ABSTRACT
The Indian Reorganization Act intended to "reorganize" Indians on two levels: economically, according to a cooperative and corporate model; and politically, as a government for which the secretary of the Interior would provide checks and balances. The Reorganization Era that began in 1906 sent conflicting cultural, political, and social forces crashing against one another. The period from 1911 through 1924 can be called the era of repression and persecution; missionaries and bureaucrats flexed their muscles and used the reservation context to launch assaults on the internal logic and social fabric of Indian life. Two broad categories of social activists fought against this reactionary conservatism. The growing progressive-traditional split ruptured the village politically eventually; the Upper District accomplished a ceremonial split similar to that in Oraibi in 1897 by holding its own Katsina initiations. Women, who had just gotten the vote and become a new political force, played an active part in both groups.
