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Ethnographic research reveals that a persisting 20 per cent of live births on a Canadian Indian Reserve are illegitimate. The history and contemporary patterns of illegitimacy in this community are described. The author attempts to account for fluctuations in the number of illegitimate births by relating them to variations in the degree of social and cultural integration of the community. His conclusions are that structural factors are responsible for the high incidence of illegitimacy and that changing socio-economic conditions which affect community integration (ad thus individual commitment to the norm of legitimacy) may elevate or depress this incidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]