290 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuU. 188 



subordination. Trading post customers are expected to receive con- 

 denmation with humility, reward and praise with gratitude, threats 

 with fear, and advice with attention and assent. 



SUMMABY 



Virtually every aspect of Navaho-trader relations, as approved 

 and sustained by the latter, is reminiscent of the parent-child rela- 

 tionship. Each particular behavior pattern, whether it be joking, 

 sincerity, condemnation, threat, or advice, emphasizes in its own way 

 the superordinate authority of the trader and disparages indepen- 

 dence, initiative, and counter-authority on the part of the Navaho. 

 The standard in judging and rewarding Navaho behavior is 

 whether or not it corresponds to, and has been induced by, the ex- 

 pressed desire of the trader. In practice, Navahos are not thanked 

 or rewarded for contributing to the trader's purposes unless their 

 actions in his behalf have been suggested in some way, either ex- 

 plicitly or by precept, by the trader himself. Even for his own 

 profit, Shonto's trader does not encourage individual initiative on 

 the part of his clientele. In the long run, therefore, Navahos are 

 rewarded more for simply recognizing and acknowledging the au- 

 thority of the trader than for actually assisting him. 



THE ROLE OF SHONTO TRADING POST 

 EEVIEW AND SYNTHESIS 



If the modern Navaho economy represents a significant adapta- 

 tion of Navaho culture to the conditions of White contact (cf. 

 pp. 94r-148), it is no less true that the modern Navaho trading post, 

 with its complex of unique features and functions, represents a spe- 

 cial adaptation of American culture to Navaho contact (see "The 

 Consumer Market," pp. 169-170). No other White agency in contact 

 with Navaho society is as completely differentiated from its counter- 

 part in purely American society as is the trading post. Conversely, no 

 other White institution is as thoroughly integrated into Navaho life, 

 or as much depended upon. 



The two cultural institutions — ^White trading post and Navaho 

 economy — are mutually complementary. Their historic and now 

 almost total interdependence goes back over half a century (see 

 "Early Trading Posts," pp. 150-154; also Amsden, 1934, pp. 178-182 

 and Underbill, 1956, pp. 179-195) and represents the one significant ex- 

 ample of genuine cultural fusion (cf . Summer Seminar on Accultura- 

 tion, 1954, pp. 987-988) arising out of Navaho-White contact. While 

 Navaho life and institutions have "progressed" in the directions sug- 

 gested by American models, only the trading post among all Amer- 



