The issue is whether a minority group can preserve its culture in a pluralistic society, and the answer depends on what degree of culture is being considered and what specific minority group is under discussion. The Native American population represents one of the most invisible of all American minority groups for most of the country, for much of the population has been relegated to reservations on land separated from the majority society to a great degree. On the reservation, the native population has been able to maintain certain traditions, but long before the current reservation system came into being, the onslaught of white society has been such that the Native American population was reduced in numbers, removed from its former lands, cut off from much of what constituted its culture, and morally and spiritually damaged as well.