Adams] SHONTO I ROLE OF NAVAHO TRADER 11 



for the study of the situation at hand. It was apparent in the case 

 of Shonto that status and role have quantitative as well as qualitative 

 aspects. The American sociocultural system was and is represented 

 in the community by a series of separate agencies working more or 

 less independently of one another, and the effect of these is felt very 

 unevenly in the community. It was clear to me that the trader in 

 particular had opportunities to influence Navaho behavior and re- 

 sponses which are not shared by other White agencies. This fact, 

 like the qualitative aspect of the trader's role, I was able to account for 

 in terms of the history and structure of culture contact (see pp. 231- 

 267). 



In order to deal with this quantitative aspect of role, I have con- 

 ceptualized a general condition of subordination of Navaho society to 

 White society, which is maintained through a cross-cultural power 

 structure in which the position of Shonto Trading Post is preeminent. 

 That is, I have taken the position that owmg to their differentiated 

 historical and structural positions, different White agencies have 

 differential capacities to influence Navaho behavior — that of Shonto 

 Trading Post being the greatest. 



I find that this notion of variable "cross-cultural influence" in it- 

 self is not new. It was hinted at in the first Social Science Research 

 Comicil acculturation memorandum (Redfield, Linton, and Her- 

 skovits, 1936, p. 150), and is implied or suggested in one way or 

 another in various analyses of culture contact (e.g., Linton, 1940, 

 p. 498; Radcliffe-Brown, 1940, p. 202; Malinowski, 1945, pp. 73-76; 

 Summer Seminar on Acculturation, 1954, p. 981). To my knowl- 

 edge it has not, however, been explicitly formulated, or analyzed 

 in terms of component factors. This is perhaps a consequence of 

 the fact that up to the present time too little attention has been 

 focused on the differential and not infrequently conflicting motives of 

 the different agencies which may be involved in culture contact, 

 particularly where a thoroughly compartmentalized (e.g., Euro- 

 American) culture comes in contact with a folk one (cf. Malinowski, 

 1945, p. 15 and Summer Seminar on Acculturation, 1954, p. 981). 

 There has been instead a tendency to conceptualize culture contact 

 in terms of the interaction of two complete and internally consistent 

 sociocultural systems. 



SUMMARY OF THE PROBLEM 



In stating clearly the underlying assumptions upon which the study 

 of Shonto Trading Post was based, I have to some extent distorted 

 the actual sequences of development of the project. Like many an- 

 other anthropologist going into the field, I did not have my basic as- 

 sumptions clearly in mind myself when I headed for Shonto in July 



