172 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuU. 188 



usually be sold for cash to occasional buyers who are entirely outside 

 the structure of supply and finance, and turnover is often slow. In a 

 few cases they can be substituted for cash, on the same terms, in deal- 

 ing with certain suppliers (see below), but they are never a basis 

 for credit. 



COMMODITY EXCHANGE 



The variety and diversity of products still accepted by the modern 

 Navaho trading post in lieu of cash undoubtedly exceeds that found 

 in any other retail business. Kegular media of exchange include 

 lambs, wool, hides, rugs, and a variety of other native crafts, and, in 

 favored years, pinyon nuts. Each of these items plays a specific part 

 in the overall operation of the trading post, and each must be sold 

 or traded in its own special market. Circulation of commodities as 

 between Shonto Trading Post and its various buyers and suppliers 

 is shown schematically in chart D. 



Lambs and wool are sold to feeders and/or commodity houses either 

 directly by the trader, or, much more commonly, tlirough the agency 

 of one or another of the wholesale mercantile houses. The mercan- 

 tilers perform this service in view of their vested interest in the 

 outcome of the sale (see above) , and as a result usually maintain close 

 contacts with commodity markets. 



High costs of handling and transportation are an inevitable dis- 

 advantage of the commodity trade. Shonto's lambs, when buying 

 is complete, must be trailed overland some 135 miles to weighing and 

 shipping pens on the Santa Fe Eailway near Winslow, where actual 

 sale to feeders takes place. The process involves not only considerable 

 labor costs, but also unavoidable dead losses and in some cases a weight 

 loss as well. Wool is trucked at the trader's expense to any of vari- 

 ous warehouses off the reservation, where the buyer or his represen- 

 tative takes possession. 



Eugs, once the cornerstone of the Navaho trade (see "Early Trading 

 Posts," pp. 150-154) , now move in the weakest and most uncertain of 

 all Navaho commodity markets, and are generally considered an un- 

 avoidable nuisance by traders in the Shonto area. The great majority 

 are actually saddle blankets of medium to poor quality, and turnover 

 averages less than 10 percent in most months. For the most part they 

 are sold by mail order, in lots of from 50 to 200 at a time, to curio 

 dealers on the East and West Coasts. Because of the accidental 

 circumstances that Shonto's bulk gasoline supplier is also engaged 

 in an extensive retail curio trade, rugs are sometimes substituted for 

 cash in paying the gasoline bill. A few rugs are sold directly to 



