Information gathered via a 3-year first-hand experience with life on the Passamaquoddy Indian Reservations (Canadian-Maine border) is presented. Subject headings and representative sub-headings include: cultural and historical setting (population characteristics, physical setting, and State and Federal relationships); social institutions through time (kinship alliance, sex roles, age, social class, tribal government, factions, religion, education, treaty rights, and welfare); overall organization of the community (in/out migration and Indian identity); relationships to the outside world (Washington County, Maine, etc.); capsule history (missionaries, fur trade, French and English wars, post-war period, Revolutionary War, 1800's, 1900's to 1950's, and 1950's to present); tribal wealth (utilization, management, and potential of natural resources; capital resources, etc.); tribal income (local and distant employment, hunting/fishing, anonymous donor funds, Catholic Bureau of Indian Affairs, State Department of Indian Affairs, patterns of income acquisition and use, Federal programs, etc.); products, services, and markets; psycho-social factors affecting work patterns and economic development, social obligations, the idea of limited good, anti-work incentives, and personal, tribal and red vs white goals; management (decision making, law, education, etc.); implementation of Federal social programs (failures, successes, analysis, and suggestions). (JC)