No.^78]^' ^^^' EASTERN CHEROKEE GROUPS — KUPFERER 313 



the economic cleavage of a community.^" Others, such as Richard 

 Centers, have suggested that without class consciousness a group is 

 not a class.^' Many have experimented with specific criteria to 

 discover the most useful measures for ordering people into classes. 

 Lloyd Warner (1949, p. 164) eventually settled on occupation, source 

 of income, house type, and dwelling areas as the best objective criteria 

 for determining class. August B. Hollingshead (Hollingshead and 

 Redlich, 1953, pp. 161-169) has limited the class variables to occupa- 

 tion, education, and residence. Kahl (1956, p. 46) postulates six vari- 

 ables: personal prestige, occupations, possessions, interaction, class 

 consciousness, and value orientations. 



Of the diverse criteria emerging from social-class research, economic 

 position, styles of life, educational aspirations and expectations, and 

 variations in value orientations are pertinent to the findings at Chero- 

 kee. For it is these variables which have led us to postulate social 

 stratification as a possible explanation of the existing differences 

 within the Modern Indian group. 



Within the Modern Indian group are two classes, the middle class, 

 identified in Thomas' original research, and a lower class, which 

 includes both Thomas' Rural Whites and Generalized Indians. Both 

 of these classes show a range of variation in their members. The 

 basic difference between the two classes as we have suggested above, 

 rests in economic position, educational aspirations, styles of life, 

 and some variations in value orientations. The difference is only 

 one of degree. They share similar goals, and live by much the same 

 ethic.^^ 



THE DYNAMICS OF ACCULTURATION AND SOCIAL 

 STRATIFICATION 



A two-dimensional model has been introduced; it involves both 

 acculturation and social stratification. Figure 8 illustrates this 

 model, its historical derivation, and its relationship to Thomas' 

 construct. It is now necessary to add diachronic depth to the infor- 

 mation in order to understand fully the dynamics of this situation. 



3" Karl Marx defined a class as those who stand in the same relationship to the means of production 

 (Bendix and Lipset, 1953, pp. 27-35). Class for Max Weber was "those people who have the same life 

 chances"— supply of goods, external living conditions, and personal life experiences (Weber, 1958, pp. 180- 

 195). 



M See Centers, 1949; and Page in Bendix and Lipset, 1953, p. 45. 



" Eobert Faris (1960, p. 4) speaks of the dlflerence between the middle class and the lower class as a matter 

 of degree of stabiUty of organization. "Our lower classes . . . share organizational values for the same 

 reason all others do, but differ statistically, due to a variety of causes, in the degree of living up to the prin- 

 ciple. There is ambition . . . there are goals . . . tlirift exists ... in numerically smaller degrees. 

 Robert Merton (1957, pp. 170-171) is in essential agreement with Faris. In his analysis of the causes of 

 anomle, Merton's fundamental postulate is that, as a result of the pervasiveness of the dominant values of 

 the culture, a sizeable minority of lower strata are more or less indoctrinated with these cultural mandates. 

 There are studies which partially support the position of Faris and Merton. See, for example; Mack, 

 Murphy, and Yellin, 1956; and Kahl, 1953, pp. 186-302. 



