240 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuU. 188 



G and H indicates that the history of culture contacts in the western 

 country has included three major phases. From 1860 until shortly 

 after the turn of the century it was primarily the Navahos who sought 

 contact with the White man, and on the latter's ground. This was in 

 the days of high Navaho mobility (cf. Dyk, 1938, passim) when the 

 Navaho was still perhaps better culturally adapted to his environment 

 than were the embryonic Wliite settlements of the frontier. Navahos 

 traveled frequently and often considerable distances to the early Mor- 

 mon colonies in the 1860's and 70's (see "The American Period," 

 pp. 40-42 ; "Early Trading Posts," pp. 150-154) . After 1885 these di- 

 minished in importance, and were replaced by various trading centers 

 along the newly constructed Santa Fe Railway. 



The second phase of western Navaho-Wliite relations occupied 

 roughly the first four decades of the 20th century. It may appro- 

 priately be termed the period of White encroachment and Navaho 

 withdrawal. The first significant and continuing contact initiated 

 wholly by White men and for their own purposes began in 1901 with 

 the establishment of the little Blue Canyon school (see "The Ameri- 

 can Period," pp. 40-42; Van Valkenburgh, 1941, p. 164) . It was fol- 

 lowed within the decade by the Western Navaho Indian Reservation, 

 the Tuba City agency with its boarding school, hospital, court, and 

 so on, and by the Wetherill trading post at Kayenta. These first 

 penetrations into Navaholand proper signaled the growing intention 

 of the Wliite man to make Navaho affairs his business. They were the 

 first of a continuing series which saw the establishment of some two 

 dozen trading posts and several missions between 1910 and 1925; 

 formation of the Navaho Tribal Council (at "White instigation) in 

 1924; and finally the development of a number of day schools (now 

 "community schools") in the 1930's. Insofar as all of these Wliite 

 efforts were bent, deliberately or unwittingly, toward the cultural 

 subjugation of the Navaho, it might fairly be said that the culminat- 

 ing act of this phase of intercultural relations was stock reduction. 



As the White man took over the initiative in culture contact, the 

 Navaho relinquished it. The products of American and European 

 technology as well as many of its concomitant influences were, in a 

 sense, delivered to the Navaho doorstep, so that it was no longer 

 necessary to travel to Lee's Ferry or Kanab or Flagstaff for them. 

 Navaho mobility, an outstanding social feature throughout the pre- 

 ceding century, declined to such an extent that by 1940 only a handful 

 of Shonto people had ever been off the reservation. 



The new government agricultural, health, and educational programs 

 of this era met with comparatively little success among the western 

 Navaho. Except in the immediate vicinity of Tuba City they were 

 never backed by any very effective coercive sanctions, and they had 

 little attraction for Navahos on their own merits. Not until the 



