Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

Award Date

1956

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department / School

Sociology and Rural Studies

Abstract

The Indian peoples of the Americas, as well as non-literate peoples around the world, have been swept or are being swept from their cultural moorings by their contacts with ‘white’ civilization. These cultures, whose values center around permanence and patience, have been engulfed in an expanding social order which exalts change. Impelled by its time oriented concepts of progress, opportunity, profit, speed, and efficiency, civilization’s contacts with familizational cultures have been uprooting, breaking, and crushing. The problem of this study shall be to define the Dakota concept of time, to distinguish it from that of Western civilization, and to discover the implications which their differences present to the personality and the culture pattern of the Dakota Indian. If it is possible to define the concept of time of each culture, it then becomes the problem to discover why cultures should have different concepts of time; why that of one culture should present difficulties to another culture; why the Dakota should find it difficult to learn the Western concept of time; and why the Dakota concept of time should continue when it involves the Indian in so many difficulties. If culture theory can be developed to account for these time problems, it should serve to analyze the conditions of culture conflict such as, resistance to change, disorganization, and assimilation. This analysis constitutes the conclusion of this study.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Dakota Indians -- Social life and customs

Description

Includes bibliographical references (pages 101-98)

Format

application/pdf

Number of Pages

106

Publisher

South Dakota State University

Rights

No Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Only
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-NC/1.0/

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