"First-class . . . in the best ethnographic tradition. It fills a great gap in our anthropological knowledge and . . . deserves to be one of the most used of American tribal records."-Ruth Benedict, author of Patterns of Culture. Originally published in 1941, An Apache Life-Way remains one of the most important and innovative studies of southwestern Native Americans, drawing upon a rich and invaluable body of data gathered by the ethnographer Morris Edward Opler during the 1930s. Blending the analysis of individual Apache lives with the analysis of their culture, this landmark study tells of the ceremonies, religious beliefs, social life, and economy of the Chiricahua Apache. Opler traces, in fascinating detail, how a person "becomes an Apache, " beginning with conception, moving through puberty rites, marriage, and the various religious, domestic, and military duties and experiences of adulthood, and concluding with the rites and beliefs surrounding death. Morris Edward Opler is Professor Emeritus of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma. Charles R. Kaut is Associate Professor Emeritus of anthropology at the University of Virginia.

Originally published in 1941, An Apache Life-Way remains one of the most important and innovative studies of southwestern Native Americans, drawing upon a rich and invaluable body of data gathered by the ethnographer Morris Edward Opler during the 1930s. Blending the analysis of individual Apache lives with the analysis of their culture, this landmark study tells of the ceremonies, religious beliefs, social life, and economy of the Chiricahua Apache. Opler traces, in fascinating detail, how a person “becomes an Apache,” beginning with conception, moving through puberty rites, marriage, and the various religious, domestic, and military duties and experiences of adulthood, and concluding with the rites and beliefs surrounding death.

“We are dealing here with a living literature,” wrote Morris Edward Opler in his preface to Myths and Tales of the Chiricahua Apache Indians. First published in 1942, this is another classic study by the author of Myths and Tales of the Jicarilla Apache Indians. Opler conducted field work among the Chiricahuas in the American Southwest, as he had earlier among the Jicarillas. The result is a definitive collection of their myths. They range from an account of the world destroyed by water to descriptions of puberty rites and wonderful contests. The exploits of culture heroes involve the slaying of monsters and the assistance of Coyote. A large part of the book is devoted to the irrepressible Coyote, whose antics make cautionary tales for the young, tales that also allow harmless expression of the taboo. Other striking stories present supernatural beings and “foolish people.”

In 1933, famed anthropologist Morris Opler met a Mescalero Apache he called Chris and worked with him to record the man's life story, from the bloody Apache Wars into the reservation years of the mid-twentieth century. Chris's vivid recollections are enriched at strategic moments with crucial background information on Apache history and culture, supplied by Opler. Chris was born around 1880, the son of a Chiricahua man and a Mescalero woman. At the age of six, he and his family and other Chiricahua Apaches became prisoners of war and were relocated by the U.S. government to Florida and Alabama. Eventually settling on the Mescalero Apache reservation in New Mexico, Chris grew up expecting to become a shaman like his parents. Although Chris apprenticed as a shaman, his confidence in his healing ability waned after he was forced at the age of seventeen to attend federal government schools. Nonetheless, his interest in Mescalero religion, healing, and other traditional customs and beliefs remained, and that intimate knowledge of his people's world underscores and deepens the story of his own life.

Text, illustrations and photographs present a history of the Apache Indians.

When the Apache wars ended in the late nineteenth century, a harsh and harrowing time began for the Western Apache people. Living under the authority of nervous Indian agents, pitiless government-school officials, and menacing mounted police, they knew that resistance to American authority would be foolish. But some Apache families did resist in the most basic way they could: they resolved to endure. Although Apache history has inspired numerous works by non-Indian authors, Apache people themselves have been reluctant to comment at length on their own past. Eva Tulene Watt, born in 1913, now shares the story of her family from the time of the Apache wars to the modern era. Her narrative presents a view of history that differs fundamentally from conventional approaches, which have almost nothing to say about the daily lives of Apache men and women, their values and social practices, and the singular abilities that enabled them to survive. In a voice that is spare, factual, and unflinchingly direct, Mrs. Watt reveals how the Western Apaches carried on in the face of poverty, hardship, and disease. Her interpretation of her peopleÕs past is a diverse assemblage of recounted events, biographical sketches, and cultural descriptions that bring to life a vanished time and the men and women who lived it to the fullest. We share her and her familyÕs travels and troubles. We learn how the Apache people struggled daily to find work, shelter, food, health, laughter, solace, and everything else that people in any community seek. Richly illustrated with more than 50 photographs, DonÕt Let the Sun Step Over You is a rare and remarkable book that affords a view of the past that few have seen beforeÑa wholly Apache view, unsettling yet uplifting, which weighs upon the mind and educates the heart.

Based on exhaustive research, this graphic novel offers a remarkable glimpse into the raw themes of cultural differences, the horrors of war, the search for peace, and, ultimately, retribution. The Apache left an indelible mark on our perceptions of the American West; Indeh shows us why. The year is 1872. The place, the Apache nations, a region torn apart by decades of war. The people, like Goyahkla, lose his family and everything he loves. After having a vision, the young Goyahkla approaches the Apache leader Cochise, and the entire Apache nation, to lead an attack against the Mexican village of Azripe. It is this wild display of courage that transforms the young brave Goyakhla into the Native American hero Geronimo. But the war wages on. As they battle their enemies, lose loved ones, and desperately cling on to their land and culture, they would utter, "Indeh," or "the dead." When it looks like lasting peace has been reached, it seems like the war is over. Or is it? Indeh captures the deeply rich narrative of two nations at war -- as told through the eyes of Naiches and Geronimo -- who then try to find peace and forgiveness. Indeh not only paints a picture of some of the most magnificent characters in the history of our country, but also reveals the spiritual and emotional cost of the Apache Wars.

WHITE PAINTED WOMAN appears in ancient myths of the Chiricahua Apaches as the virgin mother of the people and the origin of women's ceremonies. Such Chiricahua myths and traditions have closely prescribed the roles of women in relation to their husbands and children, to relatives and extended families, and to the band or tribe. One of those roles is to safeguard and hand on to the next generation the lore and customs of the people. In this way, Chiricahua women have served as safekeepers of a heritage that is now endangered. For more than a decade, H. Henrietta Stockel has moved with remarkable freedom and intimacy among the Chiricahuas, especially in the women's friendship circles. With their permission and even blessing, she has observed and recorded aspects of their traditional culture that otherwise might be lost to history. Chiricahua Apache Women and Children, written in a familiar, personal style, focuses on the duties and experiences of historical Chiricahua Apache women and the significant influences they have exerted within the family and the tribe at large. After beginning with a look at creation myths, Stockel turns to family patterns and roles. She describes in detail the puberty ceremony she has repeatedly witnessed, a ceremony little known by those outside the band. Stockel looks also at the alternative lifestyle, also culturally prescribed, of four women warriors. She concludes with Mildred Cleghorn, a contemporary "woman warrior" who was chairperson of the Fort Sill Chiricahua/Warm Springs Apache Tribe in Oklahoma for nearly twenty years and who was also Stockel's close friend and "Apache mother". Beautifully complemented with thirty-two black-and-whiteillustrations of women, children, and family life, Chiricahua Apache Women and Children offers a vivid glimpse into traditional Chiricahua Apache women's lifestyles.

Originally published: San Francisco: A. Roman and Company, 1868.

"Chief Victorio of the Warm Springs Apache has recounted the turbulent life of his people between 1876 and 1886. This eyewitness account . . . recalls not only the hunger, pursuit, and strife of those years, but also the thoughts, feelings, and culture of the hunted tribe. Recommended as general reading."—Library Journal "This volume contains a great deal of interesting information."—Journal of the West "The Apache point of view [is] presented with great clarity."—Books of the Southwest "A valuable addition to the southwestern frontier shelf and long will be drawn upon and used."—Journal of Arizona History "A genuine contribution to the story of the Apache wars, and a very readable book as well."—Westerners Brand Book "Shining through every page is the unquenchable spirit that was the Apache. Inured, indeed trained, to suffering, Apaches stood strong beside Victorio, Nana, and finally Geronimo in a vain attempt to maintain those things they held more dear than life itself—freedom, homeland, dignity as human beings. A warm and vital people, the Apaches had, and have, a great deal to offer."—Arizona and the West