Abstract
The purpose of this study is to provide information helpful in developing an organized educational and vocational guidance program among the Winnebago Indians on the reservation at Winnebago, Nebraska. The ultimate aim is to assist them to increase their productivity to the point where they will enjoy higher living standards. An understanding of the Winnebago culture, cooperation among the Winnebagoes and non- Indians, and sound techniques may help to accomplish that goal.|The term "culture" in this thesis denotes a system of common ideas and standards by which a group of individuals relate themselves to each other, to material objects, to the supernatural, and to outsiders.|It is hoped that this study of the treatment of a small tribe of Indians may be used as a comparison with the treatment of the people in underdeveloped countries of the world. The United States may be losing the Cold War battle for the minds of men. In Southeast Asia, in Africa, in the Middle East and in Latin America students and intellectuals appear to be most skeptical of American good intentions and good faith. Mead says:|"In Indo-China, efforts at practical education in agriculture failed because they taught the value of fertilizer to people for whom it was too expensive to buy, at a time when they had to pay interest at the rate of about 80% for three months if they were to finance the purchase of fertilizer by borrowing. Actual harm was done when cultivators in Burma were persuaded to weed their rubber plantations, and found that this reduced the sap; and when they were persuaded to do deep plowing in the rice fields and thus broke the pan that held the water. Again harm was done when young Turkish farmers were persuaded, also according to generalized principles, to remove from their wheat fields the stones which had retained the moisture."|"We have spent a lot of money on them," echoes the man on the street. He repeats to himself that United States prestige is high, and conveniently ignores the danger that confronts the free world. The United States has spent a lot of money on the Indians mentioned above, with good intentions sometimes, usually by trial and error. The Winnebago Indians have a deeply rooted distrust for the whites because they feel that the government insisted on the exclusive quality of American values at the expense of intercultural understanding.