If they teach it like they, as an outsider, would teach Dutch, Spanish, or Japanese culture, etc... I don't have an issue with it. My problem is with those people with knowledge gaps that fill the gaps with their own culture - and those people are almost always eastern Natives. https://twitter.com/AngelaSterritt/status/1347737353826168836

When a non-Native teaches about our faith/culture etc... you know there's an asterisk there. When a Mohawk or Ojibway does it, they often forget the humility part, and interpret our Salish culture through their antithetical eastern lenses.

I think every Salish person has had the experience of seeing a Native from the east, speaking with authority on our territory, saying 'Natives were all equal' 'Natives don't believe in property' 'the Great Spirit/Turtle Island" etc... and some of our young people repeat that.

All of those 'teachings' are the exact opposite of what our culture is about. And it seems everywhere you turn, there's an eastern or northern Native in a position of responsibility gatekeeping over our culture, at the universities, press - on our own territory.

At this point in our history, I think that eastern influence - pan-Indianism - is the greater risk to the integrity of our culture and faith, more so that white people presenting it from their outsider perspective. Our kids know to take that with a grain of salt.