blesses her people with pollen, as well as "heals" all members of her tribe who strengthens her both physically and emotionally. Three teams of four dancers and one koshare, the young clown, represent each girl. “My three older daughters, I was so impatient,” she says. time, as the core of her self. Remembering the Past. be echoed by the godmother at the Sunrise Ceremony. “We stored everything at my other daughter’s house, plus two sheds,” she says. They make an eerie hoo-loo-loo sound each time they indicate one of the four directions or approach a person to deliver a blessing. A cherished community event, it draws hundreds with its dances, greased-pole climbs, a rodeo, and a parade so popular that people set up picnics along US 70 hours before it starts. There are more mouths to feed, plus two “throws”—events during which each family tosses a pickup truck’s worth of toys, food, candy, beach balls, and even chickens, goats, and pigs to the crowd. Four times they are blessed. The decades-long push for assimilation left scars—poverty, addictions, crime—that the Apache strive to heal. “This one, she’s real sensitive to me. At the beginning,  the girl Years pass. have hunted, White Painted Woman expresses a cry of triumph and delight, which later will been terrorizing the tribe. days, rather than have four day ceremonies. The Jewish bar and bat mitzvahs. Phone: (505) 827-7447 Woman,  she gains command over her weaknesses and the dark forces of her nature, and Some families prepare years in advance. Other Apache's practice Christianity. Her favorite activity of the rite, she says, is blessing her tribespeople, who consider her to be in a holy realm, a place of transition. Apache songs rise around them. Everybody helped. The ceremony is known as Na’íí’ees which means “preparing her” or “getting her ready”. . to the physical manifestations of womanhood such as as menstruation (and learning about Soon the girls will enter the big tepee, but before that happens, they slip away from the fairgrounds. At a signal, the girls dash toward it. Not only does she give to the community - food, gifts, healings, blessings, but she She then is guided by spirits to The ceremony includes a feast and a gift give-away as well as songs, prayers, dances, and blessings with pollen. Read more: Pueblo feast day etiquette from an Apsáalooke relative. One of the cousins leans across the pile of sotol shavings, smiles at that wisp of a girl, and whispers, “Run, Feather, run.”. godmothers; acceptance is indicated by picking up the feather from her foot. The families line up medicine men and women, plus drummers, singers, and Apache Crown Dancers. It’s when children can stumble and never recover. During the ceremony, the girl is united spiritually and personally with the most revered of the Chiricahua’s ancestors, White Painted Woman. On the rim, all the Apache women and all the Apache daughters form a circle that slowly revolves. Read more: A treaty’s anniversary opens a way for Navajo people to confront their memories of the Long Walk—and for all Americans to heal from it. } It has taken years, and it will take more years to win back all that was stripped away—their ceremonies, their language, their land. ceremony. guided by her sponsor and the medicine man through its many stages, including hours each It takes years for it all to sink in. Other features of the ceremony include:  re-enacting Changing Woman's story, Jacqueline explains how she worked at the tribe’s Inn of the Mountain Gods casino to make enough money for the ceremony while the rest of the family lived a two-hour drive away in El Paso. conducted secretly. 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