>The Hopi children need protection from both. They need to be protected from the "White folks" who actively seek to eliminate their culture and assimilate them.

>The Hopi children need protection from both. They need to be protected from the "White folks" who actively seek to eliminate their culture and assimilate them. They also need protection from their own culture, where it may choose to persecute them for deviating from cultural norms. Ok, now we have a problem. Because the only people who will impose such an end are predominantly white activists, and in doing so are effectively attacking their culture and trying to eliminate it. These rituals define their culture. I would rather try to learn from the wisdom of the (rather harsh) rituals they employ than worry about the kids being whipped (which is part of it). background: The Hopi carefully teach their children to literally believe in their religion. They are taught that the katcina dancers are really gods from another place that come to work miracles in their community. The children are carefully protected from ever seeing a katcina dancer unmasked. Every three years, the Hopi gather the children of their town aged 6-9 and tell them they will be initiated into the mysteries where they will learn the real nature of the Katcina. They then begin a several day rite of passage where they interact with Katcina dancers. At first these are fairly mild and involve gifts which are bestowed but then become more harsh and involve fasting, and eventually being whipped, and told that if they reveal the secrets they are about to be shown they will be whipped a lot more. Then they are shown a Katcina dancer who takes off his mask showing the children that he is an adult from their town. This utterly destroys their faith, but opens the way for them to participate in the religious community of the town and eventually join mystery organizations within the Hopi religion. You can't impose informed consent on that ritual without destroying it and the powerful lessons included. So any attempt to do that destroys the Hopi culture in a very real way. The Hopi thus initiate their children from belief into atheism and later from atheism into mystery. It's really beautiful in a way. So do we insist on white folks abolishing this practice (and the Hopi outlook on the world) in order to protect the children? or do we assume that the parents will usually protect the children and that the white folks need to back off? I think if you can show long-term harm to the kids, then it's reasonable to try to convince the parents to change the practice but absent that, we have no right to destroy their ability to teach deep concepts to their kids.