Native Americans have a long history of resistance to social and cultural assimilation into white culture. By employing various creative strategies, Native Americans attempted to cope with changes arising from the European colonial movement to the Americas. There are fundamental differences in worldviews and cultural and social orders between Indians and Europeans, which have contributed to the conservatism of Native American cultures. In this article, two aspects of these cultural and institutional differences of Native American societies will be examined: holistic beliefs of Native Americans versus dualistic worldviews and harmony versus domination. These two aspects are important in explaining changes (or lack of changes) in Native American societies, because they suggest that the Native American worldview is more cyclical and that its components are interrelated, whereas Western societies have a clear demarcation between cultural elements, such as religion, kinship and morality. However, the theoretical frameworks that explain conservatism in Indian cultures have certain limitations, as these theories are oriented around the Western worldview and have been developed based on Western terms; therefore, the indigenous population was not considered when these theories were developed. Duane Champagne in Social Change and Cultural Continuity Among Native Nations explains that there has never been a definitive worldview that encompasses a single Native American culture, because there is no such thing. as an “indigenous community” (2007: 10). However, there are some commonalities in the ways of seeing and experiencing the world that many indigenous communities and their religions appear to share. One of the di...... middle of paper ...... nature of Native American societies: Many Native American communities are not open to outsiders. There are consistent patterns or themes regarding Native American worldviews and the differentiation of cultural elements and society. Native Americans have retained control of institutional and cultural orders against the effort at assimilation because all aspects of Native American societies are interdependent, guided by broader cultural views of the world. Each cultural or institutional element actually overlaps with other elements, so that change in one element inevitably affects the larger cultural and social complex. While adoption of a new environment and small changes was possible in the West, where social and cultural elements are separated from each other, Native Americans faced conflict and potential significant disruption of existing social orders..