212 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuU. 188 



lovers" who will go home and vilify the trader. Traders have been 

 subjected to frequent adverse publicity to remind them that in the 

 folklore of 20th-century America the Indian occupies such an exalted 

 place that it is considered unethical to make even an honest living at 

 his expense. 



In actuality most traders enjoy White company when they can have 

 it on their own terms — i.e., when they can do most of the talking. As 

 with Navahos, however, they will customarily wait to hear on what 

 terms they are addressed before conmaitting themselves to any attitude 

 toward the speaker. Under these circumstances it is not surprising 

 that non-Indians, who can normally expect a deferential greeting when 

 they enter a retail store, are apt to conclude that they are being delib- 

 erately ignored, and walk out of the store. As a rule of thumb, it is 

 believed that tourists must be greeted imjnediately on entry and 

 must be waited on to the exclusion of other trade within 2 minutes 

 or the potential customers will leave. The cash reward for such 

 deference is usually so small that few traders bother with tourist 

 trade ; hence do not sell post cards or souvenirs. 



The reputation for contrariness enjoyed by traders is widespread 

 even among their White neighbors. It results to some extent from 

 the characteristically ambivalent attitude toward Navahos which is 

 held by most traders (see pp. 281-287), and is perhaps augmented by 

 the frequent difficulty which the trader has in making himself heard as 

 an expert on Indian affairs. Whatever stereotype of the Indian is 

 presented to him, he is ready to counter it with evidence based on his 

 own experience. 



Traders understandably feel themselves to be better qualified than 

 anyone else to characterize the Navaho. At the same time they find 

 today that many of their Wliite visitors have opinions of the Indian's 

 nature which are as stubbornly held as their own. The superiority of 

 their knowledge and experience is therefore established by contradict- 

 ing whatever idea the visitor has as a matter of principle. If visitors 

 are inclined to disparage or patronize, they are likely to be told that 

 Navahos are ". . . the finest kind of people you'd want to deal with" 

 (Leighton and Leighton, 1944, p. xvii). If, as is infinitely more 

 common in this age, the visitor indulges in a eulogy on the Noble Red- 

 skin, he is almost sure to learn that Navahos are lazy, shiftless, and 

 dirty. These conflicting attitudes are not merely expressed ; they are 

 actually held side by side by a very large number of traders on the 

 Navaho Reservation. 



COMMUNICATION" 



The principal language in which the Navaho retail trade is con- 

 ducted is a jargon which traders call "Navaho" (or, more often, 

 "Navvy" for short) and which Navahos call "trader talk." It is a 

 form of speech known and employed almost entirely by traders and 



