Adams] SHONTO I ROLE OF NAVAHO TRADER 169 



The modern Navaho trade thus manifests a dual structure of insti- 

 tutions performing closely comparable functions at the wholesale and 

 retail levels; each equally indispensable to the total economy. This 

 relationship is beginning to change with the increasing circulation 

 of cash in the Navaho market, but it is still largely true in 1957 that 

 a group of less than half a dozen mercantile houses ultimately supplies 

 the credit which underwrites the Navaho economy. 



THE CONSUMER MARKET 

 MABKET CHABACTEEISTICS 



The productive economy of Shonto community has been described 

 in detail above (pp. 94-148). In many respects it is classifiable as a 

 "colonial" economy, intermediate between commodity barter and a 

 pure cash economy (cf. Foulke, 1941, pp. 25-46). Similar market 

 conditions a century and more ago gave rise to the country general 

 store (ibid., 1941, pp. 52-54), and many of its aspects are faith- 

 fully preserved by the trading post. The basis of transaction is the 

 exchange of both cash and locally produced commodities primarily 

 for necessities of food, clothing, shelter, and transportation. Com- 

 modities are exchanged at equivalent cash valuation according to a 

 fixed price system. In this respect the Navaho trading post of today 

 differs sharply from the true frontier trading post which served a 

 wide-open and almost moneyless market (see especially Carson, 1954, 

 pp. 20-42). 



Modern Navahos constitute a consumer market which might be 

 termed underdeveloped, but which is decidedly not undeveloped. 

 As consumers, no less than as producers, they are in a colonial stage 

 of evolution, depending on trade to supplement a subsistence econ- 

 omy. This is the consumer market for which modern trading posts 

 compete. 



MABKET CONTROL 



The competitive position of Shonto and nearly all other trading 

 posts, like that of the old general store, is based on territorial monop- 

 oly. The trading post has a recognized local clientele for which it 

 is the only convenient commercial enterprise, and which affords a 

 protected consimier market. In the face of increasing competition 

 from off-reservation towns and the large number of trading posts 

 now operating, the first concern of every modern trader is to retain 

 and protect, rather than to expand, this market. 



By general agreement trading posts do not, in theory, compete with 

 one another. It is a cormnonly expressed sentiment that there are 

 enough Indians to go around if everyone will confine himself to his 

 local clientele and hold the prevailing price line. Again in theory, 



