Power: The Role Of Power In The Apache Culture

Myths are of great importance in the Navajo community because it is believed that it was a way to connect to the Holy People. The myth helps recognize symbolized supernatural in chants, translates the meaning of songs, and explains the importance of the ritual objects (Lamphere 1969). For example, there is myth of the two heroes who had gone through some misfortunes but thanks to the supernatural’s aid, the two heroes created a

In American Indian life, they believe their life is interconnected with the world, nature, and other people. The idea of a peoplehood matrix runs deep in Indian culture, in this essay the Cherokee, which is the holistic view of sacred history, language, ceremony, and homeland together. This holistic model shapes the life of the American Indians and how their sense of being and relationship to their history is strong and extremely valuable to them. This essay will try to explain how each aspect of the peoplehood matrix is important and interconnected to each other and the life of the Native Americans.

The Apaches, like most Native Americans, have no written history other than that written by white men. But the story of the Apaches did not begin in the American Southwest but in the northwestern corner of North America, the western Subarctic region of Alaska and Canada. The Apache Indians belong to the southern branch of the Athabascan group, whose languages constitute a large family, with speakers in Alaska, western Canada, and American Southwest. The fact that the Apaches originated in the western mountainous Subarctic region makes their nomadic behavior after the arrival in the American Southwest more comprehensible; the tribes of the Southwest were highly mobile and moved from place to place depending on availability of food. They

Of all the features upon the earth there are some ascribed with special significance. These features, whether caves, lakes, deserts, outcroppings, or something else entirely, hold tremendous relevance for the groups that dwell near them. Such beliefs in the worth and importance of such sites are entrusted from one passing generation to the next. These beliefs, and the physical objects they rest upon, become increasingly vital to that group’s identity as a people. One such group is the Teton Lakota of the Sioux Nation in South Dakota, an area that has been home to them for hundreds of years and, while their entire homeland is precious to them, of particular importance are the Black Hills, or Paha Sapa as they are called in Lakota.

The religion detailed and examined throughout Don Talayesva’s “Sun Chief” can be difficult to understand and near impossible to appreciate. At first glance to the casual reader it can appear shallow and ridiculous; a religion created around the wants and needs of the Hopi but not based on any empirical or even supposed sacred evidence. When coupled with The Sacred Canopy however, the reader begins to understand the simplistic beauty of their religion providing necessary guidance and support to the Hopi tribe. The reader also is able to relate to Don’s religion in terms of the love one has for his or her own dogma and the importance it plays in an individual’s life.

The purpose of the San Carlos Apache Tribe (Tribe) Integrated Resource Management Plan (IRMP) is to define the long-term direction for managing the Tribe’s resources. This IRMP includes a vision of the future landscape of the reservation based on a desire to restore ecosystem function to resemble pre-reservation conditions as closely as possible. The IRMP directs all natural resource managers on the reservation, tribal, non-tribal and within the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), to work together with tribal leaders, tribal members and all other federal agencies, local entities or businesses to achieve desired future landscape conditions on the reservation.

Native Americans celebrate a lot of traditions but one of the most popular celebration is Pow wows. Pow wows are also a time to extend native american culture and preserve the rich heritage of american indians. According to the article, What is a Pow wow, “A pow wow is gathering for many different communities”. Native americans have a diverse culture. Some say that Pow wows stand for an “American Indian medicine man”. Pow wows celebrate people’s way of meeting together, to join in dancing, singing, visiting, renewing old friendships, and making new ones.

The ritualistic practice of peyote and shamanism, are commonly linked, however in the case of the Mescalero Apache Tribe the use of peyote in shaman rites had anything but a transcendental effect which eventually lead to the abolishment of peyote from shamanistic ceremony. A lack of harmony

Sacred power (pg 16): Native Americans believed in spiritual powers and the natural world. Spiritual power for men were hunting and war.

Keith H. Basso’s Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache delivers a strong message regarding human connections between place, identity, and origins in relation to the idea of place-names. Every place evokes an association to a story and/or a person/ancestor bearing a moral message that allows the Western Apache to shape their beliefs, behaviors, identities, etc. It is through this connection to the land that the Apache begin to define their understanding of their lives.

There is a deep relationship between the environment and Western Apache people. The bonds between the two are so strong that it is embedded in their culture and history. Keith Basso, author of Wisdom Sits in Places expanded on this theory and did so by divulging himself into Western Apaches life. He spent fifteen years with the Apache people studying their relationship with the environment, specifically concentrating on ‘Place-names.’ When Basso first began to work with the Apache people, one of his Apache friends told him to ‘learn the names,’ because they held a special meaning with the community. (Cruikshank 1990: 54) Place-names are special names given to a specific locality where an event

The Apaches made a place for themselves in the Southwest at an extremely troublesome time in

Authority is important for any leader or government, because that is how decisions are accepted as right. Sovereignty is the recognition by other states that one government has the authority to control a certain territory. As well as the acceptance of rule by the people

Our study of Lenski focused on Lenski’s division of the history of society into five society types, and how the advancement of technology led to social inequality. In The Gods Must be Crazy, the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert would fall into Lenski’s Hunter-Gatherer society type. Lenski defines a Hunter-Gatherer society as a small, nomadic group of people who make use of simple tools to hunt animals and gather vegetation for food (Lenski 90). The Bushman use simple tools made of wood and bone. The video shows a bushman hunting with a wooden bow and arrow, as well as men and women gathering berries for food and plant roots for water. Lenski would also note that the Bushmen see themselves as one family group. There are only a few dozen of them, and they appear to all contribute to the communal upbringing of the tribe’s children. The communal family dynamic is also present in the education of the young. There does not appear to be one assigned teacher, and those who teach do not appear to be exclusive in who they teach. All able adults contribute to the group’s survival in whatever way they can, and all participate in passing on these skills to the children. In the video you see a Bushman showing the children what berries are good to eat and how to get water from the shavings of a plant root. The Bushmen have little control of their environment. Being so, Lenski would

McIntosh (2009) offers an intriguing case study, where the concepts of personhood, hegemony, and fractal recursivity are intertwined and played through the dynamics of Swahili-Giriama bordered ethnoreligious interactions. The Giriama geographical, social, religious, and linguistic subordination to the Swahili Muslims is the framework to negotiate, resist or submit to the hegemonic Swahili Islam. First, through personhood, the Giriama frame their religious actions and relations with the Swahilis. Their actions are collective and caused by external powers, rather than individualistically bounded and rational actors as the Swahilis. How Arabic in this case is perceived amplify this notion, as Swahilis take it to be accessible via learning and memorizing, and Giriama take it to be accessible through spirit possession by Muslim spirits. This reinforces their submission and lose of identity by adopting Arabic (p. 255). Second, hegemony plays a significant role in shaping how power is lived and replicated in daily life, to be accepted or rejected by the society. Therefore, Giriama attitude towards Swahili Muslims is exhibited in their refusal to submit to Islam and instead cherish their traditionalism, yet they oftentimes acknowledge Islam’s power and the potency of Arabic through divination and spirit possession. Third, fractal recursivity is shown through how the Giriama’s evident urbanity is opposed to them living on the margins of the city thus closer to the jungle and their