68 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BnU, 188 



due in part to the fact that he lias never had any children, although 

 he has by his own count been married many times, and once he had 

 four wives at once. At the present time he has two wives, one of 

 whom lives at Shonto and the other far in the interior of Black Mesa. 

 The community's disapproval of this arrangement has already been 

 noted. The councilman's apparent sterility remains a cause of anxi- 

 ety to him ; probably once a month he asks the trader to get him some 

 Wliite man's medicine to make him have children. As a start in this 

 direction, he has been taking large quantities of vitamin pills for years. 

 Other derogatory remarks commonly heard concerning the tribal 

 councilman take note of his acquisitiveness and supposed avarice. 



Shonto Navahos, like other Navahos, tend to share with their Pueblo 

 neighbors a distrust of any ambition to power (cf. Benedict, 1934, 

 pp. 91-92). This is particularly true in the case of tribal council 

 service, which is usually believed to consist in the long run of serving 

 Wliite interests as against Navaho interests. While few Shonto 

 people disapprove of Government service in any capacity if the eco- 

 nomic reward is sufficient, they often do not feel obligated to respect 

 or even to obey the authority implicit therein. 



The differentiation between Slionto's internally derived and ex- 

 ternally imposed structure of authority is thus total. The tribal 

 councilman is in effect a Government agent who, with the grazing 

 committee, has inherited almost intact the role of the old district 

 supervisor (see "Government Development," pp. 44-48). He is a 

 man of low status who plays no part in the internal relations of the 

 community. He never intervenes in Navaho disputes, seldom attends 

 sings (he has never sponsored one), and takes no part in community 

 activities. 



The nat'ani, on the other hand, has no voice in Shonto's relations 

 with the outside world. While he is frequently in attendance at 

 public meetings held by the councilman, he never under any circum- 

 stances speaks to them, nor takes any part other than that of spectator. 



LAW AND ORDER 



The situation of Shonto with respect to law presents inevitable 

 parallels with the political situation (see above). In each case the 

 community recognizes the authority of dual sets of sanctions : the one 

 traditional and internally derived, the other alien and externally 

 imposed. Two important distinctions may be made in the case of the 

 legal systems, however. First, unlike the two political systems, both 

 legal codes govern essentially the same field of relations. Second, 

 the agents of Tribal (i.e., American-inspired) Law are not normally 

 present within the community, so that its operation is not automatic. 

 These two factors together have led to a rather different type of 

 adjustment between the two legal systems than has taken place in the 

 case of political systems. 



