article
Livelihood and tribal government on the Klamath Indian Reservation
Human organization • 20 • Published In 1962 • Pages: 172-180
By: Stern, Theodore.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This article is an examination of the vitality and effectiveness of the Klamath Indian tribal government and its relationship to the tribal economy. By privatizing reservation land, the Dawes Act (1895) was designed to break up the tribal 'mass' and to 'individualize' the Indians. However, in the case of the Klamath, a large tract of forest land (860,000 acres), unsuitable for farming, continued to be held in common and administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs which later leased it to commercial lumber interests. In 1950, the per capita income earned by reservation Indians from commercial lumbering exceeded the median county family income. This dependency on an assured income and contentment with the status quo undermined Klamath economic diversification and development, weakened tribal solidarity, and engendered general political apathy. The more politically active did form factions and vied for control over various executive committees within the General Council, however, the factions did not have wide support because they did not control the tribes most valuable resource: its timberland.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Real property
- Tribe and nation
- Deliberative councils
- Public welfare
- Political parties
- Elections
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Klamath
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 1998
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- North America
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Plains and Plateau
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- article
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard ; 1996
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1949-58
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1864-1958
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Klamath County, Oregon, United States
- NotesAdditional notes
- Theodore Stern
- Includes bibliographical references
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 47033317
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Klamath Indians