Adams] SHONTO: ROLE OF NAVAHO TRADER 73 



some 6 weeks after the attack, by filing assault and battery charges. 

 After 5 months' additional delay, his assailant was arrested and 

 sentenced to a fine of $120 or 60 days in the Fort Defiance jail. The 

 man was unable to pay the fine and was forthwith jailed, but after a 

 couple of weeks Shonto's tribal councilman, himself son-in-law of the 

 injured "witch," arrived at Fort Defiance with funds sufficient to 

 procure the prisoner's release. 



Up to the present time the role of Christianity at Shonto has been 

 negligible. Prior to 1955 there was never any concerted missionary 

 activity within effective reach of the community, with the result that 

 Shonto was undoubtedly one of the few areas on the Navaho Reserva- 

 tion which boasted not a single professing convert to Christianity. 

 One man had been "converted," to the extent of renouncing all former 

 beliefs, at least twice by visiting missionaries for whom he acted as 

 interpreter, but in each case he had relapsed. In actuality he main- 

 tained two wives throughout, and was a common object of derision for 

 his reputed laziness and drunkenness. 



Because of lack of missionary contact, Shonto has yet to witness 

 anything comparable to the wholesale religious changes observed at 

 Ramah (see Rapoport, 1954). On the other hand, the characteristic 

 "eclectic interest in other systems dealing with the supernatural" 

 (ibid., p. 6) is manifest; Shonto Navahos undoubtedly have complete 

 faith in the existence of a Christian God and the ability of White 

 people to obtain benefits from Him. Nearly everyone at Shonto 

 knows a few of the elementary features of Christianity : the deities 

 God and Christ ; the other worlds above and below where deities and 

 ghosts dwell (cf . Reichard, 1949) ; the major ceremonies of Christmas 

 and Thanksgiving ("little Christmas" in Navaho), and the custom 

 of ritual abstention from productive activity on Sunday. Owing to 

 boarding-school education the Christmas story has taken a place in 

 the regular folklore of the community. On one occasion when Shonto 

 school had been decorated for a Christmas party, the accidental 

 omission of any lambs from a representation of the manger scene at 

 Bethlehem drew vociferous protest from several adults present. 



A missionary representing the Assembly of God sect was active in 

 the community from February 1955 until the summer of 1956. His 

 efforts were hampered by lack of permanent establisliment as well as 

 by his unfamiliarity with Navaho language and society, and he 

 aroused comparatively little interest. Two formal conversions were 

 made; both individuals being employed by the missionary as inter- 

 preters. One of these was the same man who had been converted twice 

 previously. In 1956, as a result of adverse recommendation by one of 

 the grazing committee members, the missionary was denied a build- 

 ing permit by the Navaho tribe. He has since departed from Shonto. 



