292 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 188 



cyclic, and credit-structured economy in which the function of the 

 trading post is absolutely essential (see "The Economic Cycle," 

 pp. 141-145). 



Shonto Trading Post is no less an economic victim of its under- 

 developed environment. The combination of high freight rates, low 

 volume, minimum capital, outmoded equipment and methods, heavy 

 credit, and all the other special conditions which are inherent in the 

 Navaho trade and in remote regions (cf. pp. 167-184) conspire not 

 only to produce prices 10 to 15 percent higher than those found in off- 

 reservation towns (see "Markup," p. 182; also Kluckholin and Leigh- 

 ton, 1946, p. 39) but to create trading conditions detrimental and 

 sometimes downright unpleasant to the consumer. Given the present 

 condition of its territory, therefore, Shonto Trading Post is absolutely 

 incapable today of competing with off-reservation merchants on a 

 dollar-for-dollar basis. 



It is apparent to the trader, however, that the environmental limita- 

 tion is more extreme and more immutable in his own case than in that 

 of the Navaho. If the Navaho is prevented from adapting liimself 

 more closely to the conditions and the benefits of the modem White 

 world by the remoteness of his commmiity, he has always the ultimate 

 choice of leaving it and establishing himself in some more developed 

 region. In other words the Navaho, given the desire, has the un- 

 deniable right and opportunity to free himself from the economic 

 limitations of traditional Navaho life with its inevitable consequence 

 of dependence on the trader. The latter, on the other hand, is stuck 

 with his location and its consequence of dependence on the Navaho 

 and on the traditional, uncapitalized Navaho economy. Of all the 

 individuals and agencies involved in Navaho-White culture contact 

 today ^ it is the trader and the oldest and least-educated Navahos who 

 are least ahle to adapt to changing conditions and times. Both are 

 condemned to the reservation, and to the limitations of reservation 

 life, by their inability to compete, each in his own way, with their 

 Wliite counterparts in the outside world. They are, therefore, con- 

 demned to their utter dependence on one another. 



In view of the foregoing, and of the entire analysis of trading post 

 and community which has preceded, it is perhaps superfluous to state 

 that the primary objective of Shonto Trading Post as a contact 

 agency, time and again, is to retard, divert, or prevent culture change 

 rather than to promote it. Any threat to the cultural and social 

 status quo in Shonto community is a threat to the well-being of the 

 trader no less than to Navahos themselves, and is consciously or 

 unconsciously recognized as such. The wellsprings of Navaho resist- 

 ance to continued White cultural and social encroachment are to be 

 found in the trading post as much as in Navaho culture itself. 



