Essays

Moseying: Locations of Interest

Mescalero, New Mexico 4th of July
July 2, 2003

Apache people have been involved with the Llano Estacado for 500 years. The Lipan Apaches lived on the eastern side of the Llano Estacado from the 1500s to the 1700s, when the Comanches sent them seeking safety with the early Spanish settlers. The Mescalero Apaches once lived in the Chisos, Davis, and Guadalupe Mountains and visited yearly to hunt buffalo. They still live in the Sacramento Mountains near Ruidoso. The Mescalero Apaches are honored by the fact that the western side of the Llano Estacado is known as the Mescalero Escarpment. Additionally, portions of the sanddunes that stretch from Crane to Fort Sumner are known as the Mescalero Sands. We Llaneros should know a little about the Apache people, don’t you think?

A good place to learn is the Mescalero Cultural Center (phone (505) 464-4494) in Mescalero, New Mexico. A five-hundred mile round trip is a bit excessive for a day trip, but it can be done. Many Llaneros go to Ruidoso for weekend trips, so the next time you are there, go a little ways west, and take a little time to visit the museum.

Another place to go is the Living Desert Museum in Carlsbad, New Mexico, when visiting Mescalero Apaches conduct a three-day Mescal Roast in May. The staple food of the Mescalero Apaches for hundreds of years was the hearts of agave and mescal, which are roasted for three days in covered pits in the ground.

In early July Mescalero, Chiricahua, Lipan, and Mimbreno Apaches try to come to Mescalero, from where ever they might be living anywhere in the world. The occasion is the four-day White Painted Woman Ceremony, which honors the coming of age of the girls of the tribe. Originally the ceremony was done within a month of each girl’s menarche, but the tradition of one tribal ceremony for all girls that have reached puberty began after the Apaches were forced on to reservations. Part of the celebration is the classic 4th of July parade with floats and horsemen.

From 1873 (when the Mescalero Reservation was established) until 1913, the Mescaleros were not allowed to publicly celebrate this ceremony, their most important social and religious ritual. In 1912, when New Mexico became a state, the Mescaleros were told they could meet together as a tribe once a year and that it had to be on the fourth of July. In 1913 The Chiricahua Apache were finally freed from their 25 years of imprisonment in Alabama, Florida, and Oklahoma and many joined the Mescaleros after being told they could not return to their old home country in eastern Arizona. The ceremony has been held every year since 1913.

Quite a few Llaneros have stayed at the resort owned by the Mescaleros – The Inn of the Mountain Gods. The four Mountain Gods (Gahi) are also known as the wind beings, or thunder beings, and each have a direction and color associated with them. Each Gahi influences different aspects of Mescalero life.

According to Apache cosmogony, first came Father Sky, Mother Earth, White Painted Woman and her sons, the Twin Warrior Gods. Later the Mountain Gods (Gahi) and the Libaye (the clown of the chiasm) emerged from a cave. The Gahi and Libaye became part of the Apache cosmogony after the Apaches arrived in the southwestern United States, after they mixed culturally with the Puebloan people that had been in the region for more than a thousand years.

According to the Apachean mythology White Painted Woman was the first Apache person. According to some sources, the ritual celebrating her role was first learned, conceived, or dreamed in a cave on El Capitan in the Guadalupe Mountains. Her eternal home is north of the Sacramento Mountains, not far from the little town of Corona.

I like learning about different cultures’ “mythologies of place.” The more I learn of other people’s perceptions of the region, the more I feel connected to the locality. When I look up at El Capitan from Guadalupe Pass, and I remember the story of the woman who climbed the cliff and disappeared within its sheer walls for the weeks it took to learn the ceremony, the mountain becomes for me much more than just a beautiful physical place.

For those inclined to hit the books, a considerable body of work has been amassed about Apaches. The fierce patriotism of Geronimo, Victorio, and Nana (the leaders of the last free Indian warriors in the United States) has great “curb appeal” for academics and historians seeking research subjects. Maurice Opler spent a number of years collecting the “folk” stories of the Lipan, Jicarilla, and Mescalero Apaches. C. L. Sonnichsen and Dan Thrapp also wrote about Apache history. Eve Ball spent over thirty years learning about Mescalero culture and history.

Dr. Claire R. Farrer spent fifteen years working with Bernard Second, the medicine man overseeing the July ceremonies during her research. Her work is one of the first ever in a new anthropological discipline known as ethnoastronomy. Her “Living Life’s Circle” is the most detailed publication on Apachean cosmogony. For the Apache, the world of the spirit is the Real World, while the world of everyday life is the Shadow World. The Libaye clown’s role is to provide the culture the points of intersection (chiasms) between the two worlds.

Such metaphysical intricacies so different from those of the dominant western religions are bewildering. Daytrippers to the cultural center in Mescalero should be aware that Apachean cultural perspectives are different. Accepting the differences will help a person to understand the following attitude that you will meet at the cultural center. When I visited in 1995 I heard the following;

“It is the proof of the power of our democracy that we accept as American the cultures and religions that are not Judeo-Christian. We have come a long way since the day of taking an Indian child from his family and sending him far away where he was not allowed to speak his language, follow his religion, or even wear his hair as his tribe traditionally had done. Such un-American cultural imperialism was tolerated by the federal government through the 1950’s. The advances of the Civil Rights era so nobly championed by Martin Luther King benefited black Americans, American Indians, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and women of all cultures and races. After 200 years we finally began living up to the words of our Declaration of Independence -- “all men (people) are created equal.” This is the best time ever to be an American.”

When you visit, do not demand to be told what is going on; in fact, do not even ask. The protocol within Apache culture requires a visitor to silently observe, and to analyze and contemplate. To expect a tribal member to drop everything and tell you what is going on is the epitome of rudeness.