American Indian Culture and Research Journal

INTRODUCTION The Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) has been described as "visionary, idealistic, theoretical, and impractical" and as a "messianic movement" that "sought to recreate Indian cultures" and "to reverse modernizing trends" by undertaking "to redirect culture change toward communal, utopian societies . . . within the framework of free enterprise." It is regarded by some as the source of Indian self-determination and by others as an instrument of assimilation, and by still others as a reversal of the trend toward the dissolution of tribal structure. Critics have accused the IRA of being devoid of self-government and of bringing to the tribes an inappropriate "western style of democracy without the democracy." Calls have been made for its repeal (International Indian Treaty Council 1974), while another viewpoint regards the IRA as "the most impressive achievement in the field of applied anthropology that the discipline of anthropology can claim.”