Page:LewisMeriam-TheProblemOfIndianAdministration.djvu/114

wish to remain Indians, to preserve what they have inherited from their fathers, and insofar as possible to escape from the ever increasing contact with and pressure from the white civilization. In this desire they are supported by intelligent, liberal whites who find real merit in their art, music, religion, form of government, and other things which may be covered by the broad term culture. Some of these whites would even go so far, metaphorically speaking, as to enclose these Indians in a glass case to preserve them as museum specimens for future generations to study and enjoy, because of the value of their culture and its picturesqueness in a world rapidly advancing in high organization and mass production. With this view as a whole if not in its extremities, the survey staff has great sympathy. It would not recommend the disastrous attempt to force individual Indians or groups of Indians to be what they do not want to be, to break their pride in themselves and their Indian race, or to deprive them of their Indian culture. Such efforts may break down the good in the old without replacing it with compensating good from the new.

The fact remains, however, that the hands of the clock cannot be turned backward. These Indians are face to face with the predominating civilization of the whites. This advancing tide of white civilization has as a rule largely destroyed the economic foundation upon which the Indian culture rested. This economic foundation cannot be restored as it was. The Indians cannot be set apart away from contacts with the whites. The glass case policy is impracticable.

Even among the Rio Grande Pueblos, the Hopis, and the Zunis, where more of the old culture apparently remains than among any other group, the Indians are by no means unanimous in their desire for the preservation of every detail of the old. Some pueblos, notably Laguna, taken as a whole seem to be seeking and finding the white man’s path. Even in the most conservative pueblos individual Indians will be found who have no desire for a glass case existence, who want to take their place in the white civilization, to make their living in a distinctly white industrial pursuit, to dwell in a house with modern sanitary conveniences, to dress like a white man, to have their wives in childbirth attended by skilled physicians in a hospital, to have the doctor in illness as the white man does, to have for their children the educational equipment needful for