Adams] SHONTO: ROLE OF NAVAHO TRADER 293 



Such has been the historic role of Shonto Trading Post in the 

 Navaho community. The store has consistently sought to increase 

 tlie material standard of living and the income level of its Navaho 

 clientele (cf. Amsden, 1934, p. 179; Underhill, 1956, p. 180) without 

 disturbing the framework of their native sociocultural system, which 

 carried with it the condition of dependence on the trading post. As a 

 contact agency, and in a position of pre-eminent cross-cultural power, 

 the trader has been able to divert and restrict the impact of American 

 culture upon Navaho culture largely to economic and material chan- 

 nels which would benefit the store, while minimizing or forestalling 

 any more general assimilation or acculturation which would weaken 

 Navaho dependence on him. To this end he has exercised a constant 

 selection, modification, and reinterpretation in transmitting the 

 impulses of the outside world to the Navaho community. He has 

 shown his clientele a picture of the world and their place in it, not 

 as it exists but as he wishes it to be. 



It has been observed repeatedly, here (see pp. 53-148) and elsewhere 

 (e.g., lOuckhohn and Leighton, 1946, p. 28) that Navaho accultura- 

 tion and the replacement of native patterns has been most extensive 

 in the areas of economics and material culture (see also Chart M, 

 p. 265) . Throughout the past century the Navaho economy has under- 

 gone a series of progressive adaptations (cf. Summer Seminar on 

 Acculturation, 1954, p. 987) to changing economic and market con- 

 ditions in the outside world, but with no very profound effect on the 

 basic fabric of Navaho life (cf. Kluckhohn and Leighton, 1946, p. 28). 

 Wool production, weaving, and other craftwork, lamb production, 

 and finally wagework have come along, each in its turn to play its 

 part in the changing Navaho economy. This process of economic 

 adaptation has been guided at every turn by traders (see especially 

 Underhill, 1956, p. 181), who have carefully selected and promoted 

 the new subsistence activities with an eye to their own future — in 

 other words in such a way as to perpetuate the seasonal, uncapitalized 

 cycle with its inevitable dependence on trading post intercession and 

 credit. 



A recent theoretical consideration of the processes of acculturation 

 (Summer Seminar on Acculturation, 1954, pp. 977-979) has called 

 attention to "self -correcting mechanisms," and to the differential 

 ability of different cultural systems to adapt themselves to the altered 

 conditions brought about by culture contact. Navaho culture stands 

 out markedly in this regard. Over the centuries it has shown itself 

 capable of absorbing all manner of alien impulses and culture pat- 

 terns without sacrificing its miique core configuration. This quality 

 of adaptability is thought to be more distinctive of the Navaho cul- 

 tural system than is any particular complex of beliavior patterns 



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