Adams] SHONTO I ROLE OF NAVAHO TRADER 193 



his lambs or wool forthwith. It is then said that such hauling is done 

 only as a personal favor at the urgent request of the Navaho himself. 

 This transparent subterfuge is necessitated by the fact that traders are 

 licensed to do business only and entirely within their own premises. 



Unlike livestock products, modern Navahos find plenty of uses 

 for cash other than to pay their bills at the trading post. Hence 

 the special restrictions on credit against cash income and the peculiar 

 treatment of checks (see above). It is the almost universal belief 

 that the only way to collect a relief account or a railroad account 

 is to present the debtor's check in one hand and his account book 

 in the other. 



The negotiation of a check on account is ideally, and often in prac- 

 tice, accomplished without any verbal exchange whatever. The 

 trader hands the check to its recipient together with pen or stamp 

 pad; the moment it is signed or thumbprinted he repossesses it and 

 rings up the amount due on account without any consultation with 

 the owner. If the latter desires to use the check for any purposes 

 other than to pay his account in full it is necessary either to snatch 

 it away from the trader and walk out of the store with it, a course 

 of action which automatically results in suspension of all future 

 credit privileges ; or else to argue it out with the trader — a stratagem 

 which is seldom if ever successful. In cases where the debtor can 

 plead a legitimate need for cash (e.g. to pay for a trip to the hos- 

 pital) he will be required first to settle his account with the check 

 in hand, and then to borrow the necessary cash at 10 percent interest 

 against the next check. 



Territorial monopoly affords the trader a special advantage in all 

 transactions involving checks. He is almost invariably the only per- 

 son in the community wdth sufficient funds to negotiate a check for 

 more than 10 or 15 dollars. He will, of course, refuse to have 

 anything to do with a check except on his own terms. Even if the 

 check's recipient owes nothing on account he may be required to 

 make substantial purchases before it will be cashed. The alterna- 

 tive, for most of Shonto's Navahos, is a journey of 25 miles or more 

 to the next nearest trading post, and here the same requirments are 

 almost sure to be in force. 



Underlying all book transactions is the implicit threat of for- 

 feiture of credit unless accounts are paid on the trader's terms. The 

 threat is kept in the community's consciousness at all times by fre- 

 quent oblique references and erstwhile "kidding," as well as by 

 straightforward and severe warnings to anyone who shows signs 

 of recalcitrance, even as a joke. The importance of credit obliga- 

 tions is one subject upon which the trader permits no levity. 



Within Shonto community, which is to say among those families 

 who have no convenient access to any other store, the expressed and 



