4 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuU. 188 



fact that my acquaintance with the territory south of the Hopi ViUage 

 was even less than that of my employer, and that I knew virtually no 

 "Trader Navaho" (see "Communication," pp. 212-214), I readily ac- 

 cepted his offer. Certainly I was attracted to it more by a vague sense 

 of adventure than by any professional consideration, and I made no 

 records or analysis of my experience or my relations with the herders. 

 If I had no other qualifications for the assignment of range boss, I 

 had at least sense enough to let the Navaho herders run things their 

 own way without any interference from me, with the result that the 

 drive was a success from my employer's point of view. It began, 

 for me, a period of association with Shonto Trading Post which has 

 continued through the succeeding years and has culminated in the pres- 

 ent study. After 1951, 1 had a standing invitation to return to Shonto 

 and take charge of the sheep drive every fall. I did not avail myself 

 of the opportmiity in the following year, but in 1953, having termi- 

 nated my studies at the University of California, I returned to the 

 Navaho Reservation. I worked for a short time at Navajo National 

 Monument (see map 3), and then once again I made the drive to the 

 railroad with Shonto's lambs. Immediately upon completion of the 

 drive, I went to work full time as the regular trader at Shonto Trading 

 Post, commencing an intermittent experience which continued over 3 

 years and largely formed the basis of the present study. 



TRADING EXPERIENCB 



During my first weeks as a trader, I was much too busy learning 

 the endlessly complicated "ropes" of trading (cf . "Staff," pp. 163-164) , 

 and struggling to communicate with the customers, to be aware to 

 any extent of what went on beyond the trading post door. As I 

 began to master the routine and feel at home behind the counter, how- 

 ever, I also began to see a new world of anthropological experience 

 openmg up before me. I was, I realized, seemg a side of Navaho life 

 and a series of intercultural relationships at which I had only guessed 

 before, and which, I am convinced, have been fully perceived by few 

 observers of the Navaho scene. 



To begin with, I quickly learned that the postwar Navaho economy 

 was very different from what I or anyone of my acquaintance 

 had supposed (see pp. 94-148) . I saw clearly that my 1950 survey had 

 not sufficiently penetrated to the purely native roots of the Navaho 

 economy, with the result that I had in some ways overestimated and in 

 others underestimated the significance of wage work. Most clearly 

 of all, I saw that I, along with many another student of the Navaho, 

 had ignored the paramount influence of the trader in the Navaho 

 economy. Finally, I became aware that I was involved in a situation 

 of culture contact which manifestly was not operating to produce 



