Adams] SHONTOI ROLE OF NAVAHO TRADER 253 



INTRACULTUKAL RELATIONS AT THE CONTACT LEVEL 



The foregoing discussion should make apparent the impossibility of 

 analyzing the contact situation at Shonto in terms of the interaction 

 of two sociocultural wholes. The Wliite individuals who actually 

 reside in the cormnunity and are the ultimate foci of cultm'e contact 

 often have more community of interest and more frequent contact 

 with other Whites outside the Navaho Reservation than they have 

 with one another (see "White Society at Shonto," pp. 165-167). On 

 the Navaho Reservation there is no community level of integration in 

 the American sociocultural system. Each White contact institution at 

 Shonto is separately integrated into a broader synthesis in its own 

 special field of interest (chart J) . In other words every contact insti- 

 tution in the community is in theory a separate unit of society, and 

 there are no structurally inherent cross-relationships among them. 



Nevertheless communication and even a degree of functional inter- 

 dependence among contact institutions is an inevitable response to 

 the realities of Navaho life (see "Intracult^iral Orientations," pp. 248- 

 253). Some of the more institutionalized channels of communication 

 between and among Shonto institutions and Navahos are diagrammed 

 in chart K. The extent of such communication depends partly on com- 

 munity or at least lack of conflict of interest, and partly on frequency 

 of communication. It is apparent in chart K that the institutions 

 which have the most regular or most extensive contact with the Navaho 

 community are consistently employed as channels of communication 

 by institutions with less frequent contact. 



The trading post, the school, and the Tuba City Hospital may be 

 said to constitute a central constellation of interacting institutions 

 which are in fairly frequent contact (by telephone in the case of 

 the hospital). School and hospital are both government operations 

 devoted to different aspects of what the Bureau defines as the welfare 

 of the community. The store has little overt interest in either, but 

 is willing to cooperate in the interest of good community and neighbor 

 relations. Both trading post and community school are regularly 

 active in circulating medical information, posting hospital notices, 

 and relaying messages between the hospital and Navahos. The hos- 

 pital as well as the school communicate with Navaho adults through 

 the store to a very large extent. 



No other institution is as closely incorporated into the communica- 

 tion pattern as are the store, school, and hospital. The tribal council- 

 man lives far from the trading post (and part of the time entirely 

 outside the community), so that he is normally out of touch with 

 the other contact institutions. His status among the White representa- 

 tives of external influence in the community is a holdover from the 

 days when the tribal council was a rubberstamp organization with 



