Adams] SHONTO: ROLE OF NAVAHO TRADER 227 



When Shonto people do get into trouble with the law, it is always 

 expected tliat the trader will advance the money necessary to pay 

 their bail and/or fines. 



QENEKAL FACTOTUM 



There remains a variety of ancillary activities which are or have 

 been performed by traders in all parts of the reservation in behalf 

 of their Navalio clientele, and which are not readily classifiable in 

 terms of function. Some of them are performed at Navaho instiga- 

 tion, and some on the trader's own initiative. They include direct 

 assistance in such matters as repairing trucks and sewing machines, 

 and in other matters in which a White man's special knowledge or 

 experience may be needed. They include also the trader's action in 

 cooperating with charitable institutions to stage their now-famous 

 "Christmas parties," and the distribution of various gifts. Finally, 

 they include the unofHcial function of community historian and the 

 recording of birtlis, marriages, and divorces, not to mention building 

 coflSns and burying the dead.^* 



ANCrLLABY FUNCTIONS FOE WHITES 



The modern Navaho trading post is a two-way channel of com- 

 munication, and White individuals and agencies as well as Navahos 

 take advantage of its special cross-cultural position. If the ancillary 

 functions of the store in behalf of Whites are secondary to those in 

 behalf of Navahos, it is to some extent because the interests of the 

 store are more clearly allied with those of Navahos than with those 

 of other White institutions. It is also true that a far greater num- 

 ber of Navahos are necessarily concerned with the White world than 

 vice versa. Nevertheless those few Americans and American insti- 

 tutions which are chartered to deal with Navahos regularly make 

 use of the trading post in doing so (see especially Coolidge and Cool- 

 idge, 1930, pp. 68-69; Luomala, 1938, p. 5). On behalf of its White 

 neighbors as well as outsiders, Slionto Trading Post sometimes func- 

 tions as a promoter, a distributor, an agency of communication, and 

 a source of information. 



Other White agencies generally recognize that a trading post prob- 

 ably has more influence (see "The Structure of Contact," pp. 231-237) 

 with its clientele than they themselves are likely to have, and are 

 often anxious to make use of this influence by enlisting the store 

 to promote their own programs. Activities of this kind in connection 



23 A variety of descriptive accounts will be found to elaborate on these more or less 

 miscellaneous functions of the trading post. Among the best are Coolidge and Coolidge, 

 1930, pp. 67-69 ; Loumala, 1938, p. 5 ; Sanders et al., 1953, pp. 233-234 ; and Underbill, 

 1956, pp. 180-195. Somewhat more dramatized are the strictly popular accounts of 

 Gillmor and Wetherill, 1934, passim ; Faunce, 1934, pp. 98-148 ; Hannum, 1946, passim ; 

 and Schmeddlng, 1951, pp. 306-346. 



