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BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



[BuU. 188 



1 Figures represent Income earned severally by individual Navahos. They do not include undistributed 

 corporate income of The Navaho Tribe, Inc. 



Community and tribe both derive a little over 30 percent of their 

 income from local sources. The proportions as between home indus- 

 try and local wages are reversed, however. Shonto relies more heav- 

 ily on its native subsistence patterns where Navahos in general rely 

 more heavily on wages. The estimate of $2,000,000 in craft, income 

 for the tribe, representing over 5 percent of total earnings, is perhaps 

 too high, as it is over three times the Shonto figure. 



In railroad income, the proportion of unemployment compensation 

 to wages is about 1 : 4 at Shonto as against 1 : 3 for the entire tribe. 

 Shonto is slightly more dependent on welfare than is the tribe as a 

 whole, however. One of the most potentially significant of all differ- 

 ences between community and tribe is seen in the category of mining 

 income, which contributed nearly 5 percent of all Navaho earnings 

 but not one cent to Shonto. 



As in other areas of life (see "Summary,"' pp. 93-94), it is largely 

 differentiation of White contacts which spells the difference in econ- 

 omy between one Navaho community and another. Shonto and its 

 neighbors, isolated and remote from wage work opportunities in gen- 

 eral, have direct access through the trader to railroad employment, 

 and rely heavily upon it as a result. Isolation and lack of develop- 

 ment in District 2 are further reflected in the low figure for local 



