204 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuU. 188 



Shonto Trading Post did $1,584 out of a total volume of $3,940 trade 

 on the two Thursdays during that period. 



If the volume of trade varies from day to day, it remains nearly 

 constant from week to week during any given season (see table 36). 

 Dollar volume is affected by external economic conditions, but actual 

 clientele volume, in the absence of any trading post competition, 

 remains closely predictable. 



Table 36 shows a regular pattern of compensation in the volume of 

 Shonto's trade, in that every especially busy day is predictably fol- 

 lowed by an especially slack one. So long as signup day remains on 

 Thursday, Shonto's trader can always look forward to a pleasant rest 

 on Friday. Thus while 4 signup days and 1 meeting day in April 

 1956 produced a third of the month's total of customers, the 5 days 

 which immedately followed these saw less than half that number, 

 accounting for under 15 percent of the month's total. 



SHOPPING HABITS 



IsTavaho buying behavior is characterized by deliberation and wari- 

 ness. This quality has caught the eye even of casual visitors to such 

 an extent that some description of Navaho trading is almost sure to 

 find its way into any account of Navaho life (see, e.g., Amsden, 1934, 

 p. 178 ; Collier and Collier, 1953, p. 219 ; Underbill, 1956, pp. 182-185) . 

 It may be, as suggested by Kluckhohn and Leighton (1946, p. 79), that 

 some traders in the past have "shamelessly exploited the Indian's igno- 

 rance of markets and of simple arithmetic." Modern traders, on the 

 other hand, will attest that it is no easy matter to put anything over 

 on a Navaho ; also that Navahos on their part have sometimes shame- 

 lessly exploited the trusting disposition and/or lack of judgment of 

 the trader. 



In general it is probably safe to say that Navaho trading behavior 

 obeys what Kluckhohn and Leighton (1946, pp. 223-226) have called 

 the basic premises and "formulas for safety" in Navaho life and 

 thought: be wary of non-relatives, and go slow in unfamiliar situa- 

 tions (Kluckhohn and Leighton, 1946, pp. 225-226). For whatever 

 reason, Navahos today approach their dealings with the trader 

 with a caution which seems to suggest distrust, not of him individually, 

 but of the whole trading context. No transaction is allowed to pro- 

 ceed too fast, and there are frequent pauses to take stock of the 

 situation. 



The result of Navaho trading attitudes, from the White man's point 

 of view, is that the pace of trading-post commerce is agonizingly slow. 

 If "a mean disposition" (cf. Dolva and Beckley, 1950, p. 117) is the 

 prime requisite of a country storekeeper, patience, along with firmness, 

 is the necessity of the trader. Not uncommonly, he will find at the 



