The Development of Apache Culture
1The Indians were living
without anything. They were poor. They had neither rawhide nor
dressed skins. They tied the tops of soap weeds on their feet to
protect their soles when they traveled. They had no proper blankets,
but used bark braided together for covering. They covered their
children with these when they put them to bed. The women made
themselves skirts of bark. They did this because they had no dressed
skins, no rawhide, and no sinew.
The people were poor. They set fire to the material at the base of
the sotol stalks and when the fire was burned down, hunted in the
ashes for the singed mice that were left. They picked them up and
ate them. They lived on these. They were poor.
The women went for mescal. They broke it off where it stands by
pounding. They had no knives but trimmed it with flint. They carried
the trimmed stump in burden baskets to a place where there was a
hole. They brought wood there also. They put stones, well arranged
on the wood, and applied fire and burned all the wood. The stones
became very hot. They put the mescal on these hot stones and spread
grass over them and covered the whole with earth. After two nights
had passed, the women came to the place again. They took off the
dirt with their hands. If the mescal was well cooked they took it
out and spread it in various places. This was their food. Those who
lived first on the world, did this way. This was their food. They
lived on seeds and different kinds of grass. The people were very
poor.
Then they found out about deer and where they lived. They used them
for food. Wood-rats and jack-rabbits were living there and they used
them also. They learned to use all these. Their arrows were made of
reeds and their bows were of mulberry. They went where deer were
living on the mountains and hunted for them. They killed the deer
there and then they had sinew. They brought the deer to their camps.
They took the skin from the lower legs where it was thick and by
sewing made soles for their moccasins. They also took the skin from
the sides of the deer's jaws because it was thick there and made
moccasins of it. They worked the skins soft with their hands, and
made the tops of the moccasins from the skin taken from the middle
portion of the deer's legs. They sewed their moccasins with sinew.
Then they found out there were white men living somewhere. They also
discovered that white people had something to live on. The Indians
then began to live by stealing. They stole burros, horses, and
cattle and brought them home.
After that they used the thick skin from the hips of burros and
horses and made soles for their moccasins. Cowhide is also thick and
they used that for the moccasin soles. They made the tops of soft
dressed deerskin which they sewed on. In this way they came to have
moccasins.
Before this they were poor but now they lived well. They had sinew
and rawhide made from cow's skin. They were happy.
They said that stealing from those who lived on the earth was a
grand way to live. They did not go around in this country but went
to white people's houses. The white people would run away and the
Indians would pick up their blankets. They lived by going to war.
Then they would come back where their homes were.
They stole the blankets and property of the people who lived on the
earth. Those who formerly were without shoes now had them. They said
this was a good way to live. Their minds were turned in that
direction; they thought stealing was the only way to live.
They traveled around stealing. White people had calico. They fought
with them and robbed them of the cloth, bringing it home with them.
The women used not to have skirts except those they made of bark.
Now they had good skirts. They got to thinking this way and
concluded stealing was the only good way to live.
The Deer Woman2
Panther3 Boy was living
in the east. He was married to the daughter of Gaowan.4
Because Panther Boy was a great hunter, the Gan gave him his
daughter.5
He, intending to move his camp, went away by himself while his wife
stayed behind. He went to select a camping place. When he came where
he was going to build his house, he covered it, on the east, with
black
bį bitcįn.6
On the south side he used white bį
bitcįn, on the west,
yellow bį bitcįn
and on this side, the north, the covering was blue bį
bitcįn.
He caused black deer horns to fall on his house when he was building
it. Then he made a zigzag mark on the walls of his house, using the
black blood from a deer's mouth. He made this mark four times. He
made zigzag lines with white blood from a deer's mouth and under it
with black, above the white was a line in yellow and on top was one
of blue. He made a bed on the east side and put bacine7
for a pillow. There on the bacine, he caused two deer horns
to alight. He made a pillow on the west side and caused yellow
deer's ears to alight on it. Then he spread it over with deer hair.
In the east he made a mountain ridge. Where its head was, he placed
deer horns. He made it to be the mountain of the deer with horns,
the bucks. Crossing over midway the ridge, he made a trail of blood
from the mouth of a deer. Under that mountain ridge with black
deer's mouth blood he made a spring where deer's slobberings always
boil out.
From the house which he had built he made tracks leading in four
directions to these mountains. Right there where it was lying he
made the first footprint, with black deer mouth blood. Beyond, where
he was going to step, he made a footprint with white deer's mouth
blood. Beyond that he made another of yellow and beyond that one of
blue.
On this side (south) he made a mountain ridge of bailgaiye.8
He put pronged horns where he made the head of the ridge. He made a
trail in the middle of it with white deer's mouth blood. Under the
ridge he made a spring boil out with white deer's slobberings. When
he walked out in that direction, he made only one footprint with
white deer's mouth blood. Beyond that he made another with yellow
deer's mouth blood and still further on he made one with blue.
In the west he made a mountain ridge of tseltcee.9
He caused yellow deer's horns to alight, one after the other, where
the head of the ridge lay. He made a trail of yellow mouth blood
crossing over the ridge midway. Under this ridge he caused a spring
of yellow water to boil out with yellow deer's slobberings. Where he
was going to walk toward it he made a footprint with black deer's
mouth blood. Beyond that he made one with white, further on another
with yellow, and beyond that one with blue.
At the north he made a mountain ridge of turquoise. Where the head
of the ridge lay, he put one deer's horn standing up. Each way
crossing over the middle of the ridge he made a trail of blue deer's
mouth blood. Under the ridge he made a spring boil up with the blue
slobberings of a deer. At the place where he would walk out toward
this ridge, he made the footprint with the black mouth blood of the
deer, beyond that he made another with white and then one with
yellow and beyond that one with blue.
Here, to the east, he made a place where he was going to kill the
buck deer. This way, south, he made a place to kill deer with
pronged horns. West was the place where he was going to kill does,
and north, he fixed a place where he was to kill deer having spikes.
When he had finished, he went back to the place where his wife was
staying and when he came to her he said, "Come along." She prepared
cornmeal for food for a camping trip.
Then he sang a song saying, " Where there was no house a house now
stands. There it stands."
They came nearly to the place and then they came there where he had
made the house. When they came to it they went inside. He told his
wife to be seated and then he went toward the east. He stepped where
the footprints of mouth blood lay. Then he stepped on the footprint
of white blood and beyond on the one of yellow and went on to the
one of blue. Then from the east, the biggest buck deer was coming
facing him. He made a ring of bacine and shot an arrow of bacine
through it. He killed the deer with the arrow. Just as the sun
was rising, he carried the deer where his wife was staying.
He spent the night there and went the next morning
this way, south. He stepped on all four of them. A deer with pronged
horns was coming towards him. He made a ring of bailgaiye and shot
through it with an arrow, killing the deer. When the sun was right
here (a gesture) he killed the deer and carried it where his wife
was sitting.
The next morning he went toward the west, stepping where the four
footprints of mouth blood lay. When he came there a female deer came
facing him. He made a ring of tsełtcee and shot through it an arrow
of tsełtcee, killing the deer. He took it up and carried it where
his wife was sitting.
He went here toward the north and stepped where the
footprints of deer's mouth blood lay in four places. A deer with
spiked horns came facing him. He made a ring of turquoise and shot
through it an arrow of turquoise which killed the deer. He brought
it where his wife was sitting in the house. Then he always killed
just large deer like these.
Here, south, he came up the mountain, he went along. He killed only
pronged horned deer. Then he went west where he killed does only.
Then he went toward the north and killed spiked horned deer only.
Here, at the east he built a flat-topped shade on
which he stored the big bucks which he killed. The meat was piled
up. On the south side he built another flat-topped shade on which he
stored the pronged horned deer he killed.
To the west he built another shade on which the deer he killed were
stored. Toward the, north he built a shade for the spiked horned
deer which he killed in that direction.
Those who had the deer for pets were angry because he killed so
many, They lived here at the east where the sun rises. There were
only male deer living at that place. The owners of the deer all
discussed the large number he was killing. "We will go to see his
wife," they agreed.
It was Turquoise Boy who went to visit her. He wore on his head the
deer head which the Indians used to make long ago. He made it as
they used to make them. The tongue was licking about all the time.
It had eyes that were constantly winking. It's ears worked back and
forth.10 He was very bashful because
there were many where he was going.
He came up the ridge opposite the woman's house having the
appearance of a deer. The woman saw him from her house as he came up
looking like a deer. Her husband always brought his deer back just
as the sun was rising. The sun was rising higher o and higher. She
got up, thinking she would look for him, and wondering what had
become of him because he was not accustomed to be so late. She was
looking for her husband in the direction he had gone to hunt. While
she was looking in vain, the deer walked down a second ridge toward
her. As he came to the top of the ridge there was a canyon between
him and the woman. He went down this canyon again close to the camp
where the woman was. She was watching in vain for her husband when
he walked along like a man. "It was a deer when he went down the
hill but it is a man that is coming up," she said to herself. He
came close to the house where the woman was sitting and seated
himself. The deer's head which he had been wearing was hanging down
on one side of the man. The woman was looking at it and felt strange
when she saw the tongue constantly licking about, the eyes winking,
and the ears flopping.
She dipped up the cornmeal mush into a basket and put it by the man
where he sat. The man then spoke to her saying he did not eat that
sort and directed her to take it away. Then she took some soft
boiled deer meat from a pot and put it in a basket and brought it to
the man. The man spoke again, saying he did not eat that either, and
asked her to take it away. The woman said that these two were the
only sorts of food she had and asked him what she should give him.
The man said he ate the tips of tc'ildoł'ije,
k'isndazi, and of ts'ije , that these were his food.11
The woman took a basket and going a short distance gathered the tips
of tc'ildoł'ije which she put in her basket. Walking further she
gathered the tips of k'isndazi and still further on the tips of
ts'ije which, when she put them in her basket filled it. She brought
them where the man was sitting and put them down. " These are my
food," he said and began to eat them. She gave him a basket full and
he ate them all up.
When he had eaten them he spoke to the woman. He
lifted up the head he was wearing on one side and moved it around
toward the woman. " What is the matter with it? I think it looks
like a deer but the deer are afraid of it. When I try to slip up to
the deer with it they are afraid and run away from me," the man
said. As he said this he looked at the four flat-topped shades and
the deer meat on them. He spoke to the woman again, asking her to
try holding up the deer head. She refused to do this, saying she was
not a man and did not wish to do anything wrong. The man replied
saying, "You say you are not a man. This head looks like a deer yet
the deer are afraid of it. That is why I said what I did." The woman
refused again. The man then asked her simply to hold it up toward
him without putting it on. She said, in vain, it was a bad thing to
do, for the man was taking her mind away, he was making her crazy.
He took her gait from her. Then she went where the man had the
deer's head. When she came he told her to be seated. He held out the
head toward her and she reached out and took hold of it. The man
told her to take it by the right side. She did so and raised it up.
Saying he could not see it well, the man asked her to step out to a
designated place with it. She went there and held it up as he had
directed her. Saying he saw it pretty well, he asked her to take
another position. She went there also. "Let me make sure, hold it by
your body," hold her. When she held it close he came up to her
asking her this time J get on her knees and hold the skin over her
body. While she was on her knees, he threw something on her. The
woman made a noise like a deer " shoo." The man ran to the shade
toward the east and took up a buck deer's skin which he threw at
her.
He took up the lower legs and threw them at her. She turned into a
deer and jumped four ways making a noise like a deer. He took her
mind away and made her crazy. He put the gait of a deer on her so
she jumped around as deer do. He came up to her singing and made her
love him. She trotted off and he herded her along with his nose
between her legs. They went around her house four times. The woman
trotted along ahead of him like a deer. They went where he was
standing and then they went up the trail to the east which crossed
the gap in the ridge made of bacine. From there they went over the
ridge of bailgaiye, of tsełtcee, and of turquoise.
From there they went where the male deer were living. The deer had a
good time with her chasing her about and mounting her.
The husband came back where the woman had been sitting and wondered
what had become of her. He found the footprints of the man who had
visited the woman where he had come up the ridge as a man. From
there on the track was that of a deer. He had gone down the Canyon
and had come up again as a deer. Then he had come up another ridge
as a man. He was trailing the man who had his wife. Having followed
the track thus far he went back where his house was. He saw where
the woman had come to the place where the man had been sitting. She
had stood there and then she had gone on four times. Here where her
two footprints where she had stood like a human being and there she
,had jumped as a deer. He saw where she had jumped four times in
four different directions. He trailed her where she and the man had
encircled the house four times sunwise and then he found where they
had started away.
He turned back and went to the place where people were living from
which he had set out to hunt. He told the people there that he had
come back because he did not know what had become of the woman. When
he had been there four days, the tobacco tokens were made and sent
out convening the men for a council.12
When they had discussed the matter, they agreed to go to the camp
where her track was to be found. It was the Gans who were doing
this. The one who is called Gąhnnłij'n
lay down on his back with his legs crossed and his hand on his
forehead. They tracked the man in vain where the woman's house had
been. Then they told Gąhnnłij'n
to get up, that from there they must rely on him. Asking why they
said that, he got up and went where she had been sitting. Starting
from there, he trailed her, holding his forked fingers above her
trail. He followed where she had gone to four places. At one place
she had gone like a deer and had encircled her camp four times. He
followed where the man had gone around with her. They followed
behind him as he trailed along with outspread fingers13
One of the company, Whirlwind, was not good in the condition he was.
They sang for him and sent him back. After that they followed the
trail without trouble. They came where the two had come up the gap
in the ridge of bacine and beyond that the ridge of bailgaiye, and
further on the ridge of tsełtcee and finally they went up the gap in
the ridge of turquoise. Here they were overtaking them for they
heard the celebration with the woman below. Nothing but songs came
out of the canyon.
Then Gąhnnłij'n
told them to watch his downy feathers which he said would find the
woman in the herd of deer. They watched the feathers and they
settled on one in middle of the herd. Then he made a cast with a
rope called yanadeł, "hanging
from the sky," and caught the one who had been a woman. He then shot
four arrows in succession which, making a noise, frightened the deer
further and further away. The first arrows were of bacine, the
second of bailgaiye, the third of tsełtcee, and the fourth of
turquoise. They didn't know where the deer had gone. The one who had
been a woman ran in every direction where the deer had gone from
her. Then they threw a ring of bacine on her and her head became
like a person's. Next they threw a ring of bailgaiye on her and she
was a person to her armpits. Then a ring of tsełtcee was thrown and
she was a person as far as her belt. Last a ring of turquoise was
thrown and down to the ground she took the form of a human being.
The company came up to her, but she was wild. They started back and
returned with her in a day.
They lived there together. All the food was ripe and they were
gathering it. After the rains began the woman was camping with the
others on a mountain where the deer were with their fawns. When they
went hunting and came in bringing the deer, she went around looking
at the fawns they had brought in. She told the people in the camp
that if they found fawns like those they were bringing in with a
white stripe between their hoofs not to try to kill them. " If you
kill them it will bring hardship on you," she said. The reason she
said this was that she had given birth to fawns like those she
described. She also told them not to hunt on the black mountain
which stood at the east. She said that because, while they were
gathering seeds on that mountain, she had given birth to fawns. The
people agreed not to hunt there. She continued her habit of looking
at all the fawns which were brought in from the hunting. One man
wondered why she had said this and went to the mountain she
mentioned. He went up to the top of the mountain and walked around
where the little canyons run together. He found some little fawns
lying there. He came to them and, thinking they were the young of
the deer, killed them. He tied them together with a line, put them
on his back, and carried them home. The people were bringing in many
of that sort. The woman went around the camp and looked at all the
deer which had been brought in. At the very end of the camp was the
house of the man who had hunted on the black mountains. She looked
between their hoofs and on their backs which were spotted. The man
had brought in the ones to which she had given birth. The, woman
began to cry and reproved the man for going where she had told him
not to go. She went back to her house and sat crying for her
children.
She considered what she should do. For four days she did not speak,
then when the four days were passed she sent for all the people to
come together. She asked them what they thought should be done about
what she had told them would happen. They in turn asked what she
thought. She replied that she had considered it. She directed them
to make twelve tobacco tokens which should be sent to notify people
wherever they lived that they should come together. When they had
come together, she announced that at night she would sing for them.
She began to sing the deer songs. She was still singing when it
began to dawn and sang until it was full daylight. She then told
those with whom she was living, that she would sing for them only
one more song. She began to sing it saying, "Prepare a smoke for
her. Prepare a smoke for her with a pipe of bacine," she said.
She told them she was going far away from them toward the north
which was the place she liked the best. " Where I lie down for the
largest buck deer you must pray to me. When you see the track of a
deer with long feet you will know I have gone along there," she
said.
1 As told by Antonio in January
1910.
2 Told by Antonio in August, 1914. This is the myth
of the deer ceremony.
3 Panther or mountain lion is the chief deer hunter
in the Southwest. The Pueblo peoples have hunting fetishes of stone
which represent the Panther. Compare the Jicarilla estimate of
panther, Goddard, (a), 239.
4 The talking Gan. Compare the Navajodeity
Hastéyalti (Xastceyalti), Matthews, 36, 68, 82, 104, 135,163, 224.
5 A special hunt for the benefit of the bride's
family is undertaken by the bridegroom among the southern
Athapascan.
6 The explanation of bi bitcin was that it was some
kind of "dirt" from the surface of a deer hide, but not the hair.
7 Bacine is a hard black material, perhaps jet; it
is the material associated with the east by the San Carlos.
8 Baiłgaiye is
white shell.
9 tsełtcee is
red stone, sometimes, at least, coral.
10 The Apache wore a deer's head with antlers in
the condition of the season in which the hunt was made. They
imitated the movements of the deer so as to approach within bow shot
distance.
11 Shrubs on which deer feed.
12 Two sections of reed filled with tobacco and
tied in the form of a cross are used as a summons to council.
13 The conventional way of trailing.
San
Carlos Apache Mythology
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Myths And Tales From The San Carlos Apache, 1918
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