Adams] SHONTO: ROLE OF NAVAHO TRADER 135 



the direct sponsorship of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. A majority 

 of Shonto families worked at one time or another in the sugar-beet 

 and carrot fields of Utah and Idaho during those years. 



In 1952 the recruitment of nonrailroad labor was brought within 

 the operations of the Arizona State Employment Service, and ener- 

 getic recruiting was halted. The State employment service maintains 

 a field office at Tuba City and posts an occasional clearance order on 

 the Shonto Trading Post bulletin board, but no active recruiting has 

 been carried on in the community. Almost immediately after the 

 cessation of recruiting, Shonto's response to agricultural and all other 

 nonrailroad work dropped to almost nothing, where it remains at the 

 present time. The community in 1955 had no effective contact with 

 the State employment service office, and classification cards were car- 

 ried on only about half a dozen of its residents. 



Neither Shonto nor any of its neighboring communities ever took 

 kindly to seasonal agricultural work. Probably an important factor 

 was that its heaviest manpower demands (in Utah and Idaho) con- 

 flicted with the most active period in Shonto's own agiicultural cycle. 

 There also persists in the community today a general feeling that the 

 work is overly hard and the reward low — a feeling that is shared by 

 most traders (see pp. 280-281) . 



In 1955 the total of known income from jobs outside Shonto com- 

 munity, other than railroad jobs, was estimated at no more than 

 $3,750, equal to 2.3 percent of total community income (tables 18, 21). 

 Only 5 men and no women were involved. Included in the total are 

 wages earned by the tribal councilman while in session at Window 

 Rock, by one man as a policeman at Tuba City, by one man from 

 harvesting tomatoes m Utah, and by two men who worked during 

 part of the year as ammunition handlers in California and Arizona 

 defense plants. These figures reflect only employment and income 

 known to the trader. It is possible that a few other individuals may 

 have been employed briefly on the outside, but the total of nonrailroad 

 wage income was almost certainly no higher than $5,000. 



MISCELLANEOUS INCOME 



Table 18 contains three entries under the heading "other," totaling 

 $5,680 (table 21). Chiefly involved is an insurance settlement of 

 $5,000 paid to one of Shonto School's Navaho employees for the acci- 

 dental death of her husband. One Shonto man received a regular 

 G.I. allotment check from a son in the Marine Corps, totaling $180 

 over the year. The remaining $500 represents support received by 

 a Shonto woman from her long- absent husband, who normally does 

 not support her. 



