Adams] SHONTO: ROLE OF NAVAHO TRADER 19 



The schoolteachers in the community gave me invahuible genealogical 

 data, as well as information on the nature and frequency of adult 

 Navaho contacts with the school, and income figures for school employ- 

 ees. The superintendent at Navajo National Monument provided the 

 same information about his Navaho employees. The Shonto mission- 

 ary gave me information about his activities, particularly in transport- 

 ing local residents to the hospital. The admissions clerk at the Tuba 

 City Hospital gave me invaluable information about Navaho use 

 thereof, and the medical officer in charge gave me the purely medical 

 side of the picture. The district supervisor at Tuba City (with juris- 

 diction over Shonto) provided information about Navaho contacts 

 and relations with other Government agencies. The director of the 

 Nava-Hopi Unit of the Arizona State Department of Public Welfare 

 (himself briefly a trader at Shonto) supplied overall income figures 

 for Shonto welfare recipients. Finally, the assistant to the general 

 superintendent at Window Rock furnished me with his own computa- 

 tions of total Navaho income for 1955. These appear in tables 26 and 

 27 (pp. 146-147) and have since been published in Young (1955, p. 

 65). 



RECORDS AND DOCUMENTS 



In addition to my human informants, I have had access to various 

 written records of Navaho life at Shonto. The contribution of most 

 of these has been supplementary, but a few were absolutely basic to 

 the study — so much so tliat it could hardly have been successfully 

 concluded without their aid. 



First and foremost are the various routine economic and income 

 records kept at Shonto Trading Post as a regular part of its business 

 operation. These have furnished the great bulk of the data in pp. 

 94-148, and nearly all the financial data in pages 184^214. They in- 

 clude ledger books, current account books, pawn accounts, duplicate 

 records of old accounts and of commodity and barter transactions, no- 

 tations of credit limits, wool and lamb purcliase books, cash register 

 tapes, and above all those capsule histories of trading post life, the day 

 sheets (cf. Carson, 1954). They include also the paycheck stubs, pay- 

 roll records, correspondence from the Railroad Retirement Board, 

 and other data on railroad earnings which accrue to the trader in his 

 capacity as claims agent (see "Railroad Work," pp. 129-133). Addi- 

 tional income data have been obtained from the records of Shonto 

 School, Navajo National Monument, the Railroad Retirement Board, 

 and the Arizona State Department of Public Welfare. 



Of almost equal value has been the painstakingly accurate school 

 census compiled by Shonto's Wliite schoolteachers. Since my position 

 as trader never allowed me the opportunity to circulate freely in the 



