San Carlos Apache Cattle Industry
The complete assimilation of the Indian cultures into the general culture of the United States has been, and still is, the goal of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The program put into operation to achieve this purpose has been set up in terms of total and approximately simultaneous assimilation in all aspects of culture. Yet, in many instances, specific segments of an Indian culture have been singled out and brought under pressure to change without sufficient consideration as to: 1) how the change would affect relationships with the rest of the culture system, or 2) how existing relationships might affect the proposed change. An example of this selective type of directed culture change is the case study outlined in this paper, the Hereford cattle industry of the San Carlos Indians.