26 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BoU. 188 



of variation — no Navalio individuals whom I either like or dislike 

 nearly as much as I do some White people. 



My attitude toward Navaho culture, like that of a very large number 

 of White residents of the Navaho Reservation, is ambivalent. It is 

 derived less from my participation in any one pattern of culture 

 contact than from the fact that since early boyhood I have considered 

 the Navaho Reservation as my home. I have never favored the 

 preservation of Navaho ways of life for their own sake, or because 

 I felt that there was anything intrinsically superior about them. 

 On the contrary, I believe that Navahos must adapt themselves how- 

 ever they can to the White world around them sufficiently to support 

 themselves by their own efforts. On the other hand I have thoroughly 

 enjoyed life on the reservation as I have known it, and I resent at 

 least personally any threatened change. I, too, am haunted by the 

 vision of my favorite canyons and mesas littered with papers and 

 bottles; of endless rows of roadside curio stands vying with each 

 other in sheer hideousness; and of an unending procession of casual 

 and unappreciative visitors in slacks and sunglasses. These things 

 to me are a threat to a cherished way of life — yet I recognize that 

 they are only the incidental though inevitable byproducts of a fabu- 

 lously high material standard of living. 



Personally, I like old-fashioned, "unacculturated" Navahos better 

 than most of their more educated offspring, and I appreciate and 

 value the hairknot as their symbol (see "Dress and Ornamentation," 

 pp. 79-81). My attitude stems largely from the fact that the older 

 folk do not manifest the symptoms of culture conflict, such as drunk- 

 enness and hostility, often found in their descendants. It is also, 

 perhaps, due to the fact that they seldom challenge my superior status. 



The greatest danger of personal bias to the present study is that 

 it may have led me to overestimate and overstate the importance of 

 the trader in Navaho life and in Navaho-White relations. If this 

 is so, it must be because I have not even yet entirely shed my own 

 role as trader. It is something which only other and more disin- 

 terested students of the Navaho scene can determine. 



PREPARATION OF THE REPORT 



The report on the Shonto study, which occupies succeeding pages, 

 has been prepared entirely in residence at the University of Arizona. 

 This undertaking has occupied most of the period between September 

 1956 and September 1957. It has been made possible by a Wenner- 

 Gren Pre-Doctoral Fellowship Grant and by additional assistance 

 from the Colonel McClintock Education Fund and from the Eban 

 Comins Fellowship Fund, all of which are herewith gratefully 

 acknowledged. 



