ANTH 206 Native Peoples of the Southwest

Key Concepts:
Chiricahua Apache
Cochise
Naiche
Chiricahua Prisoners of War Descendants
Apache Girls' Puberty Ceremony
Mountain Spirit Dancers (gaan. gaa'he)
Jicarilla Apache (Ollero and Llanero bands)
Mescalero Apache
Western Apache (White Mountain, San Carlos, Northern and Southern Tonto,
Cibicue subtribes)
Kiowa-Apache
Lipan Apache
Tonto Apache Tribe
White Mountain Apache
Fort Apache Reservation
San Carlos Apache Reservation

Most Apaches, in contrast to the Navajo, were more influenced by Plains peoples than by Puebloan peoples after they settled in the Southwest. Over time, the Apaches separated from each other, with each group moving into what became its own territory and adapting to the local conditions of climate, terrain, and available food sources. Their contact with nearby non-Apacheans-Puebloan and Plains peoples-provided an array of cultural traits from which they selected specific traits that they adapted to their own cultural beliefs and practices.

Experiencing the greatest contact and influence from Plains peoples, the Kiowa-Apache, the Lipan, and the Llanero, the eastern band of the Jicarilla Apache, developed the most nomadic, equestrian cultures. The Western Apache had the closest contact with the Puebloans, which probably led to their greater reliance on farming, the development of a semi-sedentary lifestyle, and the adoption of matrilineal kinship. The Chiricahua, the Mescalero, and the Ollero, the western band of the Jicarilla Apache, were the least influenced by Plains or Puebloan cultures.

Today, each Apache group is a separate tribal entity. The Tonto Apache Tribe, a group of Western Apaches, has their own reservation. The White Mountain Apache Reservation (known as the Fort Apache Reservation) lies north of the Salt or Black River, while the San Carlos Apache Reservation is located south of these rivers; both Arizona reservations are home to most Western Apaches and both reservations have had separate tribal governments since the 1930s. The Jicarilla have their own reservation, while the Chiricahua, Lipan, and Mescalero live on the Mescalero Reservation in New Mexico.

The Chiricahua are probably the best known group of Apaches because of two of their leaders, Geronimo and Cochise. After their surrender in 1886, nearly the entire population of Chiricahuas was shuffled from prison sites in Florida to Alabama to Oklahoma as prisoners of war for twenty-seven years. This experience has become an essential part of their identity that they honor with an organization known as the Chiricahua Apache Prisoners of War Descendants, which is described in the textbook.

One of the most important holy being for Apaches is White-Painted Woman, also known as Changing Woman or White Shell Woman. Her sons, Killer of Enemies and Child Born of Water, triumphed over the evils of the world personified as monsters, making the world safe for humans. The Mountain Spirits ensure the well-being of the people by protecting them from epidemic diseases and enemies. The Mountain Spirit Dancers or Crown Dancers "become" these sacred beings in the same way that the Hopi who dance specific katsinam become those katsina spirits. The Western Apache call them the gaan while the Eastern Apache know them as gaa'he. Embodying the Mountain Spirits, they dance at night, bringing the spiritual world into physical manifestation. Their heads crowned with wooden slat headdresses, four Mountain Spirit Dancers and a clown wield their wooden swords as they dance around the fire. The bull-roarer, which is whirled on a length of string to produce a distinctive, resonating sound, drums, and singing accompany their dancing among the Western Apache. The bull-roarer is not used among the Eastern Apache.

Still practiced today, the Apache Girls' Puberty Ceremony is a major ceremony that reaffirms traditional values for everyone present and infuses the girl with White-Painted Woman's powers of renewal and rebirth. The ceremony emphasizes four crucial life objectives, beginning with the attainment of a healthy old age, which implies that a person has stayed on good terms with the supernatural forces of life. The girl becomes Changing Woman, known as the giver of "many years." The special cane that the girl holds in the Western Apache version of this ceremony was made for her to symbolize her old age: by running around the cane when it is placed to represent each of the four stages of her life, she "owns" those stages and will therefore be imbued with the power to attain them. She is thus assured of longevity. The girl needs a good, even disposition to maintain friendly relationships with others; the feathers of the oriole that decorate her cane symbolize the second objective, a harmonious disposition. The morning runs that the girl undertakes and the molding of her body by her godmother symbolize endurance and physical strength, the third objective. Unrelated to the girl by blood or marriage, the godmother, a role model of exemplary character, creates a lifelong bond of mutual support between the girl's family and her own as strong and binding as that of blood. Finally, prosperity and freedom from hunger are symbolized by the buckskin on which the girl dances; the corn, candy, and fruit that are cascaded over her head; and the blanket that she throws into each of the cardinal directions.

Key Concepts
Arizona Strip
Chemehuevi
the Cry
the Ghost Dance
the Bear Dance
termination
Cultural Resource Management
Colorado River Corridor
Glen Canyon Dam

The traditional territory of the Southern Paiutes followed a huge arc of land around the north and west sides of the Colorado River, considered to be the heart of their territory. Only the San Juan Paiutes live east of the Colorado River. An area that stretches some 350 miles east and west, ranges from the high Colorado Plateau, through canyon country, through basin and range, and into the Mojave Desert. Sixteen identifiable groups of Southern Paiute once lived in this broad L-shaped swath of territory that spans southern Utah, northern Arizona, southern Nevada, and the adjacent area of California. This includes the Arizona Strip, which is the northwestern area of Arizona separated from the rest of the state by the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. Those who lived farthest north and east took on Plains traits, while others adopted many characteristics of River Yuman culture. The Chemehuevi are unique because they broke away from the Southern Paiutes to move into an area near their sometime-allies, the Mojave, along the Colorado River, where they reside today. They took on many River Yuman traits, such as floodplain farming, earth-covered houses, an emphasis on dreaming, the warfare complex, and an elaborate mourning ceremony.

Prosperous relatives of a deceased person give a Mourning Ceremony, or Cry, related to the Mojave ceremony, from three months to a year after the death. Several families who have also lost loved ones often share the enormous outlay of food and goods required by the ceremony.

By the early 1900s, the Kaibab Paiute had adopted the Ute Bear Dance, and it spread westward to other Southern Paiute groups. Celebrated in early spring to conciliate the bear just beginning to awaken from winter hibernation, the Bear Dance is also a festive social occasion when women take the initiative by selecting their partners and directing the elements of the dance. Male singers provide the music on rasps, with the initial tremolo that begins all Bear Dance songs creating the noise of thunder that is believed to awaken the bear in his cave.

A ceremony that is no longer practiced is the Ghost Dance. From the 1890s movement of the same name, the Ghost Dance affected the western and northwestern Southern Paiutes. Begun by the Paiute, Wovoka, the Ghost Dance held messages from dead relatives, whose return was promised through the dance along with the restoration of their land and resources.

Traditionally, the Southern Paiute had no overall tribal organization. Local groups-the sixteen Southern Paiute bands were not established until later, as defense against white intrusion-were flexible divisions that occupied a certain territory. Although each group was self-sufficient, they cooperated for purposes of mutual aid.

Before white occupation, some Southern Paiute groups adopted varying degrees of agriculture which had little effect on their seasonal cycle of hunting and gathering. During the fall, groups traveled most widely, journeying from mountains to cache pinon nuts and hunt larger game, to valleys for rabbit drives. The necessity for storing as much food as possible against the winter and spring resulted in great mobility.

The federal government treated each group of Southern Paiutes differently, and in 1954, "terminated" Utah Southern Paiute groups. Termination meant that not only did they lose their land base-and the cultural identity that went with it-but they also lost educational programs, government employment, and job training. They experienced even greater poverty, a still lower standard of living, and an increased rate of disease, along with the loss of access to the Indian Health Service. After long legal battles, their federally recognized status was restored in 1980, and five Utah-based groups united to form a larger tribal entity, the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah.

As described in the textbook, in 1992, Southern Paiute people representing three federally recognized tribes-the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, and the Kaibab Southern Paiute Tribe-began participating in a program called Glen Canyon Environmental Studies, which was initiated by the federal Bureau of Reclamation in 1982. Today, the Southern Paiute continue to conduct ethnographic research and to investigate the impact of water releases on their cultural resources in an area known as the Colorado River Corridor, which extends 255 miles downstream from Glen Canyon Dam within Grand Canyon National Park. The University of Arizona's Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology (BARA) has been instrumental in helping the Southern Paiute to establish this much-needed program; today BARA members assist this program under the direction of the Southern Paiute people.