220 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuU. 188 



to a G.I. allotment (eventually granted) , and to a private charity (no 

 known reply) at the instigation of Navaho clients. 



It was noted earlier that Shonto Trading Post is the principal 

 repository for the community's capital ; not only in the form of pawn 

 (cf. lOuckhohn and Leighton, 1946, p. 38; Leighton and Leighton, 

 1944, p. 19) but also in untraded due bills (see "Pawn" and "Direct 

 Exchange," pp. 195-201) . There are seldom any considerable sums of 

 money circulating in the community, but on those occasions when 

 individuals do come into appreciable sums of money they are nearly 

 always banked in the trading-post vault, whence they are apt to be 

 drawn out piecemeal over a period of weeks or months. 



Trading posts, however, are much more than merely savings banks. 

 As the only financial institutions of any kind in many commmiities, 

 they have an equally important function as moneylending and fi- 

 nancial agencies (see Coolidge and Coolidge, 1930, p. 68; Luomala, 

 1938, p. 5). Most traders lend small sums of cash (up to $10 or 

 $15) against pawn quite freely, considering them a fairly secure 

 source of mcome. Shonto and neighboring trading posts charge 

 a flat 10 percent interest on all such loans — far less than Navahos 

 ordinarily charge one another (cf. Franciscan Fathers, 1910, pp. 492- 

 493). In a few cases where the prospect of repayment is good, far 

 larger loans have been made either in the interest of increased Navaho 

 income or as outright investments. It is regular practice to loan 

 money to reliable wage workers who wish to go in search of jobs 

 on their own, and Shonto men on occasion have borrowed as much 

 as $200 to take them to Los Angeles. In earlier days it was common 

 practice for traders to stake weavers to their materials (see Amsden, 

 1934, p. 179) and silversmiths to their tools (Kluckhohn and Leigh- 

 ton, 1946, p. 39) : a calculated investment in future production and 

 markets. 



Nowadays cash loans are occasionally granted to finance potentially 

 profitable enterprises. One Shonto man borrowed $250 to develop 

 an alfalfa farm in the canyon. Shonto's owner even went so far 

 as to put up $5,000 to back the Navaho-operated Tsegi Trading 

 Post, on the theory (which proved to be only partly correct) that 

 the store would pull trade primarily from Kayenta rather than from 

 Shonto. 



ANCILLARY FUNCTIONS 



No description of any Navaho trading post would be complete 

 which included only its directly profit-motivated activities. Shonto 

 and most other trading posts, particularly in more or less remote 

 communities, are important as community centers and as intercul- 

 tural communication points no less than as mercantile agencies. As 



J 



