Adams] SHONTO I ROLE OF NAVAHO TRADER 223 



COMMUNICATION AGENCY 



Shonto Trading Post undertakes a variety of official and unofficial 

 activities as a means of communication between the community and 

 the outside world. It is, to begin with, the regular mail distribution 

 agency for tlue district, since all Shonto's Navahos receive their letters 

 addressed in care of the store. This gives the trader the advantage 

 of handling the mail (see "Book Credit," pp. 188-195) without the in- 

 convenience and responsibilities of running a post office. The trader 

 picks up the mail from the post office at Red Lake (P.O. Tonalea), 

 30 miles to the southwest. Mail for Navahos is kept in pigeonholes 

 behind the store counter, and handed out on demand — usually to any 

 member of the addressee's residence group. Outgoing mail is col- 

 lected at tlie store and delivered to the post office. 



Inseparable from the postal facility is the activity of the trader as 

 a public scribe. During one month (8 mail deliveries) when records 

 were made, 88 Shonto individuals in 61 households received a total of 

 191 letters and packages — largely from absent schoolchildren (who 

 are required to write home every 2 weeks) and from husbands working 

 on the railroad. Less than a quarter of the recipients were able to 

 read and answer their mail themselves. Not all letters are faithfully 

 answered, but the volume of outgoing mail is about half of that 

 incoming. 



The system of writing in the Navaho language promulgated by the 

 Bureau of Indian Affairs (cf. Young and Morgan, 1943; 1946, p. ii; 

 Underbill, 1953, p. 285) in recent years has no adherents at Shonto. 

 All letters written to and by members of the connnunity are in Eng- 

 lish, even though the senders and recipients usually cannot speak it, 

 let alone read and w^rite it. A heavy burden of translation and of 

 writing therefore falls upon the handful of literates in the community 

 (see "Acculturation," pp. 90-93), including the trader. The latter's 

 services are especially sought in writing and reading "business letters ;" 

 i.e., any letters to or from White individuals or agencies.^^ 



The importance of Shonto Trading Post as an intermediary in 

 communication is further enlianced by its telephone facility. Given 

 the difficulties and uncertainties of travel on the Navaho Reservation, 

 the importance of the telephone in the modern era can hardly be 

 exaggerated. White individuals and agencies wliich have never had 

 face-to-face contact have become closely acquainted and worked to- 

 gether for years over the telephone, and even Navahos are coming 

 to rely on it heavily in their dealings with Government agencies at 



21 Since Shonto's Navaho residents do little or no reading, even the best educated of 

 them are largely unfamiliar with the formal, written vocabulary and grammar of English, 

 and hence usually unable to cope with letters from Whites. Letters written by Navahos 

 are highly distinctive in this regard, in that they are rendered in vernacular speech, 

 complete with slang expressions and interjections. It is almost possible to hear the 

 speaker's accent in a Navaho letter. 



