This is a remarkable series of personal narrations from Western Apaches before and just after the various agencies and sub-agencies were established. It also includes extensive commentary on weapons and traditions, with Apache words and phrases translated and complete annotation.

Grenville Goodwin’s authorship in the late 1930s of The Social Organization of the Western Apache made him a major figure in North American ethnology by only scratched the surface of his profound knowledge of the Apache. A New Yorker by birth, Goodwin’s understanding of Apache ways came not from schooling but from living over a period of eight years with the Apaches on the San Carlos Reservation. The keenness of his perceptions and his empathy with his subjects made him an authority and friend respected by both Apache tribal members and leading anthropologists the world over. In 1940, death interrupted Goodwin’s plan to write a series of additional monographs on other aspects of Western Apache life. So voluminous were his field notes, however, and so meticulous his recording of events and transcription of language, that since the late 1960s a rich harvest of his work has been in process.
 
Keith H. Basso is University Regents Professor of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico, where he teaches alternate semesters. He is the author of Cibecue Apache, Western Apache Witchcraft, and most recently, Wisdom Sits in Places: Language and Landscape among the Western Apache, which was awarded the Western States Book Award for Creative Non-Fiction. He also assisted Eva Tule Watt in the recording of her story for the award-winning Don’t Let the Sun Step Over You.

“Readers also get a clear understanding of subsistence, equipment manufacture and use, leadership roles, intertribal relationships, dangers of scouting, Apache values, native observations of culture change. . . . The materials are rich and offer unlimited potential for analysis.”—American Anthropologist
 
“The personal narratives of six Western Apaches . . . whose active lives spanned more than a century and witnessed a society in the process of revolutionary change! These straightforward accounts comprise Part I and some two-thirds of the book. Part II, dealing with weapons, taboos, leadership and other aspects of Apache warfare, is both interesting and informative. . . . A must for all those who would understand the Western Apache.”—Journal of Arizona History
 
“An extremely valuable collection of Apache memoirs. . . The personal recollections supply precious information and interpretation which will go far toward balancing our traditional version of Indian history. . . . The book is highly readable and should interest both scholar and buff.”—Journal of the West

“Goodwin’s fascinating Western Apache narratives not only enable the reader to travel with the Apaches on their raids, but also give excellent insight into the method and purpose of their raiding and warfare. It is an Apache story with Apache participants, as told by the Apache. . . Most readable and is highly recommended.”—Arizona and the West