front cover of Dispatches from the Fort Apache Scout
Dispatches from the Fort Apache Scout
White Mountain and Cibecue Apache History Through 1881
Lori Davisson with Edgar Perry and the Original Staff of the White Mountain Apache Cultural Center; Edited by John R. Welch
University of Arizona Press, 2016
In the 1970s, the White Mountain Apache Tribe and the Arizona Historical Society began working together on a series of innovative projects aimed at preserving, perpetuating, and sharing Apache history. Underneath it all was a group of people dedicated to this important goal. Dispatches from the Fort Apache Scout is the latest outcome of that ongoing commitment.

The book showcases and annotates dispatches published between June 1973 and October 1977, in the tribe’s Fort Apache Scout newspaper. This twenty-eight-part series of articles shared Western Apache culture and history through 1881 and the Battle of Cibecue, emphasizing early encounters with Spanish, Mexican, and American outsiders. Along the way, rich descriptions of Ndee ties to the land, subsistance, leadership, and values emerge. The articles were the result of the dogged work of journalist, librarian, and historian Lori Davisson along with Edgar Perry, a charismatic leader of White Mountain Apache culture and history programs, and his staff who prepared these summaries of historical information for the local readership of the Scout.

Davisson helped to pioneer a mutually beneficial partnership with the White Mountain Apache Tribe. Pursuing the same goal, Welch’s edited book of the dispatches stakes out common ground for understanding the earliest relations between the groups contesting Southwest lands, powerfully illustrating how, as elder Cline Griggs, Sr., writes in the prologue, “the past is present.”

Dispatches from the Fort Apache Scout is both a tribute to and continuation of Davisson’s and her colleagues’ work to share the broad outlines and unique details of the early history of Ndee and Ndee lands.
[more]

front cover of Don't Let the Sun Step Over You
Don't Let the Sun Step Over You
A White Mountain Apache Family Life, 1860–1975
Eva Tulene Watt with Assistance from Keith Basso
University of Arizona Press, 2004
When the Apache wars ended in the late nineteenth century, a harsh and harrowing time began for the Western Apache people. Living under the authority of nervous Indian agents, pitiless government-school officials, and menacing mounted police, they knew that resistance to American authority would be foolish. But some Apache families did resist in the most basic way they could: they resolved to endure. Although Apache history has inspired numerous works by non-Indian authors, Apache people themselves have been reluctant to comment at length on their own past. Eva Tulene Watt, born in 1913, now shares the story of her family from the time of the Apache wars to the modern era. Her narrative presents a view of history that differs fundamentally from conventional approaches, which have almost nothing to say about the daily lives of Apache men and women, their values and social practices, and the singular abilities that enabled them to survive.

In a voice that is spare, factual, and unflinchingly direct, Mrs. Watt reveals how the Western Apaches carried on in the face of poverty, hardship, and disease. Her interpretation of her people’s past is a diverse assemblage of recounted events, biographical sketches, and cultural descriptions that bring to life a vanished time and the men and women who lived it to the fullest. We share her and her family’s travels and troubles. We learn how the Apache people struggled daily to find work, shelter, food, health, laughter, solace, and everything else that people in any community seek.

Richly illustrated with more than 50 photographs, Don’t Let the Sun Step Over You is a rare and remarkable book that affords a view of the past that few have seen before—a wholly Apache view, unsettling yet uplifting, which weighs upon the mind and educates the heart.
[more]

front cover of Myths and Tales of the White Mountain Apache
Myths and Tales of the White Mountain Apache
Grenville Goodwin; With a New Preface by Tribal Chairman Ronnie Lupe, and a New Foreword by Elizabeth A. Brandt, Bonnie Lavender-Lewis, and Philip J. Greenfeld
University of Arizona Press, 1994
“This volume contains translations of Apache stories that reflect our distinct view of the world and our approach to life. These myths and fables have survived through untold generations because the truth contained in them is eternal and the moral lessons that they teach are still valid. . . . You can read these stories and catch a glimpse of how our ancestors observed nature, drew metaphors from everyday observations and happenings, and applied the lessons learned to everyday life. Read them and you will see how harmony with nature and the natural world is the goal of every Apache.” —Ronnie Lupe, Tribal Chairman, White Mountain Apache Tribe
 
These fifty-seven tales (with seven variants) gathered between 1931 and 1936 include major cycles dealing with Creation and Coyote, minor tales, and additional stories derived from Spanish and Mexican tradition. The tales are of two classes: holy tales said by some to explain the origin of ceremonies and holy powers, and tales which have to do with the creation of the earth, the emergence, the flood, the slaying of monsters, and the origin of customs. As Grenville Goodwin was the first anthropologist to work with the White Mountain Apache, his insights remain a primary source on this people.
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter