Firstly I must say that this is a hugely sensitive and complicated thing. On a personal level picking a faith because of their cultural "coolness" or poor research (I recently had someone shove their supposed Cherokee heritage down my throat as more pagan than thou and it was clear that even if this ancestry was true she had no actual clue to the beliefs and practices of the seven tribes, the upper, lower and center worlds or The Long Man) irritates the piss out of me.
On the flip side of this I have had spiritual teachers (in spirit and flesh) from all parts of the world and from all backgrounds. I also like to use what works. A good idea is a good idea after all.
I am from a minority culture. As someone who is Welsh, from Welsh parents (my father was even born two miles from my childhood home) and Welsh grandparents, and only when we hit Great-grandparents does the Irish come in. I am in fact the first female member of my family to marry an Englishman since 1642. Though he would say he was a "man of the North". The Welsh are still subject to much racism, ignorance, misrepresentation. When you speak of Welsh culture many people actually laugh at you. As though this is a joke.
So let us look at culture.
What is a culture.
the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively.
the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society.
maintained (tissue cells, bacteria, etc.) in conditions suitable for growth.
This is where it gets tricky. When someone hangs up a dream-catcher are they admiring an art form, using a good idea or internalizing someone else's culture?
Culture is often defined by "otherness" and collective ideas and customs of groups and sub-groups. Some groups are seen as "authentic" and "exotic" while other are perceived as dangerous, threatening or worse, worthless.
This changes because they are not viewed by one set of otherness but all different kinds. In the States having ancestors who were not white (and European) is not a glowing, spiritual and cool thing. At least in certain places. In fact having African heritage is preferable than Indigenous people. Yet this assumed (and often European) idea of spiritual simplicity and purity, of authenticity of "noble savages" persists especially the further you get from the US.
Likewise cultures in Amazon that are like new specimens to preserve something wild and raw are now avoided to protect their unique-ness.
Yet while we are all African in our D.N.A, all descended from a few families that made it, we evolve into cliches and groups at the earliest opportunity. We are endlessly drawn to find something human, something universal but socially the more we seek the more different we become.
Like islands evolving (socially) in stranger and stranger ways. This "otherness" and "togetherness" this cultural identity and heritage should be balanced with kindness and support.
We do both terrible and wonderful things as cultures, a word I far prefer to "civilization". This dichotomy of "noble savage" and "civilized man" are set on at best shaky ground. Civilized "man" was, civic, social and fair (although not to women, too much savage in them I suppose) and just (if not more) brutal than the barbaric savages (with deep, sensitive and co-operative ideals of their own).
Once we break this dichotomy and understand that while cultural differences can be glorious and beautiful. That dominant cultures are not dominant because they are"right" or "better" but like trees in the forest grow and take up the most light. Those underneath wait for them to topple so they can grow.
I think it is a good idea to be sensitive about the spiritual and sacred things you appropriate. Coming from an external view point distorts the deeper meanings you will be culturally blind to. Yet sincere work, work with research and dwelling within a culture (being inside is the only way to know) can bring about cross pollination that can bloom into beautiful things.
After all I live on a island which was trading with Egypt by the Bronze Age (our tin has been found) and conquered by Rome (and the multitude of colours, races and beliefs it brought), then abandoned. Fought, won and lost to Danes, Angles, Saxons, in waves of migration, invasion and war. We then got conquered again by French Danes (the Normans) bringing new exotic ideas and creating weird hiccups in our language (because the people who could eat the expensive things used a different language to those that reared them). Our royalty (to the victors the spoils) is related to almost every other royal family and pretty much everyone is descended from Charlemagne (randy old goat 19 kids).Thousands flooded in when we had a "tolerant monarch" from all over the world to work and live. They brought technology and weapons. Millions poured out when we didn't. Then we conquered half the world and in return they lived here too (well we did steal or buy your country). We still live with this fall out today. We moved thousands of Indians (maybe millions) and when they got their country back Kenya kicked them out. They couldn't go home, they could stay and this Island had moved them in the first place. So even though they fought in our wars, even though they were told they were "British" (what ever the hell THAT means) there was no warm welcome for them, even today. Others came after fighting in wars expected to be treated as hero's but they were too different, too many.
Through all of this (and maybe because of it) the people who lived here before the Romans, up in the hills and valleys, pushed into the margins, stuck it out. Protected their ideas and music. Lost and found themselves a thousand times.
It is strange for me to feel a sense of pointlessness in separation from other humans, and a fierce defiance of my own. My language, my music, the land that captivates and draws me like no other in all the world.
I love new, old and interesting cultures, we often have so much more in common than we think (did you know Cherokee have little people too?). Yet maybe your real culture is not the one you choose, but the one that chooses you. While intellectually I can see and abhor the "noble savage" and cultural appropriation that goes along with it, I understand that yearning for something pristine. Deep. Ancestral. Yet maybe if we look at ourselves, really look at ourselves we would no longer need to find it somewhere else, we would find it within.
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