Adams] 



SHONTO: ROLE OF NAVAHO TRADER 



187 



Table 31. — Daily volume of cash, credit, and direct trade transactions, Slionto 

 Trading Post, March 1954 



• Railroad signup days. 



CASH SALES 



In spite of a marked increase since World War II, cash sales at 

 Shonto Trading Post still account for less than one-third of the store's 

 total volume. Such cash transactions as do take place are primarily 

 with persons from outside Shonto community (see "Clientele," pp. 

 184-186) and, secondarily, intermittent and incidental purchases by 

 local Navahos. 



Low volume of cash sales within the community is in a sense de- 

 liberate. It is an inevitable byproduct of the store's policy of credit 

 saturation as a technique of market protection (see "Market Control," 

 pp. 169-170). The total amount of cash actually circulating in the 

 community is kept to a minimum by allowing advance credit against 

 all predictable earnings (cf. Kluckhohn and Leighton, 1946, p. 39). 

 Ideally, it is thought that a really alert and experienced trader should 

 be able to estimate community earnings with such accuracy as to be 

 able to tie up 75 percent of them in advance credit. Uncertainties in 

 coimnodity prices as well as in the labor market seldom permit such 

 close calculation, but it is true that credit saturation holds down Shon- 

 to's cash on hand to a fraction of its potential. 



