6 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY IBuU. 188 



development of such studies. The earlier works, beginning in the 

 19th century and continuing until about 1940, are for the most part 

 purely etlmographic — concerned with precontact Navaho culture and 

 especially with religion. In this category are the pioneering investi- 

 gations of Washington Matthews, the long series of social and reli- 

 gious studies undertaken by Gladys Eeichard and especially by Father 

 Berard Haile, and the varied ethnographic potpourri from the pen 

 of W. W. Hill. (A full enmneration of relevant titles published by 

 these four students alone would fill several pages of bibliography. 

 For titles and full documenation, the reader is referred to Klucklioln 

 and Spencer, 1940.) Although culture historians in this period con- 

 cerned themselves with Navaho culture contact and change in pre- 

 Anglo times (e.g., Farmer, 1941 ; Hill, 1940 b ; Kroeber, 1928 ; Luomala, 

 1938), such studies uniformly ignored the phenomenon of modem 

 culture contact and its consequences. 



Popular and nonanthropological works during the same period 

 were somewhat more concerned with the realities of modern Navaho 

 life, although Lipps (1909) found himself able to describe the Navaho 

 economy of his day without any mention of the trader. It was not 

 until 1930 that the role of the trader even in the "traditional" Navaho 

 economy was recognized in print, and then only in a popular work 

 (Coolidge and Coolidge, 1930, pp 67-69). The Coolidges (1930, 

 p. 67) described the trader as "far and away the most important 

 White man on the Navajo Reservation, outside of government offi- 

 cials," yet devoted only three pages of their study of current Navaho 

 life to him. 



It was Amsden's (1934, pp. 172-182, 191-204) painstaking history 

 and analysis of Navaho weaving which first gave the trader his due 

 as a historic influence in the Navaho economy. Amsden's account 

 has been widely quoted by later students (e.g., Luomala, 1938, pp. 

 65-70; Underhill, 1956, pp. 185-190) and seems to remain at the 

 present time the standard source on the historical role of the Navaho 

 trader. The structural-functional significance of the trading post 

 received significant attention for the first time in 1937, when it was 

 studied by Yomigblood at the behest of the Indian Bureau. The re- 

 port appeared only in the form of a paper appended to the transcript 

 of a senate subcommittee hearing (Youngblood, 1937) and has re- 

 ceived little attention from anthropologists, although it is quoted by 

 Luomala (1938, p. 5) and Sanders et al. (1953, pp. 231-234). Young- 

 blood's account is the only important title on Navaho-trader rela- 

 tions to appear among 11 pages of entries on "Navajo relations with 

 Whites" in the Kluckhohn-Spencer (1940) bibliography on the 

 Navaho. 



The turning point in Navaho studies was reached in the 1940's, 

 and is marked by the various works and particularly the brilliant 



