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AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
PLATE I
Chiricahua Camp
United States National Museum
AN.APACHE LIFE-WAY
The Economic, Social, and Religious Institutions of the
Chiricahua Indians
MORRIS EDWARD OPLER
\
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
Chicago and London
To
ELSIE CLEWS PARSONS
Able Anthropologist, Helpful Critic, and
Generous Sponsor of the Work of Others
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London The University of Toronto Press, Toronto 5, Canada
Copyright 1941 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved
Published 1941
Second Impression 1965
Printed in the United States of America
PREFACE
I HAVE tried to fashion an account of the Chiricahua Apache that will be real and convincing for readers of Western European extractions and traditions. Often the anthropol- ogist begins with the reactions and behavior of the average adult of the culture he has studied. The descriptive details then seem so far removed from anything we, the products of another life- way, know, that an atmosphere of exotic contrast is created, and the relevance of the material for us and for our problems fails to emerge.
Consequently, I have endeavored to show how a person be- comes a Chiricahua as well as to indicate what he does because he is a Chiricahua. Events are introduced in the order in which they are experienced in the course of the gnormal Chiricahua Apache life-cycle. The attempt has been made to convey an ap-- preciation of hrsr awareness to the culture, of initial contacts with its precepts, of the steady pressure by which it shapes its carriers, and of the adjustments to its demands, obligations, and satisfactions which the individual accepts. I have sought in this manner to shift the emphasis from strange externals to more fa- miliar and important processes and purposes. I have wanted the average Chiricahua to be an intelligible and sympathetic figure, not in the sense that the reader approves or disapproves all his ideas and actions, but in the sense that the reader understands what he has become in terms of what he has experienced. My principal concern in this book has been with what is socialized and not with personality differences. Consequently, materials pertaining to the individual as such are stressed only when it is important to show the range of variation which the culture permits at particular points.
To trace, painstakingly and sensitively, the introduction of an individual to the formal requirements and implications of his culture requires more than a superficial treatment. It was nee-
vi PREFACE
essary to make the study as "complete" as possible — not in any ethnologically Utopian sense but in the practicable, attainable meaning of an inquiry many sided enough to satisfy the reader that no important aspect of thought or behavior had been left entirely unexplored.
Moreover, since it was the socialization of the Chiricahua which was to be examined, I felt that not only the sequence of events but the contexts in which they are placed should be faith- ful to the Chiricahua view. In order to keep the emphases as the participants feel them, it became necessary to separate items which might have been brought together by some other classi- fication and to unite data which would have been scattered in response to a more conventional topical treatment. Thus, many varieties of religious experience have been introduced before any thorough explanation of religious ideology is attempted, simply because these impressions of the supernatural are communicated to the child long before he is in a position to rationalize their significance. Again, raid and warfare are subsumed under the maintenance of the household, not because of any notions of my own concerning the nature of these activities, but because, at the period described, the Chiricahua considered the raid a legitimate industry and trained faithfully for its proper fulfilment with this in mind.
It is my feeling that the most successful ethnographic study in terms of what it honestly establishes is the one in which the writer intrudes least upon the scene. It is a solemn responsibility to act as one of the few links between the world of letters and a way of life which has bounded the happiness and sorrow of thou- sands of individuals for hundreds of years. In determining how and when and where the basic understandings and persuasions ordinarily come to the individual consciousness, the primary source must be the testimony cf the people involved. It has been part of my method, therefore, to describe the culture in its own terms, to employ the comments and explanations of informants wherever they seem pertinent. I have preferred to use my own observations as research leads by means of which to elicit descrip- tions and experiences from Chiricahua friends rather than to
PREFACE vii
employ them as final statements. The picture of external move- ment is essential, but the attitudes and evaluations that sur- round overt behavior are quite as important. These imponder- ables of context the informant can best supply.
It is my hope that a volume which depicts the development of the individual in relation to society, which draws so heavily from source materials, and which emphasizes the functions of institu- tions in context will be of interest not only to professional anthro- pologists but also to educators, child psychologists, sociologists, and to all those sincerely concerned with the comprehension of the human scene. With this larger potential audience in mind, native words have been translated into English where this could be done and technical terms have been avoided.1 Because Dr. Harry Hoijer will soon have available a Chiricahua Apache dic- tionary, no glossary is included. For specialists, kinship mate- rials are given in an appendix. Native names, unpronounceable to the average reader in the original and often cumbersome in translation, have been reduced to initials. An additional reason for this is that many of the references are of an intimate or religious nature, and the information was often given with the understanding that identities be masked. Exceptions are made in the case of Geronimo and several other former leaders who have become historical figures. Summaries of legends and refer- ences to mythological subjects are based on my own collection where other sources are not acknowledged.
This volume, besides describing the aboriginal life of the Chiri- cahua, is the first of a series of monographs which will character- ize and compare the cultures of four Apache tribes of the Ameri- can Southwest and the adjoining region of Old Mexico — the Chiricahua, Mescalero, Lipan, and Jicarilla. I have gathered ma- terial, also, concerning the present status and adjustment of the Chiricahua Apache. But most of these people now share a reser- vation in New Mexico with the Mescalero Apache. Consequent- ly, in order, that the acculturation of the inhabitants of the Mescalero Reservation may be treated as the logical unit it is,
1 For the few Chiricahua words retained, the orthography recommended in the American Anthropologist, Vol. XXXVI, No. 4 (1934), has been followed.
viii PREFACE
I am withholding most of my comparisons of the old and the new until the Mescalero Apache have been described as well.
In bringing this segment of the project to completion, my obligations to institutions and friends are many. The Depart- ment of Anthropology and the Social Science Research Commit- tee of the University of Chicago, the Council for Research in the Social Sciences of Columbia University, the Laboratory of An- thropology of Santa Fe, the National Research Council, the Of- fice of Indian Affairs, the Social Science Research Council, and the Southwest Society, by field fellowships, financial assistance, and other courtesies, enabled me to remain in contact with Chiri- cahua informants for a total of approximately two years during the period 1931-37. The Social Science Research Committee of the University of Chicago has made possible the preparation and publication of the study at this time.
Dr. Ruth Benedict, Dr. Regina Flannery, Mr. Paul Frank, Dr. John Gillin, Mr. M. R. Harrington, Dr. Jules Henry, Dr. Harry Hoijer, Mrs. Edith Rosenfels Nash, and Dr. Sol Tax, as members of the summer field party of 1931 of the Laboratory of Anthropology of Santa Fe, or in other capacities, gathered Chiricahua data which they have generously put at my disposal. The materials of these co-workers have corroborated and ex- tended my own information at many points and have been of signal value throughout. In addition, Dr. Benedict and Dr. Hoijer have read and criticized the manuscript. The last named has also given inestimable assistance in the translation of Chiricahua terms. Others who have read the manuscript in whole or in part and who have furnished valuable suggestions are Dr. Edwin R. Embree, Dr. Elsie Clews Parsons, Dr. Russell M. Story, Mr. Laurence Stutsman, and Mr. Richard Waterman. Mr. Thomas Miles, photographer, and Audrey Waterman have aided in the preparation of illustrative materials. Professors E. F. Castetter and A. L. Hershey have helped me in the identi- fication of plant specimens.
I am indebted to the Claremont Colleges Museum, the Denver Art Museum, the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foun- dation, the Laboratory of Anthropology of Santa Fe, and the
PREFACE
IX
United States National Museum for photographs of Chiricahua subjects and artifacts.
Over thirty Chiricahua Apache, representing all three bands, have contributed to the field notes which have gone into this vol- ume. Of these, a number who assisted for prolonged periods de- serve special mention: John Allard, Duncan Balachu, Alfred Chatto, David Fatty, Paul Gadelkon, Martin Kayitah, Samuel E. Kenoi, Arnold Kinjoni, Charles Martine, Daniel Nicholas, and Leon Perico. John Allard, Samuel E. Kenoi, and Daniel Nicholas acted as interpreters as well as informants, and their interest and help far exceeded the ordinary requirements of their task.
My final acknowledgment is to my wife, Catherine Opler, as- sociate in the plan and in the labor, without whose help and faith and lovely presence nothing else would avail.
Morris Edward Opler
Claremont Colleges
Claremont, California
November 1940
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
List of Illustrations xiii
Location and Historical Sketch i
Childhood 5
Beginnings r
Cradle Days 10
First Steps 15
Spring Hair-cutting Ceremony 17
Surroundings 18
Early Training and Discipline 25
The Dangers of Childhood 36
Play 45
The Child and His Kin 54
Childhood's End 65
Maturation 77
The Molding of Sex Attitudes 77
The Girl's Puberty Rite 82
The Novitiate for Raid and War 134
Social Relations of Adults 140
Relations between Men and Women 140
Marriage Arrangements, Marriage, and Residence 154
The Man and His Wife's Relatives 163
The Married Man and His Blood Kin 181
The Woman and Her Husband's Relatives 1 84
Folk Beliefs, Medical Practice, and Shamanism 186
Folk Beliefs, Muscular Tremors, and Dreams 1 86
Cosmology and Supernaturals 194
The Shaman and Power , 200
Medical Practices 216
Origins of Disease 224
Sorcery and Incest 242
The Generalized Curing Rite 257
Ceremonialism in Action; Obtaining and Using Power 267
Skepticism 313
Maintenance of the Household 316
Hunting 316
The Economic Interest in Raid and War 332
xi
xii TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
War for Vengeance 336
The Gathering and Utilization of Wild Food Plants 354
The Cooking and Preservation of Meat Products 365
The Preparation of Beverages 368
The Storage of Food and Surplus Possessions 37 1
Agriculture . 372
Home Industries of Women 375
Home Industries of Men 386
Ownership of Goods, Trade, and Gift-giving 397
Marital and Sexual Life 401
Personality Adjustment between Husband and Wife 401
Sexual Adjustment 403
Birth Control, Barrenness, and Fertility Rites 405
Jealousy and Extra-marital Relations 406
Divorce 412
Sexual Aberrance and Perversion 415
Polygyny and Sororal Polygyny 416
The Sororate and Levirate 420
The Round of Life 427
Camp Life and Etiquette 427
Humor 434
Parties, Dances, and Story-telling 436
Smoking 441
Sports and Games of Adults 443
Invective 456
Antisocial Conduct 458
Political Organization and Status ! 462
Death, Mourning, and the Underworld 472
Appendix: Chiricahua Kinship System and Terms 479
Selected Bibliography 481
Index 483
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATES
I. Chiricahua Camp Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
II. Carrying the Cradle t
III. Erecting the Ceremonial Structure 94
IV. Girl Dressed for Puberty Rite . 95
V. A Masked Dancer .... 100
VI. Headdresses of the Masked Dancer 101
Vila. Masked Dancers Coming Down from the Hills at Dusk . . 112
VIL£. Worshiping the Fire 112
VIII. The Round Dance (the Ceremonial Structure in the Back- ground) 113
IX. Framework of the Sweat Lodge 218
X. Amulets 219
XI. Ceremonial Hats for Protection in War 310
Xlla. Moccasins 311
XIL£. Burden Basket 311
XIIc. Water Jars 311
XIII<2. Bow, Arrows, Bow Cover, and Quiver 390
XIIU. War Club 390
XlVa. Fire Drill, Hide-Scraper, and Knife Sheath 391
XIW. Saddle Bag 391
XV. Woman with Mutilated Nose 410
XVI<z. Men Playing Hoop-and-Pole Game 411
XVI£. Hoop of Hoop-and-Pole Game; "Moccasins," Blanket, Bone,
Striking-Stick, and Counters of Moccasin Game . . . .411
.FIGURES
PAGE
i. Map Showing Approximate Location of Chiricahua Bands in
Aboriginal Times xiv
1. Chiricahua Kinship System . 480
xiii
LOCATION AND HISTORICAL SKETCH
THIS volume describes the culture of an Apachean- speaking tribe of the American Southwest as it existed during the youth of the older informants from whom data were collected. The Chiricahua were already horsemen and possessed their first firearms, but tribal life had not yet been dis- rupted by hostilities with the Americans.
The territory which they controlled during this period was extensive and is not easy to define accurately. They ranged through southwestern New Mexico, southeastern Arizona, and the northern parts of the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihua- hua. The Rio Grande acted as the eastern boundary. Occasional journeys and raids brought them as far north as the pueblo out- posts of Laguna, Acoma, and Zufii, but ordinarily they did not stray much farther north than the present site of Quemado, New Mexico. The western limits of their country can be roughly indi- cated, from north to south, by the present towns of Spur Lake, Luna, Reserve, and Glenwood in New Mexico, and by Duncan, Wilcox, Johnson, Benson, Elgin, and Parker Canyon in Arizona. To the south an undetermined area in northern Mexico was also under their control.
The Chiricahua bands were three in number. The most east- ern and northern band, whose territories joined those of the Mescalero Apache at the Rio Grande, controlled almost all the Chiricahua territory west of the Rio Grande in New Mexico and has been given a number of names throughout the literature. Those occurring most frequently are Warm Springs or Ojo Cali- ente Apache, Coppermine Apache, Mimbrenos Apache, and Mogollones Apache. The Chiricahua name for this band is cfhend, "Red Paint People." In historic times this band has been led by Mangus Colorado, Victorio, Nana, and Loco. From historical records and the accounts of informants, the local groups and camp sites of the members of this band can be traced to the
2 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
Datil Range, the vicinity of Rito, Hot Springs, Cuchillo, and the Black, the Mimbres, the Mogollon, the Pinos Altos, Vic- toria, and Florida mountain ranges. For convenience I have called the Red Paint People the Eastern Chiricahua band.
To the south and west of the Red Paint People, ranging through the portion of southwestern New Mexico west of the Continental Divide and through southeastern Arizona, a second Chiricahua band, called 66Rdnm, whose name does not yield to linguistic analysis, was to be found. This is the band to which the term "Chiricahua" was first applied. It was this band, often called in the literature "Cochise" Apache after their leader, Cochise, which held Apache Pass, and with which the govern- ment had a great deal of trouble during the Indian Wars. The most famous of the strongholds of this band, which I have named the Central Chiricahua band, were the Dragoon Mountains, the Chiricahua Mountains, and the Dos Cabezas Mountains.
The third and southernmost band of the Chiricahua, called in the native tongue, ndeinda-i, "Enemy People," stayed almost entirely in what is now Old Mexico. I shall refer to this group as the Southern Chiricahua band. During the last half of the nineteenth century difficulties with the Mexican soldiery drove them north, where they speedily came into conflict with settlers and United States government forces. After that they were har- ried from either side of the border until Geronimo's surrender in 1886. Geronimo himself was born a member of this band. Mention of this tribal subdivision in the literature is made under the names of Southern Chiricahua and Pinery Apache. Refer- ence in the literature may be found to their leader, Hq whose name has been variously written as Who, Whoa, or Juh. The Sierra Madre and the Hatchet Mountains were familiar land- marks of this band.
With the appearance in numbers of white settlers, the affairs of the tribe took an unhappy turn. About 1870 the Ojo Caliente Reserve in western New Mexico was established for the Eastern Chiricahua band. In 1872 similar provision was made for the Central Chiricahua and the Southern Chiricahua. Because part of their range lay in Old Mexico, it was particularly difficult to
AN APACHE LIFE-WAY 3
control the movements of the members of the latter group. When the local reservations which had permitted these people to remain in their familiar territories were abolished after 1875 in order to concentrate all Chiricahua on the White Mountain Apache Reservation, the stage was set for trouble. The antago- nism between the Western Apache and the Chiricahua was marked, and many Chiricahua refused to obey the order to move. Others who were forced to go would leave their new home as soon as military supervision was relaxed. Out of this situation grew a number of bloody incidents and two major military opera- tions— one when General Crook, in his campaign of 1883, was forced to cross over into Old Mexico in order to obtain the sur- render of these Indians, and the last in 1885-86, ending on Sep- tember 5, 1886, when Geronimo surrendered to General Nelson A. Miles.1 During this period of strife the tribe, normally over one thousand strong, was reduced to less than half that number. The aftermath of this struggle was the removal of the entire Chiricahua tribe, over four hundred individuals, from the West. They went, as prisoners, first to Florida and then, after a short stay, to Alabama, where they were held until 1894. In that year they were sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where they were re- tained until their release from the status of prisoners of war. This occurred in 19 13, when individuals were given their choice of taking up residence on the Mescalero Indian Reservation of New Mexico or of accepting allotments of land in Oklahoma. Less than one hundred chose to stay where they were. The sur- vivors of this group and their descendants are still living in the vicinity of Apache, Oklahoma. Most of the Chiricahua, how- ever, went to New Mexico and now live at Mescalero on a reser- vation which they share with the Mescalero and Lipan Apache.
1 For a longer account of these troubles, from the native point of view, see Opler, "A Chiricahua Apache's Account of the Geronimo Campaign of 1886," New Mexico Historical Review, October, 1938.
PLATE II
United States National Museum
Carrying the Cradle
CHILDHOOD
BEGINNINGS
/\T THE first signs of pregnancy a woman takes immedi-
/—\ ate steps to insure the safe delivery and good health of
-*- -^- the developing child. To prevent injury to the fetus,
she refrains from sexual intercourse as soon as the menses stop.
The food restrictions she observes are not onerous. She eats sparingly of fat meat lest the child become too large and delivery be difficult. She avoids eating animal intestines, a food associ- ated with stillbirths in which the child is strangled by the umbili- cal cord. Pinon nuts are shunned also, for they cause the child to "have fat all over," thus prolonging delivery.
An important restriction is the injunction against riding a horse; "the shaking is not good for a pregnant woman." This rule became extended in later days to include riding in wagons. The woman also avoids ceremonies where masked dancers ap- pear, for the sight of the hooded figures "hurts both mother and child. The child might not come out and might kill the woman." Some prospective fathers are just as careful about this, because the impersonator has "a hood over his head and the child may be born with a caul over its face." Others hold that the rule con- cerns the mother only and that the father can look at the masked dancers and can even act as a masked dancer, providing all signs of this role are entirely erased before he returns home.
The pregnant woman refrains from excessive walking, from lifting heavy burdens, and from sitting up for long periods. She is urged to take sufficient rest. The consideration with which she is treated reflects the great love of children that characterizes the society. "A woman about to become a mother is treated ex- tra nice, just like a child." Yet the performance of ordinary household tasks is considered beneficial to her throughout this period, and laziness and self-pity are ridiculed. "They say that when you sit on the child after the fifth month it will be harder
5
6 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
for you. The child gets in the right position for coming out if you move around. The more you are a coward about it, the worse it will be for you."
Little attempt is made to control the sex of the expected child. Whether or not such control is possible is a moot point. One in- formant told of "a ceremony which causes them to have a boy or a girl. It is performed right at the beginning." The man was unable to supply the details, however. On another occasion the same person stated that, if a man scrapes his foot over the four sides of the woman in labor, a boy is born; but, if a woman touches the four sides with her hand, the baby is a girl. Most commentators discount these claims:
There are lots of people here who would control it if they could, like D., who has all boys and wants a daughter.
Whether it's a boy or a girl is in Yusn's1 power; that's the way I look at it. Some shamans say they can control it, but I believe there is nothing to that.
However, the activity of the child during the prenatal period furnishes a clue to its sex. A fetus which "has lots of life" is pre- sumed to be a male; a less active one, a female. Estimates of the length of pregnancy are approximately accurate.
It is essential for the expectant mother and her husband to avoid acrimonious clashes with others. "A pregnant woman has to keep out of fusses with other women because many are witches, and, if she quarrels with them, they may harm the child. The husband has to be careful of witches, too, when his wife is pregnant."
At the onset of labor pains close female relatives of the woman attend her. Her mother, her mother's sisters, her mother's mother, and her older sisters are members of the relationship group from which assistants are most likely to come. If the hus- band's family lives near by, his mother or sister may be present. When a woman skilled in midwifery is numbered among these rela- tives, no outside help is asked. Otherwise the service of a woman who has special ceremonial and practical knowledge is sought. Such a woman is often selected on the basis of "the good luck
1 A deity known also as Life Giver.
CHILDHOOD 7
she has had in bringing babies into the world." If she has "a family of fine children of her own," it is a happy augury. Very important is her right to perform a ceremony, to pray and sing and treat the newborn infant ritually. It is not absolutely es- sential to have such a "ceremonial" woman in command at this time, but, since success in life depends so largely on ritual prepa- ration, she functions in a majority of births. This woman is well paid for her services; some valuable property, often a horse, is her reward.
When the time for delivery draws near, the husband leaves the home. Unless an emergency arises, he cannot be present at the birth, for relatives of his wife to whom he stands in a rela- tionship of respect and avoidance are certain to be there.2
There is no definite rule which bars other men from being pres- ent. In fact, they are sometimes asked to attend in emergencies. But usually "men don't come to a birth because there are so many women around, and a man would feel funny." Another factor which discourages their attendance is that discharges from the woman's body at childbirth are to some extent equated with menstrual blood, from which a man can contact painful swelling of the joints.
During delivery the woman kneels with legs apart before an oak post which she uses to steady herself. Assistants hold her arms if she requires aid. To facilitate the birth, the genitals may be bathed in water in which the pounded root of a plant (Erio- gonum jamesii) has been boiled. A similar decoction will be used after the birth to insure rapid healing. To speed birth, four small, light-colored pieces of the inner leaves of narrow yucca may be swallowed with salt, one after the other. The midwife massages the woman's abdomen downward and receives the child. With a long black flint or with a sharp edge of a length of reed or yucca leaf, she cuts the umbilical cord about one and one-half inches from the baby's navel and knots the end or ties it with a strand of yucca-leaf string. If the child does not cry or breathe at once, cold water is dashed on its body. When a baby is obviously alive
2 For an account of these observances see pp. 163-81.
8 AN APACHE LIFE- WAY
but does not cry or cry loudly, that child "will grow up to be strong."
Following a normal delivery, the midwife washes the infant in tepid water at once and places it on a soft robe. In some cases a plant (Parosela formosd) is added to this water "to keep the child from crying." She rubs a mixture of grease and red ocher over the baby's body to keep the skin from getting sore. Next she strews pollen or ashes to the directions in clockwise circuit beginning with the east and holds the blanket and the child to the directions in the same order. Prayers and practices which mark her individually owned rite accompany this procedure. Meanwhile, others minister to the mother. Particular care is taken in cases of prolapse of the uterus to see that the organ is pushed back into place properly.
The afterbirth is gathered together in the robe or piece of old clothing upon which the woman has knelt. With it is put the um- bilical cord. These must not be burned or buried. If they are buried and then dug up and consumed by animals, the child is harmed. The approved method of disposal is to place the bundle in a fruit-bearing bush or tree "because the tree comes to life every year, and they want life in this child to be renewed like the life in the tree." Before final disposal, the bundle is blessed by the midwife. To the tree she says, "May the child live and grow up to see you bear fruit many times."3
At the time of the birth ceremony a name may be suggested for the infant, often by the midwife. However, when nothing unusual marks the birth or distinguishes the newborn baby, the naming may not take place for two or three months. Even when a name is immediately conferred, there is little reason to think that the child will bear it long.
When my daughter was born, the midwife gave her a name, but it did not catch on. Then my wife called her "My Daughter." All the others around our camp now do so too. Later, before she is ten or eleven years old, we will give her another name. This is a Chiricahua custom. The baby name is out- grown. One child, for example, is called "Ugly Baby." But she will not be called
3 One informant claimed that the cord is retained and later eaten by the child, but no verification of this was obtained from others.
CHILDHOOD 9
this later on. Later the child will be named according to circumstances; some- thing about the child will suggest a name. Once in a while the first name is kept because it fits so well that the person "wears" it all the time.
Since the name relates to personality traits or to events, it is not necessarily a clue to the sex of its bearer.
When labor is excessively difficult or long delayed, and espe- cially when sorcery is suspected, appeal is made to men or women who carry on still other ceremonies. One elder described such a rite which he had performed over a young woman. She had been in labor for about eighteen hours, and it was feared that "the baby would have to be killed and taken out in pieces to save her." In response to an urgent request from her relatives, the old man hurried to the camp with a helper. He prayed and drew a cross of black mineral substance on his helper's hand. He then directed his assistant to put his arm around the woman's body at various places and to press her gently while he began a cere- monial song of four verses. At the end of the second verse a boy was born — ''born before I got through with one song." Great claims are made for these childbirth ceremonies and for these practitioners. "As soon as they touch the woman who is having a hard time, everything is made easy for her."
Nursing begins "as soon as the mother has milk." The colos- trum is not differentiated from the milk secreted later. Concern- ing frequency of feedings, it was said, "I have seen that, when women have babies, as soon as they cry the mothers give them the breast." "The women boil up lots of bones and make a soup right away. They say that makes lots of milk and pure milk." If the mother's milk does not flow at once, the child is not fed the first day. If she is unable to nurse the child on the second day, it is given a little water. Should she still lack milk on the third day, the child is nursed by a mother's sister or other close relative.
From the mother a Spartan attitude is expected. "Women didn't lie around as they do now; they got up soon afterward." "I saw T.'s wife. She has had many children. Today she has a baby; tomorrow she is around doing something. Some lie down for an hour maybe. The next day they are up." But most con-
io AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
finements last from a few days to a week. Moreover, the cere- monies for difficult childbirth and the many medicines in use for ailments resulting from childbearing suggest that the woman does not always have an easy time.
After the birth of her child, the woman ties a rope or a strap around her waist "so that her stomach will not sag." She wears this until she feels strong once more.
Despite the roving life, there is an attachment to the place of birth. A child is told where he was born; and, when he is again brought to the vicinity, "they roll him on the ground to the four directions. They don't make a special trip for this, but they do it if they happen to be there. This is done even if the child is getting big." Adults as well as children have been known to roll in this manner upon returning to the birthplace.
CRADLE DAYS
Normally, the fourth day after birth is the occasion for a cra- dle ceremony, although sometimes the rite is delayed for a few days more. The immediate family may include an old man or woman prepared to perform it, or the midwife may know the rite and accept the task. Depending on the "way" of the shaman who officiates, the ceremony will be elaborate or modest. A poor family is satisfied to obtain a shaman whose ceremony is pruned to essentials, while a wealthy family may make more of a display of the event. Not infrequently the selection of the practitioner is related to the web of human relations — to friendships, to bonds of blood, to desire for gain.
There's a shaman, my relative. And there are some people who have a new baby. They are well-off people; they have much property; they have horses and buckskins and bring in lots of deer. My relative has nothing like this, though he is a shaman. He is poor. I notice that this wealthy family with the new baby has lost several babies before this.
I go to them. I say, "You people have a new baby. I notice that you have lost several children. My relative is a good shaman. He knows something to keep the child well. You go to him and ask him and he will put up a ceremony for you. But don't tell him who told you about his ceremony."
Those relatives of the little child talk it over. One says, "I'll give a gun for that ceremony." Another says, "I'll give two blankets." Another offers a horse or a buckskin.
CHILDHOOD ii
One of the relatives goes to the man who knows the ceremony. He says, "We have been unable to bring up our children. We need you to help us."
My relative sits there. He just makes some kind of sound in his throat first. Then he says, "Well, I'll do it. But I need a buckskin with a piece of turquoise tied at the middle of the head and a yellow horse. Give two other things, any- thing you wish, just so it makes four, a set of four."
They get these things together and bring them to him, and the ceremony takes place.
Once he has accepted the task, the shaman busies himself with the construction of the cradle. With prayers and ritual, oak, ash, or walnut is gathered for the ovate frame, and sotol or yucca stalk for the cross-pieces that will form the back of the cradle.
For the back part of the cradleboard, the cross-pieces are of sotol if the cradle is for a boy, and of narrow-leafed yucca if it is for a girl. The sotol, which is jagged edged along the leaf, is called the boy, the "he"; the yucca is called the girl, the "she." These plants are brother and sister, we say.
This sex distinction, however, is not acceptable to all.
A canopy to shield the child's face is made of the stems of red- barked dogwood, mock orange, or Apache plume. A piece of ash connects the frame and the canopy, and ash or oak is used for the footrest. The bedding is of wild mustard, and a pillow of Solanium trifolium prevents excessive movement of the head. The buckskin covering for the frame is usually colored with yel- low ocher. In the buckskin which covers the top of the canopy, symbols are cut which sometimes have sex value. The girl's cra- dle is usually decorated with a full moon or half-moon; the boy's cradle, with a cross or four parallel slits.
Some feel that cradleboard materials may be prepared in ad- vance but that, once actual construction has started, the work should be finished the same day. Others permit the outer frame to be made on one day and the cross-pieces and canopy on an- other. Still others have no strong conviction about the length of time to be allotted to the process as long as the cradle is ready when it is needed. It is assumed that all steps in the construction have been accompanied by prayers for the welfare and long life of the infant. The shaman ties protective amulets on the cradle — bags of pollen, turquoise beads, and pieces of lightning-riven wood.
12 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
The public part of the ceremony begins in the early morning before relatives and neighbors. The shaman may confine his own part to prayer and the giving of commands to an assistant, or he may perform the ritual acts alone. The child is marked with pollen or specular iron ore, and pollen is thrown to the directions. One practitioner places four dots of pollen on the face of a boy for whom he is officiating and traces a line of pollen across the bridge of the nose of a girl. The cradle, and sometimes the child, is held to the cardinal directions, beginning with the east and proceed- ing in the clockwise circuit. It is the ''way" of one shaman to hold up both child and cradle if the ceremony is for a boy but to gesture with the cradle only if the infant is a girl. Finally, the cradle is faced to the east, and, after three ritual feints, the child is placed inside. A feast and social occasion follow. According to one informant, a child may later address a parental or grand- parental term to the person who lifted him into the cradle, even though no actual relationship exists.
This rite is essentially a prayer that the child be spared to occupy the cradle in the future, for it is not until a month or more has elapsed and "the neck is strong enough so that the head does not hang limply" that the child is kept continuously in the cra- dle. After that, the mother carries the cradle by a tumpline pass- ing across her chest or, more infrequently, over her forehead. Even when she travels on horseback, she often carries the cradle strung across her hip by the carrying strap and suspended over the side of the horse.
To the amulets and pendants supplied by the shaman the mother generally adds some of her own. The right paw of the badger, with grass substituted for the bone, is hung on the cradle to guard the child from fright. Such protection is important, for fright lies at the root of a number of serious illnesses. Humming- bird claws and pieces of wildcat skin also act as cradle charms. To ward off colds and other sickness, a length of cholla wood is often tied on the cradle. When anything is wrong with the child, a growth found on the creosote bush is suspended from the canopy. It is a general rule that no one may step over a child or a cradle.
CHILDHOOD 13
When the baby is from a week to a few months old, his mother or his maternal grandmother pierces his ears. To do this she ap- plies something hot to the ear and then punctures it with a strong thorn or a sharp bone. The child learns "to hear things sooner" and obeys more quickly if this is done promptly. "When the ears are not pierced, the child cannot be controlled; he will be wild and go to the bad. It is believed that children grow faster too if this is done." Pendants of white beads or turquoise are strung from the ears of very young children, and this mode of ornamentation continues throughout life.
Sexual intercourse between a man and his wife is not resumed until the child has been weaned. During this period of almost three years the couple is expected to remain continent. Actually, some men contrive to "sneak around" and "find easy women" with whom to have relations. But social pressure operates to en- force this rule of continence strictly in the majority of cases. A man so importunate as to demand connection with his wife too soon is subject to sharp criticism and is said to have acted "against" his growing child. "There is a man whose child is not walking yet, and his wife is pregnant. The Indians think he is no good. We are ashamed to have a second child on the way before a first is weaned."
Because the mother's milk supply has been stopped or altered by her new pregnancy, the nursing infant is "starved" and upset and is likely to become a weakling. In such an emergency an- other minor rite is arranged:
There's a hair-cutting ceremony that I'm going to tell you about. Let us say a child is only a year, old and the mother is pregnant again while that child is still nursing. Then the little child that is only a year old is sick; it has stom- ach trouble. Something must be done for that child.
When this happens, the mother usually takes the child to an old woman or someone who knows what to do. This old woman cuts the child's hair and puts red paint over the child's body. Then she gives it some kind of medicine.
Polygyny, though it is not widely practiced, exists, and a man with more than one wife "is in a good position, for when one of his wives is pregnant or has a nursing child, he can go to the other."
i4 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
Once the child is old enough for the cradleboard, it becomes his almost permanent home for a number of months. This con- tinuous stay in the cradle causes a slight occipital flattening of the head. The baby is laced in tightly and is removed only occa- sionally. He may even be left in the cradle while he is nursed. He does have to be taken out when the soft grass, moss, or pul- verized wild-rose bark, used as padding and as absorbent mate- rial for the discharges, needs renewing. To prevent chafing, the child is dusted with powder scraped from the bark of the heart- leafed willow. A very young child is bathed in a decoction ob- tained by boiling the plant Drymaria jendleri "to make the skin strong."
As the child becomes more active and restless, beads and jingles of various kinds are strung from the canopy to engage his attention. After he is six or seven months old he is allowed more time outside the cradle and crawls vigorously around the camp.
During this crawling stage the child must be carefully watched, lest he come in contact with baneful substances which can cause sickness — worms, certain insects, and feathers from evil birds such as the owl or the crow. Dogs are considered par- ticularly inappropriate in a camp where there is a small child.
If you have a little child crawling around and suddenly a dog barks at it and scares it, they say that the fright will go inside that child and make its heart sick. So they don't like dogs around much. If you have one, some man might come along and say, "Why do you have that dog around? Don't you know it is no good? It might scare your children and make them sick."
When a child is stillborn or dies while it is being carried in the cradle, its body is hastily buried in a talus slope and is covered by rocks, branches, and earth. The cradle, if it has already been made, has a different destination:
They take the cradle and cut it so it will be recognized; cut slits in the buck- skin, for instance. They hang it up in a tree which stands to the east of the en- campment where the death took place. No one will dare to touch it. It is for- bidden to touch it. If the cradle is still around the camp, it is hung out at the child's death even though the child is already walking when he dies. Sometimes the cradle is put in a place in a bluff.
CHILDHOOD 15
Occasionally, a cradle is burned at the death of the child. This alternative usage conforms to the customary death practices, for all of an adult's combustible possessions are ordinarily de- stroyed by fire at his demise.
A still serviceable cradle, if the child for whom it was made is alive and healthy, may be used for a newborn sibling of the same sex. Nevertheless, a cradle ceremony is held for the new baby. The more usual practice is to fashion a separate cradle for each child.
There are no conventionalized cradlesongs, but the mother often croons some such improvised lullaby as, "Little baby, go to sleep again." "Sometimes it goes way up and makes you feel sorry for the baby. It almost makes you want to cry." To quiet a fretful child, a man or a woman swings the cradle and sings a vigorous tune accompanied by such words as:
This, my little baby! This, my little baby!
FIRST STEPS
Life is conceived as a path along which individuals must con- stantly be helped by ritual devices. This trail must be followed exactly as the heroes of mythical times are said to have jour- neyed along it. It is appropriate, therefore, that the baby's first steps should be ceremonially celebrated.
Since this rite is purely symbolic in nature, it may occur before the child actually begins to walk or some time afterward. It will not take place until the child is at least seven months old, and it has ordinarily been held before he is two years of age. On this occasion the infant dons his first moccasins, an aspect of the rite which gives it its name, "Putting on Moccasins." As in the other rites, practitioners who "know" this particular ceremony must be hired. Depending on their "way" and the wealth and impor- tance of the family sponsoring the occasion, the ceremony will vary in detail. The account that follows summaries the basic pattern.
16 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
There is a ceremony held over a child when it just begins to walk Men
and women who know how may carry on this ceremony for the child. They get the power through Child of the Water [the culture hero].4 It is done to keep the child healthy and strong, and because Child of the Water, when he started to walk, had a ceremony like this one.
The family .... has to have a lot of meat and fruit ready. A feast is an- nounced just like the one held at the girl's puberty rite. Many are invited. When a boy goes through this ceremony, they call him Child of the Water. When a girl goes through it, they call her White Painted Woman [the mother of the cul- ture hero]. Every child should go through it.
When my son first began to walk, he had a good ceremony. T. and Old Man D. carried it out. They had power from Child of the Water.
D. directed my wife in the making of the buckskin outfit. It has to be made from the skin of a black-tailed buck for a boy. In D.'s ceremony just a shirt and moccasins are made for the boy. For a girl the outfit has to be made from the skin of a black-tailed doe. Crescents and stars and crosses were the designs. The same designs are used on the girl's clothes when the ceremony is for a girl.
They wait for the new or the full moon before beginning this ceremony. This time they waited for the new moon. They start just as early as they can. Early in the morning many came to the place where I lived. We had plenty there for them to eat. We had presents for everyone, too — fruit and tobacco and other things. J. B. helped me with this because he wanted the ceremony held. He is a relative on my wife's side. My father-in-law brought some of these things too, and his sisters helped also. My wife's sisters helped with the cooking.
They had a big hoop-and-pole game5 going there too. P. and others who knew the ceremony well were off playing this game while they waited for the feast that was to follow.
After some prayers T. marked everyone with pollen. He put some on the head and above the nose of both men and women, the way they do at the girl's puberty rite. This was done just before sunup. At sunrise he took the boy and lifted him toward the east, raising him four times. He did the same to the south and the west and the north. Then he set him down.
With pollen he made footprints on a piece of white buckskin just as White Painted Women made them in the story of the killing of the monsters. We took the boy. I was holding him on one side, and T. was on the other. We led him through these footprints. T. said a prayer about Child of the Water and his first step just as the boy took the first step. He said another prayer for the second step and went on until four prayers and four steps were over. Then the boy took four steps by himself. As he did so, they said, "May he have good fortune." Now we turned the boy clockwise and brought him back, and he walked the four steps in the same way again. Four times we walked him like this. Then we
4 Actually the rite can be obtained through other sources as well.
5 For a description of the game see pp. 448-50.
CHILDHOOD 17
took him in a clockwise circle four times. After four prayers, T. sang four songs. Then we sat down.
Next T., and after him all the others, marked that little boy just as the girl is marked in the puberty rite. After that, T. prayed, took a drum, beat it four times, and started to sing. All those who knew his songs helped with the singing. Four songs were sung before he stopped. They were about Life Giver [another name for Yusn], White Painted Woman, and Child of the Water, of how the earth was made and how the fruit grew, of how Child of the Water was born and reared under the fire and how the monsters were killed.
Now prayers were said by D., and another set of songs began. The people were dancing in there, women and men, boys and girls. They danced in place. The women uttered that call of applause6 when the names of Child of the Water and White Painted Woman were mentioned.
There were two more sets of prayers and songs. D. said the prayers. They had me sit in the center with the boy, and they all danced around us. The boy was not bashful. He danced up and down and looked around. He was only about a year and nine months old.
D. and T. said the last set of four prayers. When the people playing the hoop- and-pole game heard about this, they all came up, for they knew we had presents there to give and that the end of the ceremony was near.
D. picked up the moccasins. He put pollen on them and lifted them to the directions. He put pollen on the boy's foot and put the right moccasin on first, then the left. "Now you can run," he said. The boy put his foot right in; he was glad to do it. Everyone said, "He's just like his father."
Finally the presents were blessed. D. and T. put pollen all over the baskets of fruit and presents, and a man began passing out these things to the people. He gave some to D. and T. first. He gave them tobacco. Then sweets were passed to the children. Then other gifts were distributed. After this was over, the big meal began. They feasted that day. That night T. lifted the boy up to the moon from the four directions so that he would grow tall.
SPRING HAIR-CUTTING CEREMONY
The spring, usually the spring following the first-moccasins ceremony, "when everything is starting to grow and the grass is coming up," is chosen as the appropriate time for a brief hair- cutting rite. The child is brought to a shaman who "knows" supernatural power useful in safeguarding and training children. The man or woman selected must have thick hair. "If a man performs this ceremony and the child grows up to be a fine one, other parents come to him."
6 A high-pitched call of the woman, signifying reverent or ceremonial ap- plause.
1 8 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
The minutiae of the ceremonies differ, but a composite de- scription, distilled from some half-dozen separate accounts, re- duces to the following elements. Pollen from cattail or from one of a number of other sources is applied to the cheeks and head of the child four-times and scattered clockwise to the cardinal direc- tions. Then his hair, with the exception of one or more locks, is closely cropped. Meanwhile the shaman prays for his long life and good health. The shaman may cut off a lock of his own and mix it with the shorn hair, saying, "May this child's hair be as thick as mine." The hair is usually placed in a fruit-bearing tree with this prayer, "May many seasons come and the child live long." The pollen on the child's face is not removed but is al- lowed to wear away. Each boy and girl should undergo this cere- mony at least once. Ideally, the rite should be repeated for four successive springs, with the same individual officiating.
It is about this time that weaning takes place. Gradually, as teeth appear, the child is introduced to light foods so "it will not be so hungry and demand the nipple so much." Sometimes the baby is simply forced away from the breast and given to under- stand that he must henceforth depend on other food. More often something sour or peppery, like chili, is put on the nipples. The child is told that the milk "is this way now" and rapidly loses interest in nursing.
SURROUNDINGS
The household into which the child is born is one of a cluster of elementary families related through the maternal line. Near an older man and woman reside their unmarried sons and daugh- ters, their married daughters and the sons-in-law, their daugh- ters' daughters (married and unmarried), and their daughters' unmarried sons. The number of separate dwellings varies accord- ing to the size of the group and the ages and marital status of the individuals involved. Each daughter, upon marriage, occupies a separate dwelling with her husband. Ordinarily, an unmarried son lives in his parents' household, but an adult unmarried son might have his own adjoining dwelling.
It is with the members of this maternal extended family that
CHILDHOOD 19
the child has his earliest and most meaningful contacts. In his own household live his parents and his brothers and sisters. Only adoption or exceptional circumstances bring others into the home. Within easy reach are the maternal grandparents, the mother's sisters and their husbands and children, and the moth- er's unmarried brothers.
The child is not entirely cut off from other contacts. The ex- tended family from which his father has come may be located in the same vicinity. Then the paternal relatives will see him often and show great affection for him.
Kinship is reckoned bilaterally. There are no special modes of address or obligations owed to maternal relatives which are with- held from paternal relatives. That the mother's kin figure so prominently is a mechanical reaction to the rule of residence and the scattered and isolated state of the extended families rather than to any theories concerning the closeness or remoteness of particular lines of kin.
The adult men the child sees are dressed in long-sleeved buck- skin shirts, with rounded neck opening and with fringe at the shoulders and at the lower ends of the sleeves. They also wear broad loincloths of the same material which fall to a point just above the knees in front and hang in back "just high enough so they won't be stepped on." For footgear they have knee-high moccasins with uppers turned down in folds. These folds are con- venient places in which to carry knives or small objects. Often an upward-curving, disk-shaped piece about an inch and a half in diameter projects beyond the toe. This is really a portion of the rawhide sole which has been pounded, moistened, and sewed into position at either side. When it dries, it stays fixed. This projection is found most often on moccasins made for special or dress occasions. "The upturned toe is for decoration only; it's of no special use. In fact, a person sometimes trips on it."
The high boot is the characteristic type, but, when buckskin is scarce, low-cut moccasins suffice. Sometimes high moccasins are worn in cold weather and low ones in summer. Among the members of the Eastern Chiricahua band, but not the Southern and Central Chiricahua, the low-cut moccasins are used almost
20 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
as frequently as the others. In the two bands which favor the high moccasin, the possession of a pair of this type is a point of prestige: "The moccasin is worn high when you are able to have this kind. All people of influence had them this way." The seam line at the foot, especially on "dress" moccasins, is often painted red, the upturned portion of the toe may be variously painted, too, and sometimes the folded portion of the upper or the entire moccasin is colored with yellow ocher.
When the man is out hunting, raiding, or fighting, he wears a belt of buckskin or rawhide to which a knife sheath is attached, but in times of peace he seldom takes the trouble to don this when he is around camp.
After the spring ceremony the hair is allowed to grow. "We all wear long hair. A person doesn't dare cut his hair off with a knife. He has to take good care of his hair. To cut it brings bad luck. The only time you do that is when a member of your fam- ily has died." A man leaves his hair unbraided. He pushes it to the sides, out of his eyes and over his shoulders, and it is held in place by a band which crosses his forehead.
Yucca root, pounded, is used for shampooing the hair. "After washing the hair, they use fat on it to make it stick together. Also marrow from the shinbone of a deer is used for this pur- pose."
The faces of the men are smooth; all facial hair is plucked with the fingernails as soon as it is noticed, because "the Chiricahua don't like whiskers." There are exceptions, of course. "There is one man who has let his beard grow for good luck. He told me that when he was young he had a dream that he would have good luck if he let his beard grow. He is over sixty years old now and still has a moustache."
At times of dance and celebration a mixture of grease and red ocher is rubbed on the cheeks, and there are other face paints. "Paint is used for decoration when there is any gathering or dance. It can be put on at any time. Sometimes a person puts circles on each cheek; sometimes some other markings. A few put a streak of sticky mescal juice on each side of the face."
In addition to decorative face-painting, there is a great deal of
CHILDHOOD 21
painting for ritual reasons. The coloring of the patient's face by the shaman (often with sacred substances such as pollen, specu- lar iron ore, or white clay) is one of the important elements of the ceremonial pattern. Thus the child becomes used to seeing indi- viduals whose faces are marked with lines of white clay or whose cheeks are decorated with symbols of the sun, moon, stars, or various constellations.
The men tattoo themselves but limit the area to the inner part of the arms "because there is more flesh there and it is more tender." The colors used are red and blue-black. The red is ob- tained from red ocher or the juice of ripe prickly pears; the black, from charcoal. The material is laid on the skin, moistened, and punched in with a cactus thorn. Typical designs are stars, con- stellations, and zigzag lines symbolizing lightning. Sometimes these relate to the shamanistic rites of the individual. For in- stance, one man who claims power from lightning has tattooed markings representative of his tutelary. But most tattooing is merely decorative. In time the designs lose their sharpness and after many years can scarcely be distinguished.
The men have earrings, necklaces, bracelets, bandoleers, and pendants. Turquoise and white shell beads are worn. "The 'an- cient people' [prehistoric Pueblo inhabitants] gave us the tur- quoise. These people were careless with the stones, and the Chi- ricahua pick them up." Beads are also made from the segments of a long root (Hi /aria cenchroides?) and from the seeds of the mountainlaurel. Many of these ornaments are primarily of reli- gious and protective value.
Abalone shell, too, is used in ritual contexts and is frequently worn. "People cut out a piece, drill a hole through it, and wear it. Often they are directed to do this by a shaman after he has cured them. The shaman himself might give the abalone to the patient. A piece of it is often fastened right to the hair."
A sachet of mint may be worn, particularly by young men who wish to make themselves attractive to the girls.
The woman wears a two-piece dress of buckskin — an upper garment and a medium-length skirt. High-topped moccasins
22 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
(women never wear the low-cut type) complete the costume. These moccasins often have the upturned toe.
Young women, and many middle-aged women too, part the hair, draw it together at the back, wrap it up in a knot at the nape, tie it, and cover it with an hour-glass-shaped hide form. Older women tend to wear their hair hanging loosely; "but, if it is in their way, they fix it up too." As a woman advances in age, she devotes less attention to hair-grooming, though there is great individual variation in the time at which these changes take place. Though some rather young women have the hair loose, a really old woman is never seen wearing the hair form.
Face-painting of women follows the conventions noted for men. Women tattoo also. In addition to tattoo markings on the arms, they place a dot on either cheek and often a figure, such as a circle or a wavy or serrated line, on the forehead. One in- formant insisted that the facial tattooing of the women is an innovation.
Women, like men, make lavish use of pendants and ornaments of stone, shell, and other materials; and many of these objects, too, are really amulets.
Very young children, particularly when the weather is mild, are burdened with little or no clothing. They play around the camps happy and unkempt. "It seems as though washing their hands and washing themselves is foreign to them." When clothes are made for them, the garments are modeled after those worn by adults. Sometimes a child's hair is gathered at the sides and "tied in two bundles." But most often, until the girl assumes the hair form and the boy the headband, the hair is left to hang loosely. For protection from the sun, both young people and adults wear wreaths of fresh willow.
The home in which the family lives is made by the women and is ordinarily a circular, dome-shaped brush dwelling, with the floor at ground level. It is seven feet high at the center and ap- proximately eight feet in diameter. To build it, long fresh poles of oak or willow are driven into the ground or placed in holes made with a digging-stick. These poles, which form the frame- work, are arranged at one-foot intervals and are bound together
CHILDHOOD 23
at the top with yucca-leaf strands. Over them a thatching of bundles of'big bluestem grass or bear grass is tied, shingle style, with yucca strings. A smoke hole opens above a central fireplace. A hide, suspended at the entrance, is fixed on a cross-beam so that it may be swung forward or backward. The doorway may face in any direction. For waterproofing, pieces of hide are thrown over the outer thatching, and in rainy weather, if a fire is not needed, even the smoke hole is covered. In warm, dry weather much of the outer roofing is stripped off. It takes ap- proximately three days to erect a sturdy dwelling of this type. These houses are "warm and comfortable, even though there is a big snow."
The interior is lined with brush and grass beds over which robes are spread. Household equipment is utilitarian and mini- mal. Basketry receptacles include coiled shallow trays, large twined burden baskets for gathering wild foods, and pitch-cov- ered woven water containers. There may be a few clay pots, unpainted and only occasionally incised. There are gourd cups and hide, gourd, and wooden dishes. Surplus food and clothing are stored in undecorated, envelope-like hide receptacles (par- fleches). Ready for use are a metate and a cigar-shaped mano (as often as not of ancient Pueblo manufacture), stone and bone pounders, an awl, rawhide or horsetail hair ropes and tumplines, a fire drill, and combs made of dried and folded grass or mescal leaf.
In or around the camp are objects connected with horseman- ship— saddles, bridles, bits, quirts, and saddlebags. Conspicu- ous, too, are weapons of war and chase — the bow and arrows, quiver, bow cover, shield, wrist guard, spear, sling, flint knives, and clubs.
Ceremonial objects — the pottery drum, a deer- or elk-hoof rattle, buckskin bags of pollen and other sacred substances, and the particular paraphernalia attached to the rites of the individ- uals of the household — are present but are less likely to be dis- played.
The dwelling may contain a musical instrument or two not
24 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
necessarily connected with ritual, a one-stringed violin (probably inspired by European models), and more infrequently a flute.
The elaborate system of affinal avoidances makes it expedient to allow some space between the home of the man who joins the encampment and those of his wife's relatives. Therefore, a dis- tance of two or three hundred paces may separate two dwellings. Each family is afforded privacy, yet relatives and neighbors are near enough in case of danger. The comparative independence of each home is further safeguarded by the nature of the country, by natural barriers which often conceal one dwelling from the next, even though the distance which separates them is not great. Because these people raid surrounding groups as a regular course, they have reason to fear retaliation and therefore seek to conceal their habitations as much as possible. Desirable locations must be near enough to streams and springs to insure an adequate water supply and close to the highlands so that foes can be led into a fruitless and wearying search through the hills.
The possessions, the materials from which they are made, and the uses which they imply make it plain that the food economy is based on the wild animals and plants of the region and that the people must be ready to follow a seasonal food quest and to re- move to a new locality when it becomes apparent that hunting or gathering is more rewarding there. A popular folk tale, explica- ble in terms of this life, tells how a man becomes separated from the members of his family and seeks to rejoin them, passing camp site after camp site which they have abandoned, until he finally overtakes them. Other accounts describe the frequent movements of the people, with those who have no horses carrying their goods and their children.
Sometimes a single household goes off alone on an economic errand and even remains by itself for some time. But, ordinarily, the extended family breaks camp and moves as a body. It can, therefore, be called the smallest unit prepared to maintain a separate economic existence for any length of time. Thus, even in the midst of the nomadic phase of his life, the most significant social bonds remain undisturbed for the individual.
Despite constant movement, population tends to concentrate
CHILDHOOD 25
at points advantageous for defense or economy, and the people who live in one vicinity are known by a name referring to the natural feature which marks the area. Often the members of the extended families concerned are, or become, loosely affiliated through intermarriage, but the bonds between them need not be more than those stemming from proximity of residence and the common local name. These extended families which recognize some natural feature as their home or base and share a common name which attests to this can be referred to collectively as a local group. The extended families of a local group may be sepa- rated from each other by some distance. A ridge or a mountain spur may intervene, or one camp cluster may be on one side of the mountain which acts as their common locus while a second extended family inhabits the other side. Nevertheless, all are within relatively easy reach of one another and can be quickly contacted for social, military, or religious events. Normally, the contacts afforded by the three segments which have been out- lined— the elementary family, the extended family, and the local group — monopolize the experiences of the first years of the child.
EARLY TRAINING AND DISCIPLINE
The rearing and training of children are among the most serious of adult preoccupations. Supernatural help is sometimes sought for these purposes. Though the guidance received from his relatives is criticized if a child grows up to be worthless, he is not exempt from effort of his own. In the training process the child's co-operation is necessary, and an interest in the funda- mentals of the folkways is deemed an essential step to informed adulthood.
The child grows into the meanings of his culture gradually and not without amusing misinterpretations. One informant recalled his first sight of the masked dancers. Noting that they wore kilts, he asked a man who stood near by if they were women and was abashed to receive a negative answer. No other explanation was offered, and he was too shy to inquire further. It was some time before he began to understand the character of these dance groups.
26 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
Another episode concerns a small boy who had just become aware of the "polite form" of speech, that indirect mode of ad- dress in use between affinal relatives who must conduct them- selves with restraint when they are together. He approached his grandmother's home where there were visitors before whom he was too bashful to appear and, in this most formal manner, asked if the guests were still inside. He was, of course, greeted by laughter. He did not realize until later that he "was doing what a son-in-law does who thinks his mother-in-law is in a certain place and wants to make sure before he goes in."
A comparable mistake was made by some little boys at a girl's puberty rite. During the ceremony the adolescent girl runs around a basket tray placed to the east of the ceremonial struc- ture. In her path, that the benefits of the ceremony may accrue to them also, run young boys and even old men. "When the girls ran around the basket, we boys were expected to run after them. At first, we thought it was a real race, and several of us beat the girls. Then one old man told us that it was not the way, that we were not supposed to pass them, so we stayed behind the other three times."
Even when the cultural ethic has been unmistakably indi- cated, a youngster may lag in conforming to it. One man was reluctant to talk about death or burial, for horror of such topics is great, but he confessed that this had not always been his state of mind:
I remember that whenever a funeral procession was passing by we were told not to look at it. But we did look at it whenever the old people were not around.
I once asked my grandmother where they were taking a dead man who was being carried away. She told me not to look at the procession. Then she told me that they were putting the man away; that he couldn't walk, or dance, or eat, or sing by himself any more; that they were putting him under the ground.
"But if they are putting him under the ground, how will he keep the dirt out of his eyes?" I asked. She explained to me that he was all fixed up so that no dirt would get in his eyes. It was the first time I had ever thought about death. I began to ask more questions of my grandmother, but she told me that he couldn't come back any more and to stop talking about it.
A few days later we children played funeral. We killed grasshoppers and buried them.
I wasn't afraid until I was about seven years old. Then I learned about ghosts, and from that time on I was pretty much afraid.
CHILDHOOD 27
The memory of training is synonymous with the consciousness of self:
As far back as I can remember my father and mother directed me how to act. They used to tell me, "Do not use a bad word which you wouldn't like to be used to you. Do not feel that you are anyone's enemy. In playing with chil- dren remember this: do not take anything from another child. Don't take ar- rows away from another boy just because you are bigger than he is. Don't take his marbles away. Don't steal from your own friends. Don't be unkind to your playmates. If you are kind now, when you become a man you will love your fellow-men.
"When you go to the creek and swim, don't duck anyone's children. Don't ever fight a girl when you're playing with other children. Girls are weaker than boys. If you fight with them, that will cause us trouble with our neighbors.
"Don't laugh at feeble old men and women. That's the worst thing you can do. Don't criticize them and make fun of them. Don't laugh at anybody or make fun of anybody.
"This is your camp. What little we have here is for you to eat. Don't go to another camp with other children for a meal. Come back to your own camp when you are hungry and then go out and play again.
"When you start to eat, act like a grown person. Just wait until things are served to you. Do not take bread or a drink or a piece of meat before the rest start to eat. Don't ask before the meal for things that are still cooking, as many children do. Don't try to eat more than you want. Try to be just as polite as you can; sit still while you eat. Do not step over another person, going around and reaching for something.
"Don't run into another person's camp as though it was your own. Don't run around anyone's camp. When you go to another camp, don't stand at the door. Go right in and sit down like a grown person. Don't get into their drinking water. Don't go out and catch or hobble horses and ride them as if they be- longed to you the way some boys do. Do not throw stones at anybody's animals.
"When a visitor comes, do not go in front of him or step over him. Do not cut up while the visitor is here. If you want to play, get up quietly, go behind the visitor, and out the door."
The foundations for the sexual division of labor are early laid:
"Your work will be to make baskets and to build fires, my daughter. Keep busy like your mother. Watch your mother as she is going through her daily work. When you get older, you will do the same things. It doesn't hurt you to pick up little sticks of wood and carry them in. Stay here by the fire. Watch your mother and see what she is doing around the camp."
When my mother and father talked to both my sister and me, they would say, "This means you. This means you," pointing to each of us. And many times my father would say to my sister, "There are things which can be told to you
28 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
by your mother, and you can learn all the time. I have to train this boy. Of course, he may not hear part of the time, but I have to tell him what he should do, what he has to go through."
All adults feel the responsibility for furnishing the child with information appropriate to his age and sex:
The boys watch the men when they are making bows and arrows; the man calls them over, and they are forced to watch him. The women, on the other hand, take the girls out and show them what plants to use for baskets, what clay for pots. And at home the women weave the baskets, sew moccasins, and tan buckskin before the girls. While they are at work, they tell the students to watch closely so that when they reach womanhood nobody can say anything about their being lazy or ignorant. They teach the girls to cook and advise them about picking berries and other fruits and gathering food.
Not much importance is attributed to distinctions of status, but there are band and local group leaders and their families who are conscious of their position and good birth:
The word [good status] includes the idea that they are better educated in the Indian way. More pains are taken with such children; they are kept out of mis- chief more. They should not resent things easily. They are supposed to be better bred. Quarreling should be beneath them. That is why, when a man is unreasonable or insulting, they say, "Even though you are of worthless stock, you should try to hold yourself back." I hear lots of boys of good families being instructed by their parents. They are told to act accordingly. I heard one girl called down by her father for gossiping. She was told that those of her family did not do this and that she was acting like a trashy person.
"These people," said another informant, "don't want their children to get in any mixup; they are jealous of the reputations of their sons and daughters." So important did training in child- hood loom to this man that he added: "A leader's son never fails to make good, for he is trained and advised from boyhood up to manhood."
The difference in social atmosphere with which various fam- ilies surround the child has been noted thus:
At our camp my father and mother used to say, "Respect whoever comes to your camp. If it is just at mealtime when they come to your camp, just tell them to sit down. Then feed them first." Most of these Indians are this way.
But there are great differences among different families. I've noticed it. A man might have visitors at his home just about mealtime. His wife might cook
CHILDHOOD 29
a big meal. Generally, she would serve the visitor first, even if the visitor was a woman. After the visitors had gone, the man might get after his wife and ask her, "Why should you feed those people first? Why didn't you feed me first?" If a visitor happens to hear of this, he will say, "I'm sorry I went over there. I didn't know that man was like that. I won't go over there any more."
The child must early be made sensible of certain dangers and must learn to be quiet at a command. Enemies often lurk peril- ously near, and the encampments may suffer severe loss before help can be summoned. Often a child's first memories have to do with threats concerning a dread and shadowy being who preys upon noisy or disobedient children. "The word gode is enough. They don't try to describe him. The children become afraid of the word."
Another sound which the child learns to respect is the call of the poorwill. This bird is known by the same name as the masked dancers, for it is thought that the call of the poorwill resembles the traditional call of the dancer as he approaches and "worships" the fire.
When I was a boy, there was a bird that sang only at night. We were told that its song was the voice of the clown of the masked dancers who took bad children. We were pretty quiet and well behaved when we heard that song at night. I realize now that the song is pretty, but when I was a child it frightened me and I disliked it.
This masked-dancer clown, or Gray One, is one of the terrors of childhood. "The clown is going to put you in a basket and carry you off somewhere. Say this to a little child and he is going to mind right away."
The threat of the clown is maintained as long as possible to keep the children out of the way of prowling enemies and preda- tory animals. When warnings of the clown's arrival lose their efficacy, Gray One himself may "appear."
Suppose now that children are playing out there and won't mind at all. All right! The parents will say, "Let's scare those children."
They go way around through the woods somewhere. Maybe a big fat man goes out there with them, and they put white paint on him. They make him look like the clown. Well, he goes over to the other side of the place where those children are playing in the brush. He takes a little switch or a stick along with him. Then, when he is about twenty yeards away, he shows his face, and one of
30 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
the boys or girls sees it and starts to run. Then the rest look and see the clown coming. The children cry and run back to camp. And the clown will be running after them, trying to hit them with the stick, throwing stones after them, but being careful not to hit them. I'll tell you, those children will not go far from camp any more!
Clowns accompany the masked dancers at the girl's puberty rite, and parents of disobedient children, taking advantage of the fears already engendered, arrange to have Gray One "get after" their youngsters at this time.
The child is silenced, too, by dark forces, as fearful to adults as to him:
From the earliest time I can remember I was afraid of the owl. It was not until much later that I knew why — that I knew the owl can cause evil influence to a person. When I was bad, my mother would make me listen to the hooting of the owl. "Listen to that!" she would say, and I would settle down and be quiet. She told me it was a bad animal and would catch me if I were bad.
The clue to the abhorrence for owls emerges in another ac- count:
It was taught to me in camp when I was small that ghosts and owls are related in some way. At night you go out in the woods over there by yourself. If you are a full-blood Chiricahua, you have been taught ever since you were a small child, "Don't ever throw anything at an owl. Never mock an owl. They are dangerous. They are ghosts." If you are out in the woods on a dark night after you have been taught in this way what owls are and you hear them close to you, you certainly are frightened. In those days they claimed Indians used to get very sick from owls, and some shamans had to work to get them well.
Other devices for subduing unruly children are used:
There was an old man whom I did not like. He used to chase me and catch me whenever he saw me. So, when I was bad, my mother used to say that this old man was coming for me or that she was going to give me away to him.
Sometimes the old man comes to see the recalcitrant child at the parents' request:
When a child is mischievous, they call an old man who looks fierce. He is no relative. The old man limps in with a sack or blanket in his hand. He acts angry and shouts, "What's the matter?"
The father and the mother sit there. They say, "This boy won't obey. He is always fighting. You can take him and do what you wish with him. You can cut off his head or sit on him. We don't care. We aren't going to put up with him any longer." The boy begins to cry.
CHILDHOOD 31
The old man says, "So, you won't obey? I'm going to check you off right now." The boy cries louder.
"Now stop that! Listen to me. Come over to me or I'm going to get you." The child is frightened. He tries to crawl behind his father, his mother, or his grandmother. But they act as if they have given the old man the privilege to do what he wants with the boy, and they push the boy forward. Then the old man grabs him and struggles with him. He puts him in the sack and says, "Are you going to behave?"
After that the boy is prompt and behaves. If he won't get wood, his mother says, "All right, I'll call the old man." Then he goes for the wood at once. After the old man works on him like this two or three times, he comes to be a good boy.
These old men look fierce and funny. The children are afraid of them. The old man is never the grandparent. It is always an outsider. The grandparent is there with the parents to see the child get his lesson.
Cowing children by reference to ill-favored old people is not to be confused with a manner of joking practiced for another pur- pose:
An old woman might joke with a little boy, calling him her husband, telling him, "I'll be back tonight and see you," and making all kinds of funny remarks. Here is what is behind it. They say that when an old person jokes like this it will give long life and good luck to a little child. But [for an old person] to joke about this concerning someone of the child's age is not good. It's against the child.
I've been joked at like this. My aunt [a mother's sister; the child's mother had died] used to play this trick on me. She picked out an old woman who was as ugly as anything. She used to say, "I've brought you up and you've got to do what I tell you. You must marry that old woman." The old woman, when she came around, would say, "I missed you last night. Come over to my place and I'll cook for you."
But they never mention relatives when they joke in this way. To do that will give the child bad habits and bad ideas. If you fool like that with a grand- mother, you'll get used to being free with relatives. You'll see your own sister over there and have relations with her. You'll turn into a witch. To encourage joking about marriage with relatives is just like teaching your daughter to play cards all the time or to drink whiskey.
To return to other disciplinary measures:
For crying children we have some kind of covering. We do not whip the child if we can help it. We put the covering over the child's head and hold it that way until he stops crying. We do this to little children, do it several times until they stop crying. The little children do not like to have anything over their heads. That is one punishment.
32 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
Another punishment for crying is to pour a little cup of water slowly on the child's head. It is cold and the child stops. Then we get another cupful and ask, "Going to cry again?" The child says, "No."
But the parent is usually gentle with the child. "If you love a child, it is awful to hear him cry or to have other children angry with him. You want to play with him and please him." There- fore, forceful measures of any kind are avoided where threats will gain the desired end. "We tell children we will put them in a sack if they are not good. I told it to mine. I never did it though."
Instead of punishing a child for enuresis, other means are used to treat the difficulty. "If a child wets the bed, we put a bird's nest there and let him wet it. Then the nest is thrown to the east, and the child won't wet the bed any more."
Another ceremonial aid in child-training calls for the assist- ance of the adolescent girl at the time of her puberty rite: "If a child, a boy or a girl, is mean, they bring it to one of the girls. She takes pollen and hits him on the mouth four times with it. Then he can't talk evil any more and will be good."
Thoughtless children who are a nuisance to their elders are chastised in subtle ways. One of the most popular is to send an ill-mannered boy on a wild-goose chase. This is a favorite de- vice of story-tellers. The old man bides his time; then, at a con- venient stopping-place he picks up his tobacco pouch as though he is going to smoke, assumes his most innocent expression, and
.... says to this boy, "You get 'that with which one smokes' for me. I want to smoke with it and I left it over at the next camp." There is no such thing as "that with which one smokes." He just sends the boy to get rid of him.
When the boy gets over to the next camp, the man there tells him, "Go over to So-and-so's place. I just sent it over to him." Sometimes a boy chases it all night. Then another boy cuts up, and that boy is sent over to see what hap- pened to the first one.
"The Chiricahua loves his children and does not like to whip them"; but, when other methods fail, he resorts to corporal pun- ishment. "Parents never whip their children unless they won't get up and run a race or something like that. Parents try to make men of them, and some punish them for not minding."
CHILDHOOD 33
Though most parents exhibit self-discipline, there are in- stances where tempers are completely lost. Of the conduct of one woman it is reported, "I have seen her knock her little boy around like a ball. Every time he got up, she would knock him down again." Coolness between one father and son goes back to the time, in the words of the latter, "when he used me just like a slave. He whipped me, made me work, and kept me around the house." Similar difficulties have arisen between another father and son because of the father's severity.
E. is a pretty hard man with his wife and children. You see that stick he carries. Well, he is always poking those children with it, and they keep away from him as much as they can. His oldest boy is at Whitetail now. At night he stays in an old shack there. The place where he stays is all caved in. The boy has no blankets there but just sleeps between two old mattresses. The father is trying to get him home, but the boy won't come because he was treated in such a mean way. Not long ago his father tried to hit him with that stick. The boy took the stick away and hit his father on the head instead, and then he went off to Whitetail.
For serious breaches of etiquette or morals the adult in a posi- tion of authority takes direct action. A child who impolitely re- fused a gift quickly learned this:
My grandmother asked me about it. I told her that I had refused it. Then she gave me a good box on the ear, for it is very impolite according to the Indian custom to refuse anything that is offered. If someone gives you a gift, you must take it, no matter what his station in life is. The lower he is, the more quickly you must take it so as not to hurt his feelings.
At a later period, for sexual intercourse, the girl may be whipped by her father, sometimes publicly, with a rope or a stick. The parent expresses himself strongly during the chastise- ment, reminding her of the good advice she has disregarded and of the wrong she has done the family. The public nature of the punishment acts as a lesson to other girls. The girls "cry loud and long, and the neighbors around usually watch."
Parents who do not wish to whip their boys find other ways of correcting them:
The parents don't like to strike their bigger boys. They get some other fellow to punish him. If a boy doesn't obey and is rough and fights all the time, they take him to the hoop-and-pole ground. His father says, "We'll see how tough
34 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
you are!" He drags the boy over there. Other men are there with boys. Always there is a big crowd of men and beys at the grounds.
The father calls out, "Here is my boy. He's always in trouble. Let's see how bad he really is. Is there any other troublesome boy here?"
Perhaps some other father has a boy who needs a good lesson. He brings his boy forward. Maybe those two boys don't want to fight. The men hit them with sticks until they begin. They are both troublesome boys. No one cares who wins. The parents want them to get beaten up. The father keeps matching his boy up against others until the boy gets a good licking. Then he takes him home.
He says to the boy, "Are you hurt? Does it hurt? We want you to go through life without getting hurt. We want you to obey and to listen to our good words. But you try to run us and make trouble. Now you've been licked. You see that you are not such a man as you think. If you can't behave, we are going to take you out and make you fight a boy who is still bigger."
Yet there is greater dependence on advice and traditional stories for guiding the young than on physical coercion. The tales are particularly important in this connection. Some have no other point than to rationalize usage or belief. A child who is reluctant to "feed" his legs, that is, to rub grease on them after eating, is reminded of the story of the man who fed only his stomach and was told by his legs, "Run with your belly!" when he appealed to them to carry him out of danger.
Narratives of personal experience are aJso used to instruct the young. Once when some boys were showing insufficient interest in the running they were supposed to practice, an old man called them over and offered them the following counsel:
Boys, I'm an old man and funny looking now, and you all laugh at me. But there's one thing I always took care of, and they are pretty good still. I mean my legs. And you can learn that from me. My legs have saved me many a time.
Once I was out with a bunch of men. I stopped behind for a few minutes and they went ahead. I ran right into a bear there. That bear took after me. He was right behind me when I started running. But by the time I caught up with the others I was way ahead of him. I outran that bear. If I hadn't trained and kept myself a good runner, I would have been killed right there. So you boys ought to practice some running.
Many of the important myths can be told in winter only, and so the long winter nights are often enlivened by story-telling ses- sions. These occasions are not arranged for the exclusive benefit of the children, but, when children are present, special care is
CHILDHOOD 3$
taken by the raconteur to point the moral. Such instruction is not always taken in good spirits. "My father told me many stories, but sometimes I got very sleepy. Sometimes I got con- trary and wanted to go to bed," an informant admitted. Usual- ly, however, the children look forward to these evenings and often beg a grandparent to arrange one.
The most important story a child hears at this time is that of the birth of the culture hero and his victorious encounters with the monsters. Familiarity with this account is a necessary back- ground for much ritual. Parts of the story are dramatized in the girl's puberty rite. Ceremonial songs and many ritual touches refer to the protagonists of this legend. Grama grass, for exam- ple, appears in ceremonial contexts because Child of the Water used it for an arrow in his encounter with Giant, one of the monsters. Other stories of the culture hero and his mother fur- ther acquaint the child with their holiness and the great respect he owes them.
Scarcely less important is the set of stories devoted to the Mountain People, supernaturals inhabiting the interiors of sa- cred mountains. These Mountain People, who are impersonated by the masked dancers, are described in the legends as potential sources of supernatural power and as protectors of the tribal territory.
Most appreciated by the young people, however, is the Coyote cycle, a series of episodes of the pranks of the trickster. Coyote violates all the social and sexual conventions of the society, and this permits the narrator to contrast "Coyote's way" with more approved conduct. Coyote stories "make a child sleepy," and so it is often necessary to tickle his nose or tap him lightly on the head in order to keep him awake. Through the Coyote tales the child gets some hint of the imperfectibility of man and of the inevitability of moral turpitude in the world. "Coyote stories are used as a lesson. And they still blame Coyote today for the fool- ish things humans do."
Other tales serve to imbue the child with the proper attitudes toward baneful or helpful animal life, toward supernaturals, and toward neighboring peoples.
36 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
The child's first religious instruction centers about reverence for the principal supernaturals and emphasizes the virtues of humility and gratitude. "At our own camps, when a child is old enough to understand his parents, they begin to teach him to be religious, to use religious words, and to know Life Giver, Child of the Water, and White Painted Woman."
The child soon comes to sense that specific favors are the re- sult of the activity of other powers. There are no stories to record the deeds of Life Giver, but there are numerous tales to explain the part of other supernaturals in origins and possessions. For instance, according to tradition, daylight was acquired as a result of the moccasin or hidden-ball game played between the birds and the four-footed animals. Even the origin of man is not at- tributed to the nominal creator in the myths; what hints there are (and these creation elements may be of European origin) seem to credit Child of the Water with the act.
The child is given very little in the way of a formalized concep- tion of the universe:
If we aren't shamans or have no supernatural power, we have no basis to stand on in saying how far from us the clouds are or how far away the sun is. A person like myself will tell you that rain comes from the clouds, because I have no vision about it. But others will say their power causes it. I don't know just where to begin or what to believe.
In other words, one person claims to know more than another concerning those aspects of nature which his personal power touches, but, since no adult should presume to conviction about the prerogatives of his fellows, the child hears no unified philos- phy of nature.
THE DANGERS OF CHILDHOOD
With age the individual becomes "toughened" against the as- saults of malevolent forces; but the child is almost defenseless before them. While adults ordinarily have protective ceremonies and guardian spirits to warn them of danger, children are less shielded in this way. Because of his precarious position, the child is constantly guarded by minor rituals and devices. From these he gains his first impressions of the forces opposed to his welfare and of the ceremonial usages that benefit him.
CHILDHOOD 37
His first attendance at the girl's puberty rite is likely to be an unforgettable occasion. He is brought forward that his face may be painted with pollen by the girl. To insure his health and growth, she may pick him up and hold him to the directions, and, if he is small for his age, she may be asked to place her hands under his chin at the neck and lift him.
So that a child may grow tall he is lifted four times to the new moon. He is warned never to urinate in an anthill, lest he have bladder stones. That he may not become lonesome in the ab- sence of a departing relative, the traveler wets his finger with saliva and touches it to the child's face. If, nevertheless, he does get lonesome, a basket is placed four times over his head. When their father is on the raid, the children are urged not to throw the wood for the fire around carelessly, lest their parent become con- fused about the direction to take. When a child loses a tooth, he is counseled to say, "I hope I have another tooth," and to throw it to the east or to tie grama grass around it and throw it to the sun; that witches may not retrieve it and do him harm, he is told to dispose of it at some remote spot. The child is also advised not to watch masked dancers being decorated and never to call the name of an impersonator whom he may recognize. To safeguard him against sickness, a fringed buckskin amulet containing a growth from the creosote bush may be strung around his neck. Such practices, solemnly advised by his elders, impress the child with the efficacy of magical aids and with the proximity and power of the forces against which they are pitted.
During this early period, too, the child learns of the evil ani- mals and the natural agencies toward which he must exercise special care. "Drop that feather!" someone may call as he stoops to pick up a buzzard feather. Or the nature of a disease resulting from contact with Snake is explained by one who has ceremonial power from it and knows its ways. A person with such knowledge often takes measures that protect the children of the vicinity:
In the summer when the snakes came back and the parents were afraid that the children would be bitten, this woman used to call many children together and sing for them, and she would put a cross of pollen inside each moccasin for them. She told them not to call Snake too much or it would come and not to look for it
38 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
or they would see it. She would make a buckskin string with two pieces of turquoise tied to it and give it to anyone who was afraid of the snake. That one had to wear it on the right foot below the ankle.
It is quite as important that the child understand the ways of the cloud-dwelling Thunder People whose arrows are chipped flints found throughout Chiricahua country. The children are directed to make a respectful spitting noise when the lightning flashes and to refrain from eating during a storm. Sage is pointed out as a protective plant which may be worn in the hair during a storm. Nothing red should be displayed at such a time, they are told, for red is associated with the lightning flash and may draw it.
While the child is very young, adults take the proper steps to protect him from danger. But, as he grows old enough to under- stand ideas and to react consistently to them, more responsibility for his own safety is transferred to him. Thus, quite small chil- dren not only depend upon the amulets provided for them but pick and wear the sage which wards off the lightning, dispose of a loose tooth, and extend due respect to masked dancers. Advice and guidance are freely given, but the response which consti- tutes growth and fulfilment is, as far as possible, elicited from the child himself. The prevailing theme in things nonritual as well as ritual is that the youngster must learn to do for himself tomor- row what is done for him today.
Since most ceremonies are curative rites and are of frequent occurrence, it is almost inevitable that, while the child is still very young, he will witness a full-length ceremony. Very often the first shamanistic performance a child remembers is one in which he was the patient:
At this time, when I was about six years old, I saw the first ceremony I can remember. It was given for me. I don't know what was the matter with me, but at that time I was very slim and underweight, and it may have been for a general run-down condition. I know I was taken to the shaman's house. I was lying on a bed in the middle of the room. My grandmother was there. My mother, but not my father, was there. My father couldn't be there because my mother's mother was present. Other people whom I did not know were sitting around. The man who was curing me sang. Later on I was told that he had forbidden me to eat the head and liver of any animal. Whenever they had liver after that, they had something else for me. At big gatherings where there was head, I would not eat any of it.
CHILDHOOD 39
Another man describes the first ceremony he recalls:
My father once cured me with his ceremony. I was a pretty small boy. I can hardly remember it. My father says that I must have been about six years old. Maybe I was seven.
I got very, very sick. My mother and my father thought I was going to die. This was out in the mountains. Of course, my father knew in his own way how to use his power and cure people. So my father went to work on me during part of the day and a good part of the night, I know. While he was carrying on this ceremony for me, I went blind, completely blind.
Well, he got me a little better from my sickness, but after I got well I was blind. It seemed as though my eyes were back in my head, and they hurt badly. It looked as though a different sickness had come over my eyes. It was just as though something was turning way back in my head.
My father was very good at the masked-dancer ceremony. He just made a mask and horns [frame or uprights surmounting the mask] and decorated them as though they were going to be put on a dancer. He made the sticks too [wooden wands carried by the masked dancer].
He had the mask in his right hand and was shaking it in front of me. He was singing those ceremonial songs. Every time he sang a song he held that mask to my head this way and that, to my eyes and all over me. I was half-sitting up, on a slant. I couldn't see, but I knew what he was doing and what he was saying. I remember it.
And my father was crying part of the time; I could hear him. He said, "Why not punish me this way? I've lived here many years on earth. I've seen what it looks like. I know how hard it is to live through this world. Don't kill that poor little child. He didn't harm anyone. I love him. Don't let him go. I want him to live to an old age in this world." He said, "If you want to kill anybody in this family, kill me. Take me. I know you can help me relieve this poor child from his sickness, and there's no reason why you should act this way to me." He was angry about this, angry at his own power. I heard him arguing with his power. He tried pretty hard. "Well," he said to his power, "if you aren't going to do what I want you to do, if you're going to have your own way all the time, you might as well stop talking to me from now on." He was scolding his power.
After a while he said, "Here's an eagle feather, son. I'm going to try this eagle feather; my power wants me to try it. Because you went blind, your eyes are going to go back, then the sickness is coming out. It's going to pop out and it's going to kill you. This is my last chance for you. If this doesn't work, I'm going to give up all hope." He said he saw it in a vision, a spirit talked to him. I don't know who was talking to him. I couldn't have seen if someone had been there. My mother didn't see anyone and she was sitting there. But he knew what he was doing, I guess.
He said, "If this eagle feather doesn't stay on you, you've got no chance. If it stays on you, it will show that you are going to get your sight back and get well. It will tell us right here, one way or the other."
4o AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
He opened my shirt. He put that feather right here on my chest, just touched me lightly with it. I could feel it; it was sticking right on my chest. How he did it my mother never knew; I never knew; but he knew.
I must have been blind two or three months. Then about the fourth month I was just beginning to get my sight back. Then I recovered.
A third account is that of a ceremony presided over by Geron- imo, the well-known leader, and attended by the informant as a young child:
The first ceremony by Geronimo I saw was one for an older man. Some coyote or dog had made him sick. 7 One boy got hold of the news that the ceremony was going to be held, and we learned of it through him. We asked Geronimo if we could attend. He said it would be all right but told us we could not scratch our- selves or make any noise.
The ceremony began in the evening, as soon as it became dark. It took place in an arbor outside Geronimo's home. There was a fire. Geronimo and the pa- tient were on the west side of the fire. Geronimo sat facing the east, and the patient lay stretched out before him. Some older people were there. They were mostly relatives of the sick man. But it would have been all right for anyone to come in and watch. We sat in circular fashion in the back of the shelter. But the space to the east was left open, as, always happens at a ceremony.
Geronimo had an old black tray basket before him filled with the things he used for the ceremony. He had a downy eagle feather in it and an abalone shell and a bag of pollen. All these things were wrapped up in a bundle before the ceremony began.
He rolled a cigarette and puffed to the directions first of all, beginning with the east, puffing just once to each direction. Then he threw the cigarette away. After smoking, he rubbed the patient with pollen. He dropped pollen on the patient, just on certain parts of the body. He prayed to the directions as he did this. These prayers referred to Coyote and were on the same order as the songs which followed.
He started to sing. There were many songs, and the songs were about Coyote. They told how Coyote was a tricky fellow, hard to see and find, and how he gave these characteristics to Geronimo so that he could make himself invisible and even turn into a doorway. They told how the coyote helped Geronimo in his curing. Geronimo accompanied his singing with a drum which he beat with a curved stick. At the end of each song he gave a call like a coyote.
When the evening star was halfway between the horizon and the zenith, Geronimo stopped singing. This is the Chiricahua midnight. The ceremony lasted four nights. The same prayers, songs, and procedure were gone through for the four nights. I know that Geronimo had ghost power too. That night he
7 Note the implication that dog and coyote sickness are treated by the same ceremony.
CHILDHOOD 41
told some of the boys that he was going to give another ceremony for a patient on another night, this time for ghost sickness, and that they might attend if they would promise not to scratch themselves.
As a result of such experiences the child learns to anticipate the curative function of ceremonies, the claims of shamans, their pattern of prayers, songs, and manipulation of sacred objects. He becomes sensible of the close rapport between the shaman and the power source, of the mingled flattery, pleading, and threats which mark the attempts to force the supernatural world to respond to the needs of man. He becomes aware of the sources of disease — snakes, bears, coyotes, ghosts, witches; of the im- plicit homeopathic feeling that snake sickness, for instance, re- quires the services of a snake shaman. He gets some hint, also, of the multiple ceremonies which such a shaman as Geronimo pos- sesses, and he learns of the restrictions associated with ritual.
The beliefs and ceremonial usages associated with the related concepts of death, the ghost, and the owl are very early trans- mitted to the child by older relatives. "When I was little I never gave any thought to death. But once I got very sick. My mother thought I was going to die. She told me that I could not come back if I died. This was my first scare. Since then I have been afraid of death."
Often a child's awareness of death begins at the demise of some relative. Then his name may be changed because the dead person had spoken it so frequently that its use would recall the deceased to mind. Or his hair may be cut and his appearance thus altered. At the time of a close relative's burial, a child's clothing is discarded and replaced, for nothing must be left as it was before death. Efforts are now intensified to protect the child from supernatural harm; ashes are strewn upon him and around his bed to discourage the approach of ghosts, and he is thorough- ly incensed with smoke from burning sage, called "ghost medi- cine."
Whether or not the child is curious about the meanings of death practices, they must be explained to him, for it is socially dangerous to permit individuals, however young, to remain in ignorance of them:
42 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
When I was little I was told about death. According to what I was taught as far back as I can remember, when someone died he would never come back to this world; he was gone. I was told that I must therefore never again call his name, for I might accidentally say his name in the presence of his parents or other relatives and they might scold me for it or slap my mouth. The parents taught the children that it is an insult to another person to call the name of his dead relative. If I was a little fellow and didn't know any better, someone might have slapped my mouth; then the families might have been angry, and there might have been trouble.
I was told that you never watch burial parties just to see what is going on. Men and women show that they sympathize with those people who are carrying their relative to the mountains by getting out and crying when they go by, even though they are not related. You should never watch unless you are crying like this for them. Children should not watch at all.
At first, little attempt is made to enlarge upon the precise place of the owl in the death complex. But, as the child grows older, the nexus between ghost and owl is clarified:
When I was young this is what I heard the old Indians say about ghosts and owls. They said that owls are part of ghosts. A night or so after a death you hear an owl close to the camp where the person died. Not only in that camp but in other camps near by the people hear that owl calling. They say, "That person is back over there again!"
They claimed that if the dead man had a horse left alive there, or if any of his clothes were there, he would come back every night until his possessions were destroyed. He would come back after his things. If you had not destroyed what belonged to the dead man, the things he had had his hands on during his life, the owl would come every now and then, perhaps often, they said. Then it might bring sickness or bad luck to that family. That's the way I heard it long ago.
And so to prevent sickness, if an owl cried around the camp, they set fire to a stick of wood, carried it outside, and threw it in the direction of the owl. Then it stopped [hooting].
In the following excerpt an informant recalls the manner in which his father sought to satisfy his curiosity concerning the destination of the dead:
I asked, "Suppose I die. Where would I go?"
My father said, "When a man dies he is just like any human being and is just transferred to another state. He is in another world. There are mountains and rivers there as there are here." He called it the underworld. He said, "The habits you have on earth are carried with you. If you are a bronco-buster on earth, you would be a bronco-buster in the other world. If you play hoop and pole on earth a great deal, you play that game all the time in the underworld. Whatever a person is accustomed to do on earth he will be doing down there."
CHILDHOOD 43
One of the reasons for telling the child about the underworld is to warn him of the machinations of ghosts who strive to lure him thither:
This is what I learned from my older relatives. The ghosts are supposed to go around in the early part of the night and then again when it gets on toward morning, from about two o'clock on. That's the old Chiricahua belief.
Toward morning a person will be dreaming. He dreams that ghosts are both- ering him. He dreams of the underworld and the people there. Some of them he knows, some he doesn't know. He sees the beautiful land. They offer him food, a piece of yucca fruit or bread. When I was small my father and the older people told me that if I dreamed this I should not accept the fruit, for, if you accept it, it means that you are going to die and go to that place yourself.
The fear of the departed, and especially of departed relatives, plays a conspicuous part in adult life, in ideas of witchcraft, in aspects of social organization, and in shamanism. The basis for this is solidly laid in childhood:
I was pretty thin when I was a child I used to be very much afraid too.
I was influenced a great deal by the Indian beliefs about ghosts and used to get scared at night. I'd go over to someone else's bed and force myself upon him. Often I'd wake up screaming in the middle of the night, thinking I had seen someone near my bed. I'd dream of ghosts. A face would be bending over me, laughing. It would be just an outline, no features showing.
.... I always had a tendency to look back and see if anyone was following me when I was out at night. This is what the Chiricahua call being influenced by ghosts; I must have been suffering from ghosts.
Sometimes the child's panic reaches such proportions that a ceremony must be conducted over him:
Once when I was a boy we children were playing out at night. As I was com- ing home I felt that someone was touching me. I became frightened, ran home, fell in the door, and became sick. They performed a ghost ceremony over me. The shaman worked a fire drill. The first sparks that came he put in my mouth.8 I came to my senses. Then the shaman prayed and finally he sang. I was small and do not remember more of the details.
There are cases where a child's ailment, though the symptoms are not so transparent, is finally interpreted as ghost or "dark- ness" sickness (to use the approved euphemism) and dealt with
8 An evidence of the opposition of fire and the ghost (owl) which is believed to exist.
44 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
accordingly: "I walked in my sleep and I talked, too, while I walked. My father knew a ghost ceremony. He sang for me and I stopped."
No less memorable is a child's first acquaintance with witch- craft. For his own protection this knowledge concerning people who use supernatural power for evil ends must be communicated to him as soon as he is able to absorb it.
You have to hide from witch people all the time and must not go too near them. That's what parents tell their children. "Don't go near that man. Don't go around his camp. Don't let him see you. Don't be too free and happy in his sight. When you pass a witch don't look toward him. Don't pay any attention
to him If they talk to you, answer. If not, pass them by and keep out of
their way. If you have something pleasant to tell them, do it; if not, pass them by without a word."
Even ordinary instruction concerning personal cleanliness is influenced by the same considerations:
Children were taught, "When you have to defecate, don't do it on the path where people pass." So they would go way out
It is because of witchcraft that we are so very particular about it. Suppose a witch or his wife or child should step on it. There is no telling what he might do about it. He might witch you for it.
Gradually notions of witchcraft intrude into the life of the child:
I remember that I knew about witches at a very early age, when I was four or five years old. I was eight when I learned that S. was a witch. My grandmother told me so. Also I heard other children say it. One time he came to N.'s encamp- ment. We children ducked around the home because they said he was a witch. I heard one man talking and saying that S. had tried to get married a number of times, but that he was always refused because he was a witch. They told us to keep out of his sight as much as possible, to refuse any gift from him, and not to let him do anything queer to us. Also we were told to treat him with respect when we met him so that he wouldn't do anything harmful to us. We were told not to offend him in any circumstances.
The children were afraid of him, and when I was with them I acted this way too. But really I was curious. I wanted to learn more about this man. So when I was a little older I went to his place. I didn't let anyone see me. I went by a roundabout way. I went during the day. He was lying on the bed, singing a social dance song. He told me to come in. I expected to see something, to find some proof of his witchcraft. But I failed to see anything. He seemed just like a normal man to me that first time.
CHILDHOOD 45
He didn't act as though he was surprised to see me. He stopped singing and asked me to sit down. He just talked in a social way. I don't think he suspected the reason for my visit. I asked him for a smoke. At first he hesitated. He asked me if I was allowed to smoke. I told him that my aunt let me smoke. Then he gave it to me. It is unusual for an older man to give a boy a smoke. A boy wouldn't ever ask an old Indian for a smoke; he wouldn't dare. I stayed with him for about an hour. When I left I still thought he was a witch, though I had no reason for it. I just thought he hadn't revealed himself.
The first few times I went to visit him I took pains not to be seen by others. At first I thought it was something daring to do, but after a while it wore off. Even when I was visiting him openly by myself, I used to avoid him when I was with the other boys.
I took precautions while I was going to him though. I was afraid of being witched. I didn't accept anything from him. Once I refused something, though I needed it badly. I wouldn't eat there either. If he offered me food, I always ex- plained that I had just eaten and wasn't hungry. I did take smokes though. I wanted them pretty badly, I guess, because he could have done more harm through tobacco than through food, since tobacco is used in ceremonies. I never found out why he was suspected or met anybody he was supposed to have harmed.
PLAY
It would be a mistake to suppose that childhood is little more than an unhappy introduction to notions of death and witch- craft. Fears exist, but the normal youngster devotes far less at- tention to these alarming subjects than he does to his playmates and games.
The children are amazingly resourceful in exploiting the possi- bilities of their natural surroundings in play. Little girls, and sometimes little boys, make beads from wild-rose hips, ground cherries, and the scouring rush plant. Pine needles serve for ear- rings and bracelets. The girls fashion dolls from panic grass and string together ground cherries to form little figures. They then make, on a tiny scale, substitutes for all the possessions they ob- serve in their own households. Small toy homes are constructed from a number of plants. Ferns yield pillows, blankets, and beds for the dolls. From the Jacob's-ladder are shaped little dresses for the doll, and these dresses are decorated with "jingles" of side- oats grama grass. Even a miniature of the food staple, mescal, has been found, and so the dolls go forth industriously to gather "doll's mescal" {Androsace pinetorum). Food is generously pro-
46 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
vided at these toy encampments, wild peas often serving as the main dish.
Not all the toys that the children make meet with parental approval: "We used to take a flat stick, make a hole through it, put a string through this hole, and run with it. It makes a noise. Our parents did not want us to do this. They would always scold us when we did it. They said it brought the wind." Besides this rhombus or bull-roarer, the children make another object some- what similar in effect: ''There is another noisemaker. We use a piece of hide, cut two holes in it, and put a string through. Then we wind up the string and pull it. It makes a noise. A good many of the old people don't like it. They say it will bring wind too."
The boy whips pellets of mud, lightly stuck at the end of a willow branch, at birds and achieves considerable accuracy with this weapon. He soon learns to make good use of the sling, a diamond-shaped piece of hide to which one looped and one un- looped side thong are attached. The hide is folded over upon it- self, incasing a stone which is projected when the sling is swung forward. A piece of elderberry, ash, reed, or walnut from which the pith has been removed, or through which a hole has been worked, is made into a popgun by tamping one end and forcing another piece through until the tamp flies out with a loud report.
Many a child has learned to braid with wild iris, candy grass, or clover. Little girls pass the time pleasantly making a long string of the leaves of Dalea dalea and then arranging it in several strands with leaves interlocking. From the virgin's bower plant and a species of aster the children obtain toy hats, and Vicia is employed as a dancing robe. The four-leafed clover is considered lucky, and the children have contests to see who can find one first. They blow into the choisey flower to make a sound that is likened to the call of the fawn. The name of the plant is, accord- ingly, "that which cries like a deer's child." Beard-tongue buds are picked and popped. "Bird tracks" are made in the sand with Bermuda grass, and a leaf transfixed to Bermuda grass "feet" is called a bird.
CHILDHOOD 47
There are practical jokers, even among the children, who throw clinging or mildly irritating grasses (Nama hispida is one) at someone or hide them in his bed.
The children of an encampment organize expeditions to search for certain delicacies which are not plentiful or valuable enough to figure in adult food economy. Ground cherries, the red fruits of the nipple cacti, and willow buds are gathered, and cotton- wood buds are chewed like gum. The search for honey provides another diversion:
When I was a boy, so long ago I can hardly remember it now, there was a certain bee we used to get. When it collected honey the children caught it, split it open, and sucked out the sweet stuff from the body. They didn't eat the whole thing. Only children did this. I never saw grown-ups do it.
When hives are found in the trees, a smudge fire is started under the tree and the bees are smoked out. A cliff hive is dis- lodged by well-directed shots from slings. For a ground hive an- other method is employed: "When the hive is in the ground a boy stands over the small hole and lets the bees out one at a time. Others kill each bee as it comes out. When all the bees are killed, they dig out the hole and eat the honey."
To the stock of playthings which the child makes for himself are added toys given him by his parents or other relatives. Little girls are presented with buckskin dolls filled with grass,9 toy cra- dles, water jars, and burden baskets. For the boy the obvious plaything is a small bow and some arrows made of ocean spray, mock orange, snowberry, willow, service berry, or Edwinia amer- icana. As a blanket for her doll cradle the girl uses a cottontail rabbit skin. A rabbit-skin cap, with the ears left on, is made for the little boy.
The older boys and girls enjoy swimming, a sport which a child begins to master at about the age of eight. A practical pur- pose is credited to another activity:
9 These dolls are not supposed to approximate the human form too closely, for anything that has great likeness to a human being but is not animate is sugges- tive of a corpse. The mothers would not, at first, allow their children to have dolls of European type, claiming that they were "too natural."
48 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
We used to chase birds and butterflies. We would let the butterflies go after catching them. Both boys and girls did it. The old people said it would make us fast runners. In wet weather we could catch big birds. Their wings get wet in the rain and they can't go fast.
An unusual type of recreation involves the bat:
The boys used to build a fire at night. When the bats came by, they would throw their moccasins at them. They would get them in the moccasins and kill them. That's how the Indian boys used to play at night.
The children imitate many of the social and ceremonial prac- tices of their elders:
During this time Old Man J., a lively old man, used to come out and sing for us while we danced the masked-dancer dance in the evening. The old people would be there and watch. We didn't dress up. The old people didn't allow us to dress up, for it was said to bring evil influence. The songs which were sung were N.'s songs. J. would ask him if it would be all right to sing these songs, and N. would tell him to go ahead.
Actually the boys learn much more than the steps and songs of the masked dancers on these occasions. For instance, the ex- change between the two old men must have impressed upon them that ceremonial songs are personally owned and that per- mission must be obtained from the owner before using them. When the children are playing masked dancer away from the camps, they sometimes violate the rule about wearing costumes and make headdresses to wear and wands to carry.
Social dances are of increasing interest to the children as they grow older. "We used to dance the circle dance too, just the boys. Sometimes the old men would join in and sing for us. They certainly had a good time watching us."
The children organize elaborate and dramatic imitations of adult occupations. They hunt, with tall grass as the woods and playmates for the game animals. They go scouting and defend themselves against enemy attacks, using spears made from sun- flower and lupine stalks.
Boys and girls play house in a realistic manner. They build small homes modeled after the regular residences (often making them large enough to enter), play man and wife, entertain visi- tors to whom they extend the amenities, and arrange feasts with provisions concocted from sticks and mud:
CHILDHOOD 49
The girls see that at home the mother has a cradle and is carrying a baby around. So they play mother sometimes with an Indian doll and cradle made by their mothers. The girls carry the cradles on their backs as their mothers do. And the boys pick up their little arrows and hunt birds just as if they were hunt- ing deer. All the Indian children play just the way their parents live at home. The children build little brush homes.
In this domestic play no overt sexuality is involved. The sim- ulation of the husband-wife relationship is confined to an imita- tion of the industrial pursuits of the adults. The absence of more direct sexual experimentation is to be explained, doubtless, by the fact that boys rarely continue to participate in this form of amusement after the age of six or seven. It is then that little boys become eager to join older male companions in hunts for small birds and mammals and to engage in play not considered appropriate for girls. This pleasure in manly affairs is strongly encouraged by the elders. From the exciting hunts, arrow games, and mimic battles of childhood the boy plunges into the rigors of his training period. Thus he is absorbed in masculine concerns and diverted from contacts with girls until the onset of physio- logical maturity again awakens him to an interest in them.
Besides playing in the brush houses built for daytime games, the boys sometimes construct beds in trees for "camping out" at night.
You find a forked branch in a tree right by your camp. It should not be too high; you want a place close to the ground. You can put cross-branches there and fix it up nicely. Then you can sleep there. The boys did it mostly. I used to do it. We did it in the summertime, just because we liked it, because we liked the fresh air.
For the grown man the hoop-and-pole ground, from which the women are barred, is a favorite retreat where things strictly masculine are discussed. To play the hoop-and-pole game, two men slide poles after a hoop; the object is to make the hoop fall upon the butt end of the pole. Pole and hoop are marked with incised bands, and, according to the relationship of these bands after the throw, a count is made. The game has definite cere- monial overtones. It is well for a man to be an expert player, for lively betting attends every contest. Boys are eager to learn this game:
50 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
It is dangerous to make the hoop and pole unless you know how. Not every- one can do it, though there are many who have the right Suppose a man
knows how to do it. He will be making hoop-and-pole sets for all the men. I am a little boy there, let us say, and he is very kind to me. So I beg him to make a set for us boys, a little one.
He goes ahead and does it, does it with his own ceremony in such a way that it will not harm me. He doesn't want it to harm the children with whom I play either, and so he makes it in a ceremonial way. I suppose he prays over it, but I never watch him. He makes a little one, just the same as the regular ones, only smaller. When he hands it to me, he says, "All right, now you can play with this."
The men take their hoop-and-pole sets out where there is level ground and play there, far from the women. The women know about it and won't go over there. The children never go around the regular grounds either. Even when the men are not playing, the little boys do not go around there. When the little boys play at their hoop-and-pole game, the girls have to keep away.
When a man makes a set for little boys, he instructs them in the rules for counting and keeping score. The men like to watch the little boys playing. Many men will go over where the small boys are playing and stand in groups and watch. Some men count for each side, and all the boys stand there taking lessons. When the men direct the boys in this game, they tell them it is a gambling game. They say, "If you get to be an expert in this, when you get to manhood you can win horses, weapons, everything."
As soon as the boy is provided with a bow and arrows he spends a great deal of time gaining accuracy in handling them. Arrow games are an effective means to this end, and the boy has a variety of them from which to choose. "You are there all day long. Sometimes you don't care to eat, you are so interested. " The arrows used in play "are just common ones made with any feathers — bluebird feathers, flicker feathers, feathers from any kind of bird the size of a robin or larger. Some of them are well made; you can shoot big animals with them if you have a good bow. They put three feathers on the shaft."
The simplest form of arrow game is shooting for distance, the winner collecting the arrows of his outdistanced playmates. Shooting for accuracy takes a number of forms. In one game a boy shoots his arrow into a bank, and his companion shoots after him, trying to touch or "cross" the arrow of the first boy. Should he succeed, he takes both arrows, and the loser has to send an-
CHILDHOOD 51
other arrow into the bank as a target. When the one who is shooting misses, he must offer one of his arrows as the target.
The youngsters play their games shrewdly:
I have about five arrows and my bow. A boy of my age asks me to play. He has a bunch of arrows too. He is good at playing this arrow game. Of course he wants my arrows. "All right," I say, "how do you want to play?"
About fifty feet apart stand two banks with a hollow between. He says, "You have more arrows than I have; you shoot first. Shoot your arrow from that bank into the other bank." We decide who should shoot first. Maybe he shoots first and his arrow sticks in the bank over there. Then I shoot. I try to shoot so that my arrow crosses or touches his. Sometimes there is a dispute. He says, "It doesn't touch!" and I say, "It does!" We try to look between the arrows and get down under them to see if they touch. But pretty soon we settle it. When I cross or touch his arrow, I walk over there and take it. He shoots another arrow, and I shoot and get it again. I begin to stick my arrows in the ground.
I always use one arrow, my best arrow, to cross his. All arrows don't shoot well, and so I use my good arrow to get his arrows. Pretty soon I miss. So it is my turn to shoot into the bank and let him try for my arrows. I take the worst arrow I have, so if he gets it, I will not lose much.
The game keeps up until one fellow gets all the arrows or we get tired.
In another shooting contest the first arrow is shot in such a way that it will stick in the ground when it falls. This arrow can be won only when its feathers are touched by those of a second arrow.
Boys also shoot at a target of twisted grass. The one who hits the target throws it up and tries to pierce it with an arrow before it touches the ground. If he does this twice in succession, he earns the arrows that others have unsuccessfully shot at the tar- get. Again there are a number of modifications of this particular game. One variant is to make a target of yucca or other mate- rial, leaving a central hole. The boys attempt to shoot their ar- rows through the hole. The one who first succeeds in doing so a specified number of times wins whatever has been bet.
Another pastime is the "sliding arrow game." Here the arrow is slid by hand along the ground, point foremost, at any level place. The object is to touch the feathers of an arrow with the feathers of a second arrow which is slid after it. This game de- velops a steady hand and a good judgment of distance.
A game like blindman's buff is played with an arrow as the
52 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
prize. Someone is blindfolded, and an arrow is stuck in the ground far from him. If he finds the arrow, he is allowed to re- tain it. "They sometimes stick several arrows in the ground. If he finds one, all the rest belong to him."
Children play a game that may be likened to "heads and tails," using a bone with sides distinguished from each other by shape or color. Sometimes the bone is spit upon and the sides are called "wet" and "dry." If the side he has named shows upper- most, the player in possession of the bone wins the throw and retains the bone. Otherwise the bone changes hands. Today the game is played with a metal knife that has a handle rough on one side and smooth on the other.
In an exciting ball game a member of one side throws a buck- skin ball to a member of the opposition who is standing with his team mates in a large circle or safety zone. This individual hits the ball with his hand, and he or one of his team mates must then run to another safety zone some distance away. The side of the thrower tries to retrieve the ball and hit the runner with it before he reaches the other circle. Should the runner be struck, his op- ponents make a rush for the safety zones, while he and his helpers try to recover the ball and strike one of the other team with it before he gains the circle. After the exchange, when the "ins" and "outs" are decided, the round of pitching and batting starts again.
The boys sometimes make clay marbles and dry them in the sun or near the fire, but often round stones are used instead. In one marble game a row of holes is scooped out. The order of play is determined by seeing who can roll a marble closest to a line. The object of the game is to roll the marble into each of the holes. A successful play for the first hole entitles the player to try for the second. When the row of holes has been traversed, the player must play in the opposite direction and come back to the start- ing-point. The first one to accomplish this is the winner. Instead of throwing directly toward a hole, a player is entitled to try to knock a competitor out of the way. If he strikes the marble at which he aims, he is allowed another throw for the hole.
Another marble game calls for four players, sitting around a
CHILDHOOD 53
hollow square, one on each side of it. Two teams are involved. Partners sit across from each other. A member of one side places a marble in the center. A player of the opposition tries to knock this away with one of his own. Should he succeed, his partner retrieves both marbles, and his opponent must place another at the center as a target. As long as this central marble is knocked away, it must be replaced by the side furnishing it. When a player misses, he substitutes a marble of his own, and the game continues.
Hide-and-seek, tag, foot races, tug-of-war, and wrestling con- tests are all popular. To begin a wrestling match, the rivals clasp each other around the waist. At a signal each tries to down his opponent. Almost anything is permissible, tripping included. If one wrestler is off his feet, no matter which part of his body touches the ground, and the other is still standing, the match is over.
Little girls are skilful at a game comparable to jackstones. "Four or five girls from about seven to fourteen years of age usually play together." One way of playing is called "those which pass each other again and again." Four stones are juggled while the girls walk along until a certain mark is reached. In an- other type of "rock game" an attempt is made to pick up four stones successively with one hand and put them on the back of the other while a fifth stone is repeatedly thrown in the air. The stones are arranged in a row on the knuckles, starting from the right and going to the left until each of the four knuckles is covered. "Throwing between fingers" describes a variant in which the stones are put, one by one, between the fingers, while the fifth stone is tossed up. Next the palm is turned up, and the stones are removed one by one. Another way is to cup the palm and put the stones in it, one at a time. Although these games with the stones are typically girls' pastimes, little boys occasion- ally play them too.
Boys whip a pointed wooden top with a sinew string. The making of cat's cradles or string figures furnishes year-round recreation for young and old of both sexes. There are many forms of these figures. One, after great elaboration, comes to a
54 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
surprise ending by collapsing completely. Another represents the bow, and still another a house.
The children seldom attempt such adult pastimes as shinny, the stave games, and the moccasin game. They watch their elders play them, however, and become conversant with the principles involved.
THE CHILD AND HIS KIN
The social world to which the child is first introduced consists of a well-organized group of kin. The significant events of his life will be planned and made possible by his blood relatives. Should a person be wronged, his relatives act for him and with him; should he be accused, they shield him from vengeance. If a man dies with grievances unavenged, his relatives perpetuate his quarrel in a feud between families. It is they who have the re- sponsibility of his death rites and who mourn for him.
Kinship is counted bilaterally, through the mother and through the father equally.10 It is impossible to get any con- vincing assurance that one kind of relative is necessarily "closer" than another. The expressions on this point seem to be reflec- tions of personal feelings rather than instances of the operation of any rule.
All blood relatives are supposed to be generous and loyal, and, in times of crisis, the appeal of a blood relative of any degree is difficult to ignore. Nevertheless, differences of age, sex, resi- dence, and remoteness of connection become inevitably regis- tered in patterns of behavior.
The parent-child relationship. — The parents take primary re- sponsibility for the support, proper rearing, and ceremonial pro- tection of their children. The influence of the child-parent bond is present in many forms of behavior. A man often begs for supernatural power, for "something to live by," because of the need of his children. One who makes a request for help, material or spiritual, greatly strengthens his plea if he supplicates in the
10 For the kinship terms and a diagram of the kinship system see the Appendix.
CHILDHOOD $$
name of the child of the one he is addressing. In discussing any- one, great care is taken to say nothing critical or abusive con- cerning him before his parents or his children. One man told of a series of fights he initiated by uttering the remark, "Your father is messy around the ankles." He knew very well in advance what the consequences of that observation would be. In a Coy- ote story the trickster, after being skinned and jeered at for hav- ing a "red shirt," retaliates against his tormentors by shouting, "It's your father who has a red shirt!"
Despite the affection and regard which mark the parent-child relationship, it must not be forgotten that discipline and author- ity are the prerogatives of the father and mother. The daughter, especially, is conditioned to lifelong obedience to parental edicts.
Four terms, the equivalents of father, mother, son, and daugh- ter, serve to express the parent-child relationship. The term for father can refer to no one else. The mother, likewise, is distin- guished from her siblings. The parent-child terms differ from others of the kinship system in two particulars. First, they are not self-reciprocal; that is, the same term that is addressed to the son by the father cannot mean father when the son is speak- ing. Second, each term expresses one relationship only and is not extended to include collateral relatives.
Uncle, aunt-nephew, niece relationships. — Of tremendous im- portance in the child's life are the maternal uncle and aunt. The mother's sister is likely to be present at the child's birth. She may volunteer to nurse the baby if she has milk and the mother has not enough. She is a permanent member of the mother's ex- tended domestic family. A girl will have intimate contact with this relative throughout life; a boy, at least until his marriage and departure from the encampment. In case the mother dies, this woman may be called upon to adopt or care for her sister's chil- dren. She may elect to marry their widowed father" and so be- come their stepmother. Or, since sororal polygyny is practiced, if she is younger than her sister, she may become the second wife of her sister's husband and, by a different route, attain the
11 See pp. 421-25.
56 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
position of stepmother to these youngsters.12 Her very closeness to her sister, the fact that these girls have played and worked to- gether since childhood, establishes her interest in the develop- ment of her sister's children. The chances are that she will per- form protective ceremonies for them, that she will give them food and presents, that they will be frequent visitors in her home, and that she will offer them economic assistance in times of need.
At the puberty rite of her sister's daughter, she will give gen- erously of her labor and provisions. When her niece is about to marry, she will doubtless act as one of the group of relatives who passes on the desirability of the union; she will help erect the dwelling to which the husband will be brought; and she may furnish household necessities. When her nephew marries, her household will contribute to the gifts to be presented to his bride's relatives. The degree to which she participates in the in- struction of her sister's children will vary with her own proficien- cy. If she knows a great deal about the medicinal value of plants, it is quite likely that she will transmit that information to her sister's daughter as well as to her own girls.
Somewhat different are the relations between the child and the mother's brother, for he resides with the extended domestic family only until he marries. If he is considerably younger than the mother, he may be around during the entire childhood of the individual; if he is older or near her age, he may depart while the child is yet very young. But even after he leaves the encamp- ment through marriage, he frequently visits his parental home. At first, to his wife's relatives, he is a stranger and an unproved acquisition. He is bound to many of them by obligations of avoidance, restraint, and economic assistance, but the warmer bonds of kinship and prolonged common residence are lacking. Therefore, until he has children of his own and his status among his wife's relatives is established, he is likely to keep in closest touch with his own blood kin. There is a good deal of restraint
12 When a woman marries her deceased sister's husband or becomes her sister's co- wife, the stepmother term may be used as a self-reciprocal between her sister's children and herself, or the mother's sister term may be continued. The first is the more common practice.
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between the mother and her brother, for siblings of opposite sex, especially after puberty, must show great respect and decorum when they are together. Consequently, the maternal uncle best shows his affection toward his sister by the interest he takes in her children. There is frequent reference to his instruction of his sister's child, especially of her son, to his economic help at many of the crises, and to his constant friendly contact with his nieces and nephews. There is always the possibility that the mother's brother will marry an unrelated woman from the same local group in which he has grown up and will continue to live near his blood relatives.
Mother's siblings are addressed by one term, a self-reciprocal. Thus the mother's brother, the mother's sister, the sister's son, and the sister's daughter are all subsumed under the same kin- ship term. In a secondary sense this term may be addressed to other relatives, to any cousin of the mother, no matter how dis- tantly related, and reciprocally to any female cousin's child.
In normal circumstances the father's sisters and brothers will never be members of the same extended family as the child, though they may be living in the same local group or vicinity. Since their primary ties are with other family units, they have less contact with a child than the maternal relatives. In spite of this, they demonstrate a lively interest in him. This is particu- larly true of the father's brother. As long as brothers inhabit the same camp they are inseparable, and their interest in each other and in the family line does not cease at marriage. Brother's chil- dren are blood kin, and such kinship imposes a solidarity which cannot be denied. "H. is my brother's daughter. No matter how far away she is, if I am sick she comes and helps around camp. But I have helped her as much as she has helped me. I feel that those related in this way should show a lifelong faith- fulness to each other in any emergency and all the time."
The fate of brothers is further linked by a levirate arrange- ment which entitles an unmarried man to take his deceased brother's wife and place if he and his relatives so decide. This means that a man may in time become the stepfather of his
58 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
brother's children.13 At all the significant occasions when the maternal relatives offer personal or economic assistance the father's brother contributes also.
The father's sister normally has a family and duties of her own, her brother has passed from the extended family to which she is attached, and the sororate-levirate forms can have no effect upon her future position in respect to her brother's off- spring. But the restraint relationship which has existed between this woman and her brother implies lifelong consideration. No better way of responding to this exists than generosity toward the brother's children. Moreover, a man who is in difficulty with his affinal relatives, angered over his wife's behavior, or divorced is likely to return to the extended family in which he was reared. His sister is one of the members of this social group, and her counsel is of great moment in the formation of decisions. These strong ties of consanguinity are felt by the woman to include her brother's children as well.
One term means father's brother and father's sister and is ex- tended in use to include father's cousins, male and female. The same term, used as a self-reciprocal, designates a brother's child and, in an extended sense, a male cousin's child.
Brother-sister and cousin relationships . — The terminology em- ployed to express the sibling, cousin relationship departs in prin- ciple from other sets. There are two self-reciprocal terms in use, but, unlike the other kinship terms, they imply sex difference or similarity between the speaker and the person addressed. SiUis literally signifies "sibling or cousin of the same sex as myself," and si/ah carries the force of "sibling or cousin of the opposite sex from myself." Thus, when a woman says si Mis, she is speaking of a sister or female cousin; when a man uses the same term, he has in mind a brother or a male cousin. Conversely, when a man says si/ah, he is referring to a sister or a female cousin, and when a woman employs the same term, she is indicating a brother or a male cousin. The si His term can be said to link relatives of the
13 In that case a stepfather-stepchild term may be substituted for the father's sibling term (see n. 12, p. 56).
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same generation and sex; the it /ah term, relatives of the same generation but of opposite sex.
From the comments and practices of his elders the child soon discovers that his SiMis is designed to be his companion in experi- ence and adventure, his confidant, his defender against misrep- resentation or direct attack. The everyday stream of events steadily contributes to his conception of how two brothers or two sisters should act toward each other. His own mother and her sister sit and sew or go after fruit or mescal plants together. His father and his father's brother often act together in matters of raid or warfare. When the extended family is foraging or camp- ing by itself, the children who are thrown together in play, in story-telling sessions, and in training are necessarily brothers, sisters, and cousins. Because of the sexual division in industry and social life, the child is often left with his SiMis as the avail- able partner for play. The close identification of SiMis persists throughout life. This fact makes reasonable the sororate-levirate institution. If anyone is wronged or murdered, it is likely to be his SiMis who demand retaliation.
Quite different is the Si /ah relationship. Everyone is expected to be slightly reserved to all relatives of the opposite sex, what- ever their age. Not even the father and his young daughters escape this feeling: "I still kiss my daughter [age six], but I doubt that I will when she is ten, and of course not after she has reached the age of puberty." This restraint becomes heightened between relatives of opposite sex of the same generation.
Brother and sister are so carefully trained to be reserved when they are together that any inclinations to exhibit overt sexual in- terest in each other are almost certain to be repressed. There is the possibility, however, that young men and women more dis- tantly related will meet and become intimate. The term Si/ah stands as a barrier against this, for a female cousin is terminologi- cally classified by a young man with his sister and is just as for- bidden to him. Very often the precise relationship is difficult to trace, but, if the young man knows that either of his parents ad- dressed one of the girl's parents as SiMis or Si/ah, his attentions to that girl are illicit.
60 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
The child is psychologically prepared for the si/ah relationship by the comments, stories, and actual behavior of adults: "Your father and mother, when you and your sister are both at home, do not say any wrong word. They are very careful." Thus the child, as soon as he is old enough to appreciate the cross-currents of social attitudes, becomes aware that the appearance of a si/ah compels a certain decorum in speech and action.
A Chiricahua man and woman related in this way hardly speak to each other. Cousins, or a sister and a brother, could not even go out walking together. They can't joke much. Something holds them apart, so that they don't get too famil- iar. They aren't lectured about it when they are young. They just sense it and see it; it is taken for granted.
I notice the restraint in my own wife's family. My wife's silah [father's brother's son] doesn't stay long when my wife is around. He has never been known to joke with her. He will with me. She takes the attitude that she wants to serve him when he is around. She acts in a formal way as if she wanted to serve him and please him. This man has a sister who is quite free with my wife. They are just reserved to the opposite sex.
In the old days those [a boy and a girl] who had the same father and mother hardly spoke to each other. They would sit there and wouldn't say anything. They talked to the father and mother in each other's presence, but not to each other. If joking [risque] goes on when they are both there, one of them has to go away to show respect.
If you come where your sister is alone, you put disgrace on the whole family. If the mother and father aren't at home and the sister is alone, you must leave the camp. You must stay somewhere else. You must go to the sunny side of a hill or in the shade and sleep until your parents come home. Also, when the whole family is together, you must show respect for your sister. This feeling be- gins when you are about six or seven years old, when you are just big enough to understand what is being said to you. At that age you can still play with your sisters because perhaps you have no other playmates. But after you are fourteen or fifteen, you don't play with your sisters any more. In the old days a boy would not even accompany his sister to an Indian dance.
Many households where there are older children find it con- venient to erect an additional shelter where the boy can stay if he should find his sister the sole occupant of the family dwelling.
Brothers and sisters feel so uncomfortable in each other's presence that they do not court situations which will throw them together. But they are members of the same household, and it is
CHILDHOOD 6 1
not possible for them to practice total avoidance, considered the ultimate in respect and reserve. The possibility of complete avoidance does exist for cousins of opposite sex, however, since they are of different households. One man who was asked how he would demonstrate his respect for his female cousin an- swered, "A boy shows his respect for a girl cousin by not visiting her."
From this conception of cousin relations it is not a great jump to total avoidance, and we find that some persons, though by no means all, do practice such avoidance. This is the only instance in which a true blood relative is avoided, though the married man responds to one of the most inclusive lists of affinal avoid- ances on record.
Avoidance of cousins of opposite sex "starts when they are old enough to understand such things, when they have grown to maturity, and lasts all their lives."
Silah who are cousins, not sister and brother, sometimes hide from each other. R. hides from J.; they are cousins. They cannot see each other at all. It wouldn't be done between sister and brother, or between two boy cousins or two girl cousins. Cousins do it because they love each other very much and wish to show their respect. After they start it, they are very careful what they say about each other, for their relation is one of respect, like that of a man to his mother-in-law.
J. and S. are cousins. They have hidden from each other all their lives. When cousins do this, they give presents to each other in the beginning, and after that they help each other all the time. They hide from each other from that time on just as a man hides from his mother-in-law. Either the man or the woman can start it. You can't hide from a sister or an aunt. It is only between cousins of opposite sex that this is done, not between two men or two women. You cannot arrange with a cousin to use the polite form only;14 it must be hiding or nothing. Of course, if you must speak to your cousin who hides from you, you might stand behind a tree, and then you would use polite form in talking to her. K. and Mrs. C. were cousins who hid from each other too.
I had a cousin. Just because she liked me, she wanted me to do it. I had been away to school. When I got back, she gave me a saddle and bridle. Then she asked me to hide from her. I said, "No." I told her I had been to school, that I didn't want to go the old way, that maybe the government would get after me if I did. So she said, "All right." This was about 1897.
14 For an explanation of polite form see pp. 171-81.
62 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
If you hide from your cousin, then anything she has, whether it is money or property, or anything else, she will give to you. You can't refuse a request from a person who hides from you. And it's the same for you if she needs anything.
Since cousin avoidance is voluntary, where it will lead to com- plications or where the individuals concerned are likely to be thrown together constantly, it is seldom begun.
If marriage between cousins is prohibited, is it not difficult, in view of the small population, for a young person to find a suit- able mate? Sometimes this problem does arise, and young men have been known to journey far from their homes for the purpose of making contacts which could lead to marriage. That the issue does not become more serious is due to two factors : the mobility and extensive range of these people and their anxiety to eliminate all mention and memory of the dead. Because of the first factor, families, except for nuclear groups of very close kin, tend to move apart and lose contact with each other. And because the names and antecedents of the departed are seldom mentioned, connections between remoter kin are soon forgotten when the families are separated.
When circumstances warrant, the cousin avoidance may be terminated and the more ordinary manner of behavior toward a relative of this degree resumed. The details of the procedure are the same as those governing the abrogation of affinal avoidance.15
Grandparent-grandchild relationships. — The wish for long life and old age is constantly expressed in prayer and ceremonial song. The staff on which the old person leans has become a sym- bol of this concept. As one commentator wryly observed: "They pray for the old age staff. They say, 'Let me be old, let me have the old age stick.' If you have the old age stick that means you have reached a long life. But when they get it, they don't like It.
It is considered a good omen if an old person blesses a child or performs a ceremony over him, for even as this individual's pow- er and ceremony have preserved him to a ripe age, they may pro- tect the child for a generous time span. The same notion is pres- ent in the preparation of the first cigarette. "A person's first
15 See pp. 174-75.
CHILDHOOD 63
cigarette was rolled by an old man or woman. This was done so the person could reach the age of the one who rolled it. The old person prayed and lit it for him."
Age brings prestige, if it is ever to come to an individual. The band leaders are chosen from the most forceful heads of local groups; local group leaders are the most authoritative voices of extended families. Few men who have not lived long enough to rear a large family and to see their daughters marry well head extended families. With his children and grandchildren around him and sons-in-law to do his bidding, a man may establish im- portant alliances and gain political and economic stature. That older persons figure so prominently in the ceremonial and politi- cal life is significant for the grandparent-grandchild relations.
The rule of matrilocal residence permits constant contact be- tween the child and his mother's parents. These kin are usually the oldest and, while they retain their vigor, the most respected members of the extended family. The family is the realization of the line they have founded. Their daughters and unmarried sons owe them obedience and deference, and their sons-in-law are bound and subordinated to them by strict social and eco- nomic rules.
The maternal grandparents concern themselves in countless ways with the child's development. They are constantly con- sulted by their daughter on problems of child-rearing. They are present at the first ceremonies held for the baby and contribute whatever is needed for these occasions. It is often one of these grandparents who acts as the cradle-maker and shaman of the cradle ceremony. They may suggest a first name for their grand- child. Their home is always open to him, and it is not unusual for him to sleep there. If his mother dies and his father leaves the extended family because it cannot offer him a suitable mate, the maternal grandparents are likely to rear the child.
My father was left an orphan at about six years of age and was brought up by his grandparent. It was his mother's father who took care of him. This man lived in Chiricahua country. My father lived there with him until he was twelve or fifteen years old. He was with the old man all the time. When he told about it in after years, he said he often wondered why this old man took such an interest in him. He often wondered if he was worth it, worth having so much attention
64 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
paid to him. My father said the old man was kind to him, was always gentle with him, and used to advise him. He took more trouble with him than other relatives did.
The maternal grandparents, who are the approved raconteurs for the children of the extended family, function to a consider- able degree as teachers, for a good deal of instruction for the young comes obliquely through stories.
The influence of the maternal grandparents is not limited to oral instruction. While the younger men are hunting or raiding and the younger women are away gathering food or getting wood and water, the care of the children and the performance of camp tasks fall to the older people. The grandfather makes arrows, ropes, and many other objects. Often his grandson watches him or even assists him. The grandmother cooks, sews, and weaves baskets, occasionally pausing to explain her methods to her granddaughter.
Ceremonial knowledge may also be received from the grand- parent. Many rites result from personal experiences with the supernatural, but a certain number are passed along to others by those who have had such individual encounters. When a cere- mony is transmitted, it is most often taught to a relative. Usual- ly a shaman is reluctant to reveal his secrets until he feels that the end of his life is near and that his ceremony will perish with him unless a successor is found. Thus there is a tendency for very old persons to seek younger relatives as their understudies in things ceremonial. The grandchild often proves a promising candidate, especially if he is not too young during his grand- parent's declining years.
The paternal grandparents usually cannot hope for a great deal of contact with their son's child. At marriage their son has left their encampment, and his obligations are to his wife's rela- tives. Yet when it happens that the father's parents do live near the extended family into which their son has married, they take pleasure in being with their grandchildren and may even rival the maternal grandparents in solicitude.
Four kinship terms, one for each grandparent, label the grand- parent-grandchild relationship. Since they are used as self-
CHILDHOOD 65
reciprocals, one term, in its primary sense, stands for mother's mother and also, when a woman is speaking, for daughter's child; another indicates father's mother and likewise, when a woman is speaking, son's child, etc.
It is a feature of this kinship system that siblings and cousins of the grandparent are addressed by the same term as the grand- parent, regardless of sex. For example, the term for mother's mother also designates her sisters, brothers, and cousins. Recip- rocally, the brothers or sisters of a woman will address this same term to their sister's daughter's child, male or female.
For the great-grandparent-great-grandchild relationship the terms of the grandparent-grandchild set are utilized. There is no strong feeling concerning the functions of the great-grandparents and no specialization of terminology. If they are active enough to participate in social, economic, and ceremonial matters, they are treated much as are grandparents. It is the duty of children to support old people who are so far past their prime, and mem- bers of the great-grandparent generation receive the extra consid- eration to which their extreme age entitles them.
childhood's end
Childhood is, strictly speaking, a period of preparation for adult standards. The view of the world is not softened for the young beholder. The child and the adult often listen together to accounts of the rigors of the hunt, of the hardships and glories of war, and of the cruelties of the enemy, "As soon as I was old enough to know," said one informant, "I was told who were our enemies." Another man, prefaced an exceptionally vivid descrip- tion of a war dance with the remark, "When I was just old enough to understand and remember it, I saw them go through this performance."
The child is early introduced to the goals and values of the society. An old man mentioned hunting as one of the first experi- ences he could recall. He was with older children who were shooting birds with slings, and he followed them around to see what they were doing.
66 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
Boys begin their interest in horsemanship while they are still very young:
The Chiricahua would hobble their horses way off in the woods. A boy would play with the horse when no one was watching. Children from seven years of age and on would go and learn by themselves when the older people didn't even know about it. There were always some gentle horses for the boys to ride. I would crawl on a horse when I was about seven. I used to put my foot on his leg, get hold of his mane, and crawl up on his back. Sometimes I fell off again, but after a while I would get on the horse's back.
When the boy is sufficiently strong to handle a bow and ar- rows, some member of the extended family — the father, the mother's brother, or the grandfather — provides him with them and gives him the necessary advice.
When I was small I didn't know how to make a bow and arrows myself. My father said, "First, I'm going to make you learn how to hunt." He made a bow and arrows for me. Children use a small wooden arrow with a wooden point, but they can shoot a long way with it, for they have a good bow.
My father said, "Go ahead, son, and shoot birds and squirrels and any small things. But, before you try, I must tell you that these little birds and animals are not tame. They see you just as soon as you come in sight of them. The squirrels, as soon as they see you come anywhere near them, run away. You must see the squirrel before it sees you. You can't just run up to squirrels and shoot them, because they are wild. If you have to crawl to get where your arrow can hit a squirrel, do it.
"A bird is the same way. If he is over there on a limb, you must come around so that you can get within range of him. Part of the time you must crawl, be- cause he is watching, and in that way you can get within range and shoot him. In hunting you must go very slowly and softly, not rattling stones with your feet or making rocks roll down a steep place. Go carefully; creep up to your game.
"It will be just the same when you hunt deer. Then you will still have to go slyly and carefully. Deer can see you before you see them. The deer places him- self where he can see very well. You must look for him. You must go slyly up to him as if you were a fox. It's the same if you are hunting antelopes or any other animals; you must be very cautious."
That is the teaching for a little boy when he is given a bow and arrows. So I did these things, and it worked out exactly as he said.
Most adults, when they present the boy with his first bow, ad- vise him to swallow whole the raw heart of the first kill he makes to guarantee continued abundance from the hunt.
But no amount of good advice will prepare a youth for hunting
CHILDHOOD 67
and raiding unless he reaches a high point of physical fitness. At first it is the members of the immediate family who urge the boy to undertake special exercises. Such pressure begins when the boy is anywhere from eight to twelve years old, depending on his size and the attitudes of the members of his family.
Now the next thing [after learning to hunt] was getting up before daylight. My father said, "Be up; be up before daylight and run up the mountain. Run to the top of that mountain and back before daylight. You must do it, and I'm going to make you do it. It will be better for you to do it in your own way, but if you don't, I'll force you to do it."
I asked, "What if the clown should see me? Is he everywhere?" "My son, that time the clown frightened you it was only I dressed up. You were a little boy at that time. You would not obey. There is nothing to be afraid of. That is the way little children are made to mind. Now you are big enough to handle a bow and arrows. Now I am going to train you so that when you get to be a few years older you will be almost as good as any man. Your mind will be well developed. Your legs will be developed so nobody can outrun you. You will be able to keep up with others when you are running long distances. Getting up early in the morning, running to the top of that hill and back will give you a strong mind, a strong heart, and a strong body."
Physical fitness is considered by some parents even more vital for survival than the assistance of relatives.
If my son is strong, when he is about eight or ten years old I must give him his lesson. It's like breaking in a mule He must get up before sunrise.
The father talks to his son. "My son, you know no one will help you in this world. You must do something. You run to that mountain and come back. That will make you strong. My son, you know no one is your friend, not even your sister, your father, or your mother. Your legs are your friends; your brain is your friend; your eyesight is your friend; your hair is your friend; your hands are your friends; you must do something with them. When you grow up you live with these things and think about it.
"Some day you will be with people who are starving. You will have to get something for them. If you go somewhere, you must beat the enemy who are attacking you before they get over the hill [i.e., escape]. Before they beat you, you must get in front of them [i.e., best them] and bring them back dead. Then all the people will be proud of you. Then you are the only man. Then all the people will talk about you. That is why I talk to you in this way. If you do all these things and you stay among the people, they will all like you — your brother, your sister, your uncle. All the camps will talk about you. They will call my name and say my son is fine and does good work. Then we will be proud of you. If you are lazy, the people will hate you."
68 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
Soon the boy is requested to care for the horses. He is told that he should carry a pack on his back while he is running. To prove his endurance, he may be ordered to stay awake continu- ously for a day and a night or even longer. An inevitable incident of this training period is the icy morning plunge.
There was a creek deep enough for a boy to jump in. In the fall of the year the water was frozen a little. The creek was about a mile away. My father said, "Son, get up, and before you build a fire, take everything off except your breech- cloth, run to that creek, and jump in the water. If the ice is thin enough, you jump in so it will not cut you. Go ahead! Jump in!"
Many boys used to put water on their heads and make believe they had jumped in. And some of the boys used to throw water over themselves before they went in, but their parents would find it out. If a boy wouldn't do it, his father would get a whip, call the boy to him, and say, "You go over and jump in!" So the boy would go to escape a whipping.
Afterward we would come back soaking wet, but we were not allowed to come up to the fire. We just had to take a covering and wrap it around ourselves.
Nor does this exhaust the ingenuity of those in charge of the boy:
There is a small tree. My father takes me out there. He says, "Fight that tree!" I go over there and hit the tree with both hands. Perhaps it hurts and I will have sore hands the next day. Then there is a tree with a limb about as big as my arm sticking out just about high enough for me to jump and catch it. My father says, "Break that limb." And he is standing there watching me fight it. Some limbs are pretty hard to break, but he is going to stand there until I break it.
A variation of this type of strenuous exercise is to have the boy uproot small trees or pull long poles from the ground.
One of the devices of winter training is to send the boy out early in the morning to roll a ball of snow. He is told to push it until he is called.
As the youth progresses in his training, guard and scout duties fall to his lot :
If older men are going away, they leave a young man to watch camp and guard the women and children. They say to him, "Camp up high. Get up early. Go up on a hill and watch. Go out and hide in the brush and look for tracks." That's what they told me.
They told me, "Don't eat too much in the day. Eat just enough so that you keep your strength. If you eat too much, you won't be able to run. But in the
CHILDHOOD 69
night eat well, for if the enemy does come you can hide yourself because of the dark and get away."
Facial hair is greatly disdained, and its growth is usually at- tributed to disobedience of some kind. There is a test of self- discipline related to this:
My father used to tell me, "When you are old enough to go in the creek and you are in training, every now and then walk straight into the water until it reaches the place under your nose where a moustache would begin. But if you drink the water or get it in your nose or mouth you will have a moustache." I tried this several times just for fun. The older people warned us not to let the water in; they didn't want us to have moustaches. They said that if we smoked while we were little we would get a moustache too.
The last sentence of this quotation calls attention to another matter concerning which the boy receives instruction at about this time. Smoking is the prerogative of the warriors and of the older women :
They tell a boy that he will have to catch a coyote first before he can smoke, but they mean it just as a joke. Some try it, of course; that's what they tell the boys to do it for, to see them try something that no boy can do. It's just like sending a boy for the thing they call "that with which one smokes."
Among older men the admonition is used in jest: ''Not long ago when I lit a cigarette an old man said to me, 'When did you catch your coyote?' I told him, 'I've never done it, and I don't believe you ever did either.' He only laughed." To smoke dur- ing the boyhood or the training period is said to make a boy "lazy and no good at work."
Gradually the boys become inured to the demands made upon them and even devise tests of character for themselves. To dem- onstrate their bravery, they place dry sage or the pith of the sunflower stalk on their skins, ignite it, and let it burn to ash. Even though they are burned severely enough to show a scar years later, they must not flinch.
The training described thus far is entirely in the hands of the immediate family, but, when the youth reaches the age of pu- berty, this hardening process takes a more formalized turn. The father lets his son know that momentous days are ahead: "There are harder things to be learned later. When you are a little older,
70 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
I will continue to make you get up early in the morning just as you do now, but you will have to do more than that. You will become a raid and war novice."
The term that has been translated here as "novice" denotes the status of a youth who is advanced enough in his training to enter the final phases of preparation for actual raiding. Some informants use the word only to refer to the participant in the four raid or war expeditions which elevate a youth to the full status of a warrior.
The initial training of the novice (using the word in the less restricted sense) does not differ greatly from what has gone be- fore:
When I was a boy they began training me as a novice. To be a novice means
that you cannot disobey but must train yourself as your elders say Many a
young boy at fourteen was as well trained and dangerous as a soldier.
My father did his best to train me just as he had been trained when he was a young boy. He gave me all the ceremonial training he had once been through himself too. When I was ten or twelve years old he began to teach me and was very strict with me.
He would say to me, "You must have your arrows and your bow where you can grab them. Keep your knife beside you. Have your moccasins ready. Be on the alert in peace or in war. Don't spend all your time sleeping. Get up when the morning star comes out. Watch for that star. Don't let it get up before you do." That is the kind of teaching a boy gets when he is a novice.
The reference to "ceremonial training" suggests that more than purely practical measures are involved. The parents pray for their son's success and future safety, and he may be taken to a shaman whose ceremony is known to be of special benefit to novices. "The shaman prays that the boy may be free from harm. A yellow light shines on the boy's head. It follows the boy and makes a circle back to the shaman. That means that the boy will come back safely. The shaman smokes and sings."
"At about fourteen years of age the boy starts hunting with the men." Usually an older man who "knows" a great deal about deer goes along and marks the tips of the young hunter's mocca- sins with blood from the kill.
At the conclusion of the training period, some boys, to insure
CHILDHOOD 71
their competence in horsemanship, are brought to shamans who perform ceremonies for them originating in supernatural experi- ences with Bat; for the bat, because of its habit of clinging to ob- jects, is associated with riding ability.
Sweat-bathing is utilized as an aid to fleetness: "Sometimes boys are put in a sweat lodge to make them good runners. They come out and run for about a mile; then they go in again if they wish. It makes them longwinded." In another account it is said that the young men emerge from the sweat lodge and run "while they are still warm." "If a man is training for running, he should keep away from women and should not drink or smoke." How- ever, there is no taboo on the presence of women where youths are practicing running.
As the boy's training advances, the circle of those who are in- terested in his progress steadily enlarges.
I was a small boy, about nine years old, when I saw this. I remember it well. Many boys in my time saw what I'm going to tell you about. It was just before Geronimo's last war, about 1884 or 1885.
Old Man C. had an orphan boy. He was rearing and training that boy. He had taught him how to ride well. The boy was about fifteen or sixteen years old and was well trained as a warrior. He knew how to shoot an arrow, how to use a sling, how to shoot with guns. He was a good hunter; he could shoot deer. Fie was as good as the average man, though he was just a young boy.
One man had made tiswin [a weak beer made of maize]. C. went to a crowd of men who were drinking. He said, "I've got a boy. I am his uncle. The boy can ride any horse bareback without a rope on it."
"Well," one man said, "we all like to see things like that. We will bet you two big jars of tiswin. You get that boy; let him ride down that steep hill bareback."
In those days one jar of tiswin was worth a horse, and a horse was very hard to get. That much tiswin was worth a belt and cartridges, or a gun and belt. Guns were hard to get in those days too. So C. told the man, "Give your horse to him. Any side of the hill you want to have him ride is all right."
Nobody knew then that this boy was so well trained. C. had been out training him somewhere away from the rest of the people. The man took the bronco on the side of the hill, and the boy was called over there. The horse had a rope on but no saddle.
Just as soon as C. spoke, the boy would do what he said, whether it was dan- gerous or not. That boy rode the horse down the hill just like nothing! The horse pitched all around with him but could not shake him off. So C. got the tiswin, and he was drinking and got feeling good.
In those days the warriors never went without their guns. They always car-
72 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
ried their guns and belt no matter how close they were to camp. Awake or asleep they were never without their guns. After this ride C. wanted to show those people just how he had trained his boy. They were on the sandy side of the hill. Nobody was on that hill.
C. told the boy, "Take your shirt off so that you'll have no excuse of some- thing to trip over." All the men watched from the side. C. told the boy to stand on a gentle slope. He stood about fifty feet away from the boy.
C. took his gun and put cartridges in it. He is a sharpshooter; he shoots from the hip. He said, "All right, you start! You go down there."
The boy began to dodge and run. C. began to shoot. You could see the dust flying all around that boy, but he didn't get hit!
The boy is constantly reminded that this training must serve him for the raid and warfare situations which he will face.
The parents and grandparents all advise the boy. They tell him to run up hills so that in emergencies he can get along by himself, for in wartime, they tell him, nobody will go back for him, and he must keep up.
They advise the boys that in case of war they should have a strong feeling that they will overcome the enemy; they tell the boy that the enemy is as frightened as he is; and that, if he puts on a brave front and charges, the enemy may run. And they tell the boys that, after coming home from a successful battle, their relatives and friends will be proud of them. Cowards are talked about, told nasty things before their faces, and are in disgrace. A girl would not marry a lazy or cowardly man because the women say he wouldn't be a good provider. The boys know all this.
As time goes on group tactics assume increasing importance in the physical education of the novice. Where there are a num- ber of boys of the proper age in the local group, they are brought together frequently for the training tasks.
Suppose I have a boy in the group. I give him equipment and tell him to go out there. The boys line up, ready to run. Maybe two men go along and see that the boys don't stop running. Then along comes a man with water in a little con- tainer and says, "Take a mouthful, but don't swallow it; hold it in your mouth. You are going to run four miles with this water in your mouth."
They all start out, not running full speed, but trotting. When they come back they are inspected. Each man inspects his boy to see if he still has the water in his mouth. He says, "All right, spit that water out." If the boy swallows the water on the way, the trainers see that he doesn't do it a second time.
Now one old man from the group of camps [extended family] might say, "I have a fine boy. He is hard to beat." Then perhaps my father would say, "I have a good boy. Bring your boy in." In they come. Everybody is around. The other boys who are novices are there too, waiting. They match these two, and
CHILDHOOD 73
the fighting begins. Maybe they are both crying. They fight until they bleed, until one of the boys says, "Enough!" Then he is whipped.
Then another day is set. A different boy is matched with the one who won the first fight. When it comes to one of these fellows, they tell him, "Well, it is your turn to fight him now." I have seen some poor boys who had to fight the winner, cry before they got out. Before they started they knew they were going to be beaten, but they had to go through with it whether they were good fighters or not.
Then they take eight boys, all of about the same size and with about the same amount of training and give them slings. They take them to a flat place where there are many stones and where all of them can see each other. The trainer says, "All right, four of you boys go on the other side, four stay on this side. This is going to make you quick; this is to develop you in speed."
They have to pick up the stones and sling them at each other, one side against the other. They have to learn to duck and dodge and keep from being hit. They are taught to throw at each other and to hit each other. If a stone hits you in the head, you are gone; if it hits you in the arm, it may break a bone. You have to jump aside and dodge in order not to get hurt. C. has a scar over his eye from a sling fight of this kind.
After so much sling- fighting they are beginning to be a little like warriors. Next they make small bows and arrows. The boys divide into equal sides again and take their places about fifty feet apart. They use small arrows; but, if these arrows hit you, they stick into you. They are of wood, sharp pointed. The trainer says, "All right, you boys go out there and fight." And I tell you they have fun too! They hardly ever hit each other. But I remember one boy in the crowd at Carlisle who had been shot in the eye, and it put his eye out.
Then they take them out again. They have the boys race without any water in their mouths and without carrying anything, in order to see which are the best two runners. Maybe they run to a little tree, around it and back again, about 800 paces. The next day they run about a mile around another tree. A man on horseback follows on each side. They try that twice to see who can run. Then they select two boys. They cut two switches, each about three feet long, and give them to these good runners. These two run ahead as usual and they whip the last boy in.
A mimic contest in which stones are parried with round shields is described and also wrestling matches in which "the idea is to throw an opponent down before you get hit or kicked."
The boys are anything but docile, even in regard to their train- ers: "Sometimes when they have an older person to run along during racing to lash those who lag behind, one or two boys jump on him and struggle with him. This gives the others a chance to get far enough ahead so they won't be bothered."
74 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
Practice in handling and riding horses under all conditions is a regular part of the training. The boy is taught to ride bare- back, to control the horse with only a rope around its nose, and to ride down a steep incline, picking up objects from the ground as he goes. He-is also judged as he rides full speed toward a bar- rier and tries to halt his horse just before reaching it, or jumps the horse over hurdles.
One of the last activities of this phase of the training is a cross- country run. The route that is to be covered is laid out. There are no long halts, and the boys try to refrain from eating for the two days of this journey. Not until the afternoon of the second day may they kill animals for food. The boys do not sleep until the race is over. A variation is to make a group of boys walk all night to see if they can withstand fatigue.
The boys who achieve a position of superiority during this training period rise to pre-eminence in their age group. The tasks which lie ahead are close enough in spirit to those in which they have already excelled so that their futures are reasonably as- sured. The foundations of status recognitions are laid in the training period, therefore.
Paternal affection is reinterpreted when the training period begins. No longer is it indulgence. "Because a Chiricahua par- ent loves his child," he insists upon duties which are often pain- ful, for in his opinion this is the only way "his son will eventually make a living." There is no rancor involved; certainly no con- scious cruelty or sadism.
This attitude penetrates deeply to the core of all response and behavior. Demonstrativeness is considered unbecoming; what cannot be translated into action need not be protested. Since stoicism and strength are underlined, displays of personal con- sideration and "softness" must be repressed. Only at times of crisis and of great grief, in appeals to the supernatural, or during mourning do the people permit the emotions full expression.
The girl's destiny as a dutiful wife is made very clear to her while she is still a child. The father may say, "We want to rear you well so people won't talk about us; we want to get some- thing out of your marriage, so we want to take care of you."
CHILDHOOD 75
Women school the girls in obedience "so that their husbands won't hear saucy words from them."
The girl's training is less formalized than that of the boy. It amounts to a greater and greater association with the duties of her mother, older sisters, and other female relatives, until she at- tains adult standards in the quality of work she can perform.
At this time, when the little girl is first learning to do women's work, her hair is done up in the style worn by young women :
In the old days the young woman had her hair done up. She took it in one bunch and wrapped it up in back. Then she put a hair ornament on, and it covered the knot of hair and was tied in the middle. The hair ornament was made out of buckskin or cowhide. It had to be stiff. In my day they covered the hide with cloth. The color was usually red
The hair ornament was put on as soon as the girl was ten or twelve years old. It had nothing to do with the girl's feast [puberty rite]. There was no ceremony connected with it that I know of. The mother would make it. The only thing I know about it is that they said anyone who had the hair done up that way would have very long hair, for it would grow long while it was done up that way. They told this to the little girls, and it was generally true.
One of the earliest tasks given the little girl is the care of still younger members of the family. She is also instructed in the use of the tumpline and is expected to help bring in wood and water.
These simple household tasks are supposed to be shared by children of both sexes, but the boy is hardly old enough to be of appreciable assistance when he senses the sexual division of la- bor: "After my father was gone I worked a little around the house, getting wood, carrying water, and helping my mother. I was ashamed to do that though. It was woman's work. The other boys used to pass by and see me and make fun of me." It is not long before the boy has to be released entirely from such duties to follow his companions in their training and sports. But the girl is encouraged to continue and intensify her interest in household affairs.
However, like the boy, she must train herself to be strong and vigorous. She is told to rise early, to run often, and to shun no hard work. Tales are frequently told of girls so fleet that they rival boys in races. Such swiftness and strength are necessary, for girls must be able to get quickly to safety in case of attack on
76 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
the camp. Girls who are good runners even aid boys and adults in one form of hunting, the rabbit surround. All close in on a circular area, beating the brush to drive the rabbits toward the center and club or shoot them.
But the young girl's principal concern is to assist the women in those tasks not beyond her strength and to receive continual instruction from them. They indicate to her the plants useful for food, artifacts, and medicine and teach her to gather materials and to dry, store, and prepare them. "A girl is taught to sew moccasins, weave baskets, make clothing, and cook. Her mother and grandmother begin to teach her as soon as she is old enough to understand, and by the time she is fifteen she is well edu- cated."
MATURATION
THE MOLDING OF SEX ATTITUDES
WHILE the child is very young and is still unable to comprehend the social forms which differentiate one class of relationship from another, he is little inhibit- ed. But with his introduction to the ideas clustering around the sibling and cousin relationships comes the first pressure toward reserve between the sexes. Soon this trend is fortified by the in- creasing separation of boys and girls for play and amusement. Since the youngster is with members of his own sex so much of the time, the feeling of shyness when he is in the company of the other sex becomes pronounced.
The parents try to instil the proper attitudes regarding per- sonal matters: "When the children are about six years old, they begin to notice things, so the parents are very careful to urinate and to have sexual intercourse in private and to speak carefully. The children thus grow up the way they are supposed to." What cannot be concealed from the child, he is taught to ignore. Thus, a young man, in telling of serious temptations which he had suc- cessfully withstood, could explain: "My early training helped me. For I was brought up in Indian camps where it is hard to be private and where we were trained to pay no attention to such things."
There is a definite etiquette of modest deportment. The girl is taught to sit with her legs close together, flexed back and to one side, so that her genitals will never be exposed. Children of both sexes are told to leave the dwelling quietly without reference to their errand when they go to the brush. If some explanation is necessary, a simple, "I am going out," is the customary phrase. This modesty becomes habitual and extends to all situations.
Older boys went swimming in the creek too. The girls would not go swim- ming then. The bigger boys didn't go over where the girls were swimming be- cause the girls were naked. When I was about fourteen years old or so, I kept apart from the older girls. I became ashamed then.
77
78 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
Premarital chastity is expected in the girl. The maidenhead is considered the proof of virginity. A marriage may be abrogated if a bride is found to have been unchaste, and a girl who is desert- ed for this reason brings disgrace to herself and her family.
But, because^ of the heightened round of physical activity at
about the time of adolescence and the encouragement of early
marriage, premarital sexual activity does not become a serious
problem. Of great importance, also, is the existence of separate
spheres of activity for men and women. This dichotomy tends
to draw the child's interest away from situations which involve
the other sex and causes him to seek recognition, rather, in those
outlets unequivocally masculine or unequivocally feminine.
An Apache boy is trained not to pay too much attention to the women. It is not considered manly. The Apache girl is expected to be reserved, and a show of affection in public between the sexes is laughed at. This training becomes a part of the Apache's thought. He sees it all around him. He notices who is laughed at and who is thought well of, and why. This bashfulness, the unwillingness openly to show a lot of feeling for one of the other sex, is carried right through. It comes out in courtship. It comes out even in marriage.
Of an aberrant girl who violates the conventions in this re- gard, the following criticism was offered:
Unlike most Chiricahua girls, she is not bashful. If she came in the room here, she would start talking to you. Lots of the old Indians hold this against her. It is considered too forward for a boy to walk up to a girl and start talking a lot. But when I see this girl I go up to her and start talking. I wouldn't dare do that with any other woman. She will hail someone at a dance before a lot of other people. Many of the older people do not like her for this.
Since casual contact between the sexes is discouraged, any overt signs of friendliness between men and women suggest the desire for intimacy. Once when an informant had gone to some trouble to reach a man's camp, he declined to wait there for his friend who was expected back in a short time, saying, "Well, it wouldn't look well if C. came and found me here with these wom- en. C. and I are great friends, and I wouldn't want him to think anything bad of me."
"The feeling is that a man should go his way with his friends and a woman her way with her friends." Anything else is effemi- nacy on the man's part, forwardness on the woman's. These are
MATURATION 79
barriers to intimacy which it is very difficult for the youth to surmount before he is ready to enter into a marriage relationship arranged and approved by his elders. Ordinarily, before matu- rity and the time for marriage, the boy is so busy proving himself a worthy competitor among men, and the girl is so engrossed in establishing herself as a competent worker among the women, that there is limited need to gratify the primary sex drive. There is no use for prudery or continence as such, but there is a definite concept of normalcy in the relation between the sexes which sub- ordinates the sexual drive to other concerns.
Sexual precocity is rare and sternly discouraged. The one ac- count of such misbehavior which was obtained was that of a seven-year-old boy charged with trying to throw down little girls and molest them. The mothers refused to allow their chil- dren to associate with him. An informant), Vhen he was ques- tioned about sexual play among children, claimed that he had never heard of children engaging in sex games but added that, if two children had been- caught at "such a thing," the parents "would certainly have whipped both of them."
That masturbation occurs infrequently among the children has been asserted by a number of informants:
There is no masturbation among the Chiricahua boys. It is against the Apache nature to handle the private organs. There was one boy, a Comanche, who did it and advised J. and me to do it. We thought it a shameful thing to do. I can hardly believe that it is so common among the Whites! It is not done by the Chiricahua. We children were never warned against it. It never was men- tioned, thought of, or considered.
Another old man disclaimed knowledge of it, insisting that his people "never thought along that line." "Way back the Chiri- cahua didn't know what masturbation was," another man de- clared. However, one informant who had "never heard of mas- turbation or anything like that among the men" said he had heard of girls masturbating with sticks. A traditional story is told of a woman who abused herself with a cactus plant from which the outer covering had been peeled.
Berdaches rarely appear and are far from pampered or en- couraged when they do. They are not mistreated, but they are
80 AN APACHE LIFE-WAY
privately ridiculed. Perversion seldom occurs and is not coun- tenanced; it may even be equated with witchcraft.
The elders do not rely entirely on implicit attitudes and the demands of the training process to guard their children from un- desirable sex scrapes but provide continual supervision as well. When an unmarried girl goes to social dances, she is accompanied by an older relative. Or she herself may be put in charge of a younger child so that she will not have time for an assignation. Her mother is strict and watchful. She tells the girl not to per- mit any intimacies from men or boys before her marriage and warns her about bearing unwanted babies. "A girl who goes wrong is usually one who has no close relatives, no mother, fath- er, grandparents."
The mother, the grandmother, or some other female relative gives the girl counsel as the time for her first menses approaches. She is told that menstrual blood is dangerous to men and is in- structed how to keep clean. She is encouraged to endure bravely the possible accompanying pain, for "as long as she acts like a child she is going to have a hard time at menstruation."
It is at this time that the girl may have a ceremony performed over her which results in sterility:
No woman should be sterile. There is no excuse for any woman not to have children. That's the way my people talk and feel about it. The trouble is that those who are sterile have been ruined right when they came of age, about the time when they had their first flow. A girl's own mother might have a woman fix it so the girl won't have children. The father won't know anything about it. Sometimes the mother, who has had children and knows the pain and hard time of it, doesn't want her daughter to have children. There are women right now who know this kind of thing. S. and B. have had no children, and this must be why. Those who made us made every woman to have children without exception if not interfered with.