with cultural issues.

Like many holidays around the world, our holiday involves dancing, food and protocol. Just as many families have traditions around when to buy and decorate a christmas tree or what dishes to serve at thanksgiving, we have rules. As is the case with many cultures, a lot of our rules are dictated by an underlying religious belief. One of the issues we've been grappling with lately is the way the men start the fire the first night of dancing.

A major part of the holiday revolves around the traditional dancing. There is a big bonfire set at sundown, and then certain dance groups take turns dancing for the next few hours. The fire is sacred, and a certain degree of reverence should be granted to the practice of lighting the fire. Unfortunately, due in part to poor leadership and ego issues within the tribe, the practice of lighting the fire in the tradition manner has been foregone for a much easier dousing with lighter fluid and throwing of a match. The disrespect of the fire problem extends throughout the night whenever the wood in the fire burns down. Because the fire is in the middle of the dance arena, the people who add wood to the fire have to walk through the dance ground. They are supposed to walk in a clockwise direction, always around the fire, even if the job is simple enough that they could more easily walk in and out without actually coming in contact with the fire. The men who are feeding the fire now just run in, throw the wood on, and run out. They are supposed to do a full circle around the fire each time and they don't.

It was really bothering me that nobody was doing it right. In my experience in the Indian world, people talk a lot about doing thing the "right" way. This means being true to the traditions and respectful when necessary. The fire wasn't being maintained in the right way. Our tribe isn't being managed in the right way. We're a small tribe with a lot of very stubborn members (after all, we're Apache...) so you'd think this is exactly the sort of thing that would be practiced with the utmost care. Instead our holidays are becoming more for the tourists and less for us. A tourist wouldn't care if we danced clockwise or counterclockwise. A tourist wouldn't care if the fire was started with a magnifying glass and a pile of barbie hair. But I care. It really bothers me that the most basic of our traditions is being ignored for convenience.

Our tribal chairperson is a nice, friendly and well-meaning person. He is an astute business person. I like him. But I don't like the way the traditions are taking a back seat to economic gain and simple convenience. I may be assimilated, but I'm still Apache and these things are important to me.