Settler ceremony withered because it lost its ties to the land it emigrated from.

Evidence

In many indigenous communities, the hems of our ceremonial robes have been unraveled by time and history, but the fabric remains strong. In the dominant society, though, ceremony seems to have withered away. I suppose there are many reasons for that: the frenetic pace of life, dissolution of community, the sense that ceremony is an artifact of organized religion forced upon participants rather than a celebration joyfully chosen. … The ceremonies that persist—birthdays, weddings, funerals— focus only on ourselves, marking rites of personal transition. … Ceremonies for the land no doubt existed there, but it seems they did not survive emigration in any substantial way. I think there is wisdom in regenerating them here, as a means to form bonds with this land. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 912

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the Soundscape course thread on ceremony making land and people know each other reciprocally (ch8), and the settler-rootlessness theme of ch50/51. — connects to: Settlers share the grief of lost ecological reciprocity with Indigenous peoples — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 765; Settler visitors to sacred sites hunger for lost land-love — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 903
• SEED: Angle for an essay: what would it mean to regenerate land ceremonies on stolen ground without appropriation — the bridge between Indigenous and settler grief that ch51 opened.