Adams] SHONTO : ROLE OF NAVAHO TRADER 259 



road Work" and "Local Wage Work," pp. 127-133) . Navaho railroad 

 workers live and work among nothing but Navahos and speak nothing 

 but Navaho from week to week. 



It is apparent from chart L that there is an enormous variation 

 in the extent and frequency of Navaho-Wliite contact among the 

 different institutions. Most of them are aimed primarily at particu- 

 lar age or interest groups within the community. Only the trading 

 post, the hospital, and Flagstaff are of potential interest to all adults, 

 and of these only the store has anything approaching regular contact 

 with them. 



Under "Factors of Eole" (chart L) are functional characteristics 

 which affect cross-cultural relations. The first of these concerns the 

 basic charter or raison d'etre of the contact institution. It has been 

 noted elsewhere that: 



. . . particular roles demand specific purposes and entail specific expectations. 

 In the expansion of western European culture, the roles of the administrator, 

 the entrepreneur, and the missionary have established a stereotype in accord- 

 ance with the principal incentives activating the expansion. Important sub- 

 sidiary roles in this movement have been those of the educator and the physician. 

 [Summer Seminar on Acculturation, 1954, p. 981.] 



Each of the three "stereotyped" roles, as well as both of the subsidiary 

 roles, is represented in the Shonto contact situation. The significance 

 of this differentiation may be expressed in considerable part by the 

 observation that commercial and charitable institutions, in contrast 

 to governmental ones, have to depend on the good will of the 

 subordinate group for effective operation and that commercial insti- 

 tutions furthermore have to pay their own way. 



The culture contact situation at Shonto offers, in nearly every area 

 of life, alternative institutions in Navaho and in Anglo-American 

 with overlapping functions (see "Summary," pp. 93-94). It is this 

 condition which is expressed in the variability of Navaho dependence 

 on different contact institutions to perform their overt functions. 

 The measure of Navaho dependence on any contact institution is the 

 negative measure of effective alternates in purely Navaho life. De- 

 pendence on the trading post is high because it performs functions 

 on which the conmiunity depends, and which are not duplicated by any 

 Navaho institution. The functions of the school and the hospital are 

 equally necessary, but in each case there are also alternative Navaho 

 institutions. The effectiveness of native religion for its own purposes 

 is generally regarded as so high that it is felt in this case that the 

 Wliite institution does not offer a satisfactory alternative, in profound 

 contrast to conditions elsewhere in the Navaho country (see Rapoport, 

 1954). 



