254 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuU. 188 



no powers of its own : he is not taken seriously. His Wliite neighbors 

 imply that the Navahos are merely playing at governing themselves, 

 like children, and the local councilman's lack of education and low 

 status in the community (see "Social and Political Authority," pp. 

 65-68) help to perpetuate this impression among them. The antago- 

 nism aroused between traders and the Navaho tribe in coimection with 

 trading post ownership a few years ago (see "Shonto Trading Post," 

 pp. 157-161) has left an aftermath of mutual suspicion such that it is 

 not uncommon for the trader to disparage the activities of the council- 

 man. There is not, at any rate, any feeling of commimity of interest 

 as between the tribal councilman and any White institution. 



The status of the tribal court at Tuba City is affected by similar 

 considerations. White people at Shonto generally regard it with 

 complete indifference as a purely Navaho affair and something of a 

 caricature of American courts. In most cases where the court or 

 law enforcement system threatens a member of the community, the 

 trader in particular is likely to side with the Navaho individual for 

 personal reasons. Both traders and schoolteachers are apt to dis- 

 parage the efforts and competence of the Navaho police for not fur- 

 nishing them any kind of protection. 



Probably the ultimate basis for disparagement of the tribal organ- 

 ization in all its activities is the potential threat which it poses to 

 the status system. Not only do all White people on the reservation 

 enjoy a distinct status advantage as a result of the cultural and social 

 subjugation of the Navaho (see "History of Contacts," pp. 237-244), 

 but in many cases their continued institutional role depends on the con- 

 tinued subordination of the Navaho. Both traders and government 

 officials (even, occasionally, schoolteachers) can be heard to remark 

 that they like the Navahos as Navahos (cf. Leighton and Leighton, 

 1944, p. xvii), but that educated ones are no good. Ambivalent feel- 

 ings toward Navahos are characteristic of many Whites, and par- 

 ticularly employees of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. It might be said 

 that they want the Navahos to become like White people collectively, 

 as is more or less the aim of the modem Bureau program, but to re- 

 main Navahos individually. At any rate resentment of Navaho at- 

 tempts to imitate Wliite behavior is leveled primarily at individuals 

 rather than institutions. Individual acculturation threatens the over- 

 all status system and with it some of the authority enjoyed by traders, 

 government officials, and even missionaries. 



In folk-urban culture contact situations such as that at Shonto, 

 the recurrent roles of administrator, entrepreneur and missionary 

 have been identified repeatedly (e.g. Malinowski, 1945, p. 15; Sum- 

 mer Seminar on Acculturation, 1954, p. 981) . The recurrence extends 

 in many cases to the interrelation of these roles as well as to their 

 relation to the subordinate culture. It may be said of missionaries 



