234 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuU. 188 



uation will, over the years, influence the outcome of culture contact, 

 then it should be equally legitimate to assume that the presence of the 

 same factors at any given moment in culture contact will affect the 

 ways and degrees in which contact institutions may influence behavior 

 at that moment. The social system at Shonto, within which culture 

 contact takes place, carries with it at any given time a power struc- 

 ture and a communication network which enable specific White insti- 

 tutions to influence day-to-day Navaho behavior in specific ways. 

 As noted above, the extent and character of such influence varies 

 widely as between one contact institution and another, depending in 

 large measure on the history and nature of the institution itself. 



This synchronic measure of culture contact may appropriately be 

 termed "cross-cultural influence" — a measure of the way m which 

 carriers of one culture may affect the behavior of carriers of another 

 culture at any given time and within a given contact situation. The 

 discussion which occupies the remainder of this section is, then, a 

 comparative analysis of Shonto's contact institutions in terms of 

 their cross-cultural influence. 



As a final note, it is necessary to recognize that "cross-cultural 

 influence," as here defined, is not necessarily a capacity to influence 

 behavior so as to produce culture change. It is, rather, a capacity to 

 influence behavior in specific ways under specific circumstances, either 

 in the direction of change or stability. Given the varied motivations 

 of different American contact institutions (cf . Malinowski, 1945, p. 15 ; 

 Siunmer Seminar on Acculturation, 1954, p. 981), it should not be 

 surprising to find them, at one time or another, working at cross 

 purposes in a given contact situation. Thus one contact institution 

 may exert its influence to forestall culture change which is sought by 

 another institution. In either case the extent to which an institution 

 may produce or forestall change depends upon its cross-cultural 

 influence. 



A MODEL FOB THE ANALYSIS OF INFLTJENCE AT SHONTO 



The present study of Shonto involves a special problem in the 

 analysis of culture contact, in reducing it to the microcosm of a 

 single community. The totality of influence exerted by Wliite culture 

 on Navaho society at Shonto must be encompassed within the frame- 

 work of relations between and among a handful of alien institutions 

 and the Navaho community. Under these circumstances the problem 

 cannot be approached in terms of the contact of two organisms ; the 

 complex of contact institutions does not add up to any sort of inte- 

 grated sociocultural whole, so that each must be analyzed separately. 

 Further, since their interests and purposes are not the same, they 

 must be compared in regard to contact, communication, and influence. 



For comparative purposes, the major need is to reduce the vague 

 concepts of "intercultural role" and "intercultural communication" 



