Living Tradition

“Every step is a way of saying: we are still here.

Regalia in motion. Feet touching earth in patterns gifted by the ancestors. This is not a performance of culture. It is the culture itself, still being enacted, exactly on schedule, by the people whose responsibility it has always been to enact it.

We often speak of tradition as if it were behind us. This piece disagrees. Traditions do not survive because they are old. They survive because someone in every generation keeps choosing to dance the next set of steps.

This photograph isn’t about heritage as museum.

It’s about heritage as continued responsibility.

What in your life is a tradition only because you keep, quietly, deciding to continue it — and who is watching you decide?”