Fair trades in Gallup

Sunset, Oct, 1998 by Jeanie Puleston Fleming

An elderly Navajo woman in a magenta scarf and many-layered skirts places a red-and-orange Pendleton blanket on the pawn counter. Inspecting it, the trader asks, "How much do you want?" The woman answers in Navajo. Soon the blanket hangs with hundreds of others in the storage room, and the customer collects her $20, some mail, and a few kitchen supplies before departing.

Although this scene takes place in 1998 in a trading post in Gallup, New Mexico, it could have happened a hundred years ago - except, of course, for the cash, the computer record, and the customer's shiny red pickup. Indeed, the rustic trading posts that once dotted the Indian country of northwestern New Mexico, northeastern Arizona, and southern Utah and Colorado almost seem anachronistic. But are they? While many have closed and crumbled, an impressive number are still in business, though their business has changed. Today's trading post may shelter several enterprises under the same roof: an art supply store, pawnshop, post office, grocery store, and tax-preparation center for Indian customers alongside a gift shop and arts-and-crafts gallery for tourists. Trading posts, it seems, still fill a need - it's just that needs have changed.

The first trading posts were founded after 1868, when Navajos who had been rounded up by Kit Carson were returned to their vast homeland (limited by reservation borders, that is). It didn't take long for traders from the outside to move in to provide basic supplies. Flour, sugar, and cloth were exchanged for wool, pine nuts, and rugs. Traders served as interpreters, letter writers, and art agents, becoming a key link between two cultures. Commerce was the common language as traders extended credit for pawned jewelry, saddles, and guns. Though other native people, such as Acoma and Hopi, used trading posts, it was the numerous and scattered Navajo who relied on them the most.

In 1881, when the railroad arrived, trade with the East increased and the trading posts prospered. This lasted into the 1920s, but autos changed the formula. By the '50s rail travel was in decline, Indian clients were independently mobile, and the fortunes of the trading posts began to fade.

But not entirely. In the market hub of Gallup, veteran trader Bill Richardson sits at his paper-strewn desk in the pawn vault of Richardson Trading Company. Retail cases full of new jewelry and crafts line the path to the historic vault. "It's changed from the old days," Richardson says of his generations-old post. "Our retail business up front is separate. The pawn business that we run here is essentially a bank."

Pawn serves a twofold purpose for Navajo clients today. It's collateral for cash, redeemable at a regulated interest rate, and a way for them to safeguard valuables. At Richardson's shop, hundreds of turquoise-and-silver necklaces, concha belts, and bracelets hang behind his desk. In a side room floor to ceiling - sit 1,400 saddles and countless blankets, buffalo pelts, and deerskins along with other items, from pottery to television sets. All are live pawn, objects likely to be reclaimed by their owners.

Trading posts once thrived because of the isolation of the reservations. Today, isolation is still a factor. "On the reservation, it's easy for things to disappear when people aren't home," explains third-generation trader Tobe Turpen III. "Here valuables are safe, ready to go out for ceremonial occasions. When someone brings in a $1,500 squash-blossom necklace and asks for a $20 loan, it's inexpensive safe storage. A lot of what we have is simply here for safekeeping." Next door, pawn and retail mix with lumber and hardware at the Rain Bird Pawn and Trading Company. Sheree Stauder, granddaughter of traders, recently took over the family trading company and incorporated it into the family lumber business. In addition to the usual household items, Rain Bird accepts construction tools as pawn. "It helps to have in-house experts when a pipe threader comes in," Stauder comments. It also helps to speak the local tongue. As she talks about her business, an assistant walks over to double-check a bracelet with a drop of mild acid. "It's nickel," the assistant says. "We can't take it," she explains to the customer in Navajo.

Like Turpen and Richardson, area traders Joe Milo and Ellis Tanner have diversified by creating businesses that serve an Indian clientele but also attract tourists and outside collectors. Though they recognize the need for such diversification, they and others decry trading posts that stock mass-produced or imported "Indian" arts and crafts, often at high prices even after so-called deep discounts. "It's ruining the business," laments Roberta Stauder, Sheree's mother.

Across Indian country, the posts that have changed least tend to be the ones on the worst roads. At the Borrego Pass Trading Post, managers Merle and Rosella Moore stock videos and motor oil for Gallup-area residents, as well as a selection of high-quality, reasonably priced kachinas for visitors willing to brave a dirt road that becomes slippery, even boggy, when wet. Another dirt road-accessible post is the weathered hut of Cousins Brothers. Here, Betty Cousins's services include reading and translating a Navajo elder's mail. Nearby, her niece, owner Grace Wheatley, labors over a customer's tax returns. No tourist trap this. "There isn't much here for them," says Wheatley of outsiders, although there have been a few European visitors lately. "We're in a guidebook," she says.