Don’t Run With The Clock, Walk With The Sun :: Indians Native Americans Trading Essays

Dont Run With The Clock, Walk With The solarize In the cross-cultural relationship between Navajos and Indian traders, affair corporal separate frugal philosophies. Navajo communal share all goods values clashed with the competitive economic philosophy of the traders. These differences did not sway the necessity for survival. Instead, it provided the genuine fortune for Navajos and Indian traders to share conditions and familiarity of the area in which they lived in. Navajos distrusted the economic aspect of the trading system. The economic dissimilarity of both cultures did not become resolved, because of the ideology. The Navajos and Indian traders essential need to cope with the day-to-day interactions increasingly overshadowed such discrepancies and enabled Navajos and Indian traders to inhabit under the same Southwestern skies. 1998 oral histories reveal diverse economic philosophies and engage the voices of Navajos and Indian traders.The trading post provided the nece ssary space for the re-sentencing of goods to pass daily. Carolyn Blair, who married a trader, Bradley Blair and worked side by side with her husband, recalls the inside of the trading post at Red Mesa. She described it as a typical old-time trading post with the high counters, and things hanging from the roof, bid saddles or, you know, the reins for the bridles and what not, pots and pans. i Fran McNitt also described the interior with the high counter design, which gave the look of a, bull-pen used as a place to stand, lean, squat or sit while in the handle of trade, sociability, or reflection. On three sides were wooden counters eight inches to one ft higher and wider than store counters elsewhere they were designed as barriers between customer and trader. ii The bull-pen arena created a cultural barrier between Navajos and trader. This spatial emplacement of the trading post contributed to the economic distrust Navajos held toward Indian traders. By appearances, the trad ers well-stocked store gave the Navajos the clear impression they had amassed wealth and were not sharing it with the rest of the community.As merchant, pawnbroker, and arts and crafts dealer, the Indian trader colligate the outside world to the Navajo reservation. Indian traders livelihood depended on well-stocked shelves with all the thinkable goods that were likely to sustain the community throughout the various seasons, like coffee, flour, tobacco, cloth, and woollen for the Navajo community at large. An Indian trader had to win the trust of Navajos, in order for the dayto-day transactions to run smoothly.