Is western-style democracy the only way to go?

I think so.  Have a look at this.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/native-tribe-will-petition-ottawa-to-remove-their-indian-status/article1356107/
Wow. We are trying to impose democracy on Afghanistan. We insist that they must hold western-style elections although Afghanistan has a traditional tribal system as well (warlords). The difference that I see is that the warlords have access to no natural resources while the Gitxsan tribal chiefs apparently would have access to plenty.
My question is, can/should we allow a subset of Canadians to, by way of a western-style election, give up western-style democracy - forever?
In our western-style democracy we see politicians and political appointees who can't keep their hands out of the cookie jar. Are the tribal chiefs going to be any different? (The warlords don't even have a cookie jar and have to make deals with criminals in order to survive.)
Rather than have the Gitxsan proposal involve the traditional tribal system, they could form a corporation to harvest the natural resources with each community member owning one non-salable non-transferable share that would be created at some age of majority (maybe 13 years of age) and expire on death. That would work for me.