282 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuU. 188 



tween tlie trader and all other White contact agencies. As regards the 

 place of the Navaho in the modern world, the trader's values are in 

 many respects closer to those of Navahos themselves than they are to 

 the values of his White neighbors. Government policy, although it has 

 fluctuated considerably over the years, has been and remains essen- 

 tially "assimilationist" (cf. Summer Seminar on Acculturation, 

 1954, pp. 988-990) . In a more limited sphere, the objective of mis- 

 sionaries and of town merchants is the same. At the opposite extreme, 

 a strong body of popular American sentiment favors Navaho "reactive 

 adaptation" to White contact (see Summer Semmar on Acculturation, 

 1954, p. 987; also Redfield, Linton and Herskovits, 1936, p. 152). 

 Between these two extremes, both of which he constantly disparages, 

 the trader holds fast to the ideal of "stabilized pluralism" (Summer 

 Seminar on Acculturation, 1954, p. 990) upon which his operation is 

 structurally dependent. 



The trader's special ideal in Navaho- Wliite relations colors his own 

 perception of them, and even more the view which he passes along to 

 the Navaho community. As a result, the behavior and objectives of 

 others are consistently reinterpreted, both deliberately and subcon- 

 sciously, to conform to the trader's own ideals. Shonto's Navahos 

 thereby form an impression as to what the Wliite world expects of 

 them which is, in fact, unique to the trading post, and at considerable 

 variance from the actual expectations of other Whites. 



THE WHITE WOELD IN GENEEAL 



Shonto's trader resolves the inevitable conflict between the ideals of 

 stabilized pluralism on the one hand and intensive education for Nav- 

 ahos on the other by taking the view that there is no acceptable 

 middle ground between "traditional" Navaho and White culture, al- 

 though either extreme is acceptable. The Wliite people as a group, he 

 avers, want Navahos either to remain as traditional Navahos or else 

 to make the complete cultural transition and give up all traces of 

 Navaho culture and society. This is a safe enough position from the 

 point of view of the trader's vested interest, since the condition of 

 total acculturation is far beyond the reach of any Shonto Navaho in 

 the present generation (see "Acculturation," pp. 90-93). As a result, 

 the trader is able to uphold the ideal of education in theory, while in 

 practice disparaging educated Navahos for not being perfectly ac- 

 culturated — for being poor imitation Whites. This is a position which 

 traders can be heard to take again and again, and is expressed by such 

 sayings as "I'm all in favor of education if the Navvies will just make 

 something out of it and get ahead on the outside instead of coming 

 back here with a lot of crazy ideas." "These educated Indians around 

 here are no good ; they tliink they're too good to do any honest work. 

 Give me the old-time longhairs every time." 



