"It's the same thing." ...Mescalero Apache integration of chiasm
The Mescalero Apache are one of seven tribes speaking languages belonging to the Southern Athapascan linguistic family. The other tribes are Chiricahua, Western Apache (including the San Carlos, White Mountain, Cibecue, Northern Tonto, and Southern Tonto), Jicarillo, Lipan, Kiowa-Apache and the Navajo (all of whom are considered Apacheans, except for the Navaho, who are considered as distinct from the Apaches). Tribal identity was based on language, belief, and cultural practice. The Northern Athapascans live along the Canadian/Alaskan Pacific Coast, while the Southern Athapascans are found in the American Southwest. This separation was extant at the time of Spanish conquest of the Southwest in the 1600s. The division was much more stratified by the 1850s, for which time, more accurate statistics are available. More recent archaeological evidence indicates the presence of Athapascan-like remains in the Southwest during the 1400s and possibly even as far back as the 900s. Historically, the Mescalero-Apache generally ranged from the American Southwest (primarily New Mexico and Arizona into west Texas, possibly as far north as South Dakota), the southern Plains, and Northern Mexico . Since the Reservation was established by presidential order in 1873, The Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation has been located in Otero County, New Mexico (in the south central area of NM).
The chief of a Mescalero band was invariably a man, chosen for his bravery, generosity, capacity for sagacious advice, and ability to guide the community towards consensus. But in order to acquire and maintain this position as a leader, he would have to prove his worth to the kin of his wife, and their community; because Apachean social organization has always been characterized by the extended family and matrilocal residence. When a boy and his family found a girl whom they thought would make a desirable wife, they petitioned the girl's parents for a marriage with the support of their relatives, who all donated gifts for the family of the girl. If the girl's family and their relatives approved of the marriage, then the boy went to live with the girl's family in a newly constructed residence near her parents' home. This primary focus on the feminine principle was present throughout Apachean culture, even in their spirituality. The young woman's puberty rite is the central most important ritual in Mescalero culture. This ceremony lasts four days and nights (traditionally held in early July, and now observed in conjunction with Independence Day celebrations), and it includes priestly oration, intricate songs, complex dances, and a great deal of feasting. The Mescalero use the phrase, "It's the same thing." to refer to this base metaphor of Mescalero cosmology, which is also reflected in the number four: "a quartered circle, with the axes representing the daily movement of the sun east to west and its annual movement south to north (Farrer 57-58). There are four cardinal directions, and each of the directions has seasons, animals, and character traits associated with it (30-31). The number four is sacred to the Mescalero, being the number of days of creation (26). Four is an even number and therefore balanced, another key concept for them. Balance and harmony are expressed in circularity (29). Traveling around the circle can also represent the four stages of life, as enacted by the girls in their puberty ceremony. " (Watson). The Mescalero also revere two major supernatural figures: White Painted Woman, also known as Changing Woman, or White Shell Woman (during the puberty rite, girls become this deity through re-enacting her myths), and her immaculately-conceived Child of the Water (who defeated all of the primordial monsters, making the world safe for humans). The also recognize Yusn (the Creator of All), praise ancestral Mountain Spirits in their dances, and tell cautionary tales about Coyote, the trickster.
The Mescalero Apache traditionally subsisted by hunter-gatherer methods, although they adopted limited agricultural techniques through their contact with Plains and Pueblo tribes. . In the summer, they hunted antelope in the mountains; while the buffalo hunt was a major source of their subsistence during the winter. Gender division of labor was somewhat flexible. Only men were allowed to hunt buffalo, although women participated in rabbit surrounds, wood rat hunts, and prairie dog roundups. And both men and women shared duties for processing animals. Shamans, priests, diviners, sorcerers, witches, ceremonialists, and singers were equally likely to be male or female. Women were responsible for most of the gathering of plants and processing of food, although men helped collect the agave plant, which was their primary source of food, from which the Europeans’ name for this tribe was derived -- the Spanish name of the agave plant is mescal. This name does not derive from a connection with peyote, as is sometimes believed. In an attempt to affirm their traditional religious practices, the Mescalero experimented with peyote gatherings during the reservation period, but abandoned the peyote ritual, because of undesirable results. And, although they did not traditionally ferment mescal to make tequila, the Mescalero were fond of a liquor called "tulpai," or "tiswin," which was made from fermented corn sprouts.
When Coronado’s Spanish conquistadors encountered the Apaches (they called them the Querechos and the Teyas, who were probably the tribes known as Kiowa and Lipan) for the first time in 1541, they were identified as a nomadic people who lived in tipis, and used dogs for portaging their gear, while they hunted buffalo on the Plains. As the Spanish attempted to colonize the area, they tried to encourage animosity between the Pueblo tribes and the Apacheans, and between the different Apachean tribes (for instance, between the Lipan and the Mescalero) with only a limited degree of success. Spanish colonization so far from Madrid and Mexico City was prone to be represented by corruption among settlers and soldiers, and whatever benefit may have been intended at times by certain representatives of the Catholic Church was not consistent enough to make up for the failings of the secular Spanish institutions. After two centuries of exploitation by the Spanish, the Mescalero Apache sided with Texas and later, the US, in conflicts with Mexico. The relationship between the nomadic Apacheans and the more agriculturally-oriented Pueblo Indians is a difficult one for modern minds to understand. There does seem to have been a reciprocal exchange of commerce and culture between them. Although they carried on trade with each other, and were generally able to maintain an amicable relationship; the Apacheans did have some rather predatory habits. Yet, the Apacheans made a definite distinction between raiding and warfare. Raids were performed in order to capture goods, and after Spanish conquest brought the animal to the new world, to steal horses (even as early as 1554). The focus of a raid was on stealth, evasion, and plunder; and even if discovered, the emphasis was on escape with as few casualties as possible for both sides. However, the purpose of war was to avenge the death of Apachean casualties suffered previously. It was usually relatives of the slain that formed and led war parties, and their primary motive was revenge killing and routing the enemy, although they sometimes also captured booty and slaves. Young men were trained for raids and war carefully, and after long rites of passage, were only allowed to participate in raiding parties with a minimum of danger at first, until they had proven their worthiness of sacred status as warriors.
When the US gained control of the Southwest, the Mescalero were treated as squatters, forced to move by military power whenever settlers arrived. From the mid-Nineteenth century, the US had talked about settling the Mescalero on a reservation, but the civil war disrupted the implementation of these plans. A few notable figures from within the Mescalero tribe attempted to make peace with the Europeans, most notably Chief Santana. By 1855, these hopes had been completely ruined by continual invasions into Mescalero territories by the US military; so the Mescalero waged war on the settlers, in retaliation. Although some Mescalero continued to live as guerrilla warriors, enlisting as scouts in Geronimo's campaign of 1885-1886, most of the Mescalero had been corralled by the US government into the Bosque Redondo reservation life by 1864. Life conditions deteriorated to the point that, in 1865, the Mescalero escaped this confinement. But, in 1869, the US army again gained control of them. However, in 1870, President Grant adopted a 'peace policy ' that appointed a church-related agent to guide Indian Affairs. In the next few years, agreements were worked out to define the area that the Mescalero would be allowed to claim as their reservation. In 1873, the Mescalero were granted the small reservation and forbidden to perform their rituals publicly. The Lipan also came to permanently share this reservation with them, and the Jicarilla were stationed there between 1883-1887. Although the restriction on public gatherings was lifted in 1912, the Mescalero tribal ceremonies were postponed until 1913, when two-thirds of Geronimo's Chiricahua tribe, who had been held prisoner until this time, came to live on the Mescalero reservation permanently -- which is ironically the very same land that Cochise rejected in 1870.
Although agricultural crops were difficult to maintain on the reservation because of limited rainfall, and there was little irrigation offered to them, the Mescalero have managed to develop a sizable livestock industry, with sheep, goats, and a great number of cattle. The US government has managed to provide assistance to the Mescalero throughout the years: on the reservation, they provided food, housing, employment, a school, a trade store, and a hospital, which offered vaccinations against smallpox and tuberculosis. Initially, the Mescalero were distrustful of the federal agency, and they lived on the outskirts of the reservation, far away from the Tularosa Canyon agency center. But these fears gradually subsided, and by 1915, the Mescalero were fully participating in modern political and economic life. The Mescalero Tribal Council is their governing body, elected by popular vote. The Tribal Council supervises the management of tribal affairs, regulates the use of tribal property and approves fiscal matters and policies for operations, law and order, and business enterprises. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, an arm of the Federal Department of Interior, assists the Tribal Council with consultation in land management, social welfare and other fields.
Today, the Mescalero reservation boasts many attractions: Ski Apache (a $30 million enterprise with 300,000 visitors a year), Inn of the Mountain Gods (a $20 million luxury resort complex including: Casino Apache, 18-hole golf course, fishing, tennis, horseback riding, big game hunting), as well as the large and successful Mescalero Apache Cattle Growers Association (approx 6,500 good grade Hereford cattle owned by tribal members), the Mescalero Timber Products industry, a Tribal Lounge, a General Store, and a Cultural Center-Museum. They have also allowed some of their land to be used as a nuclear waste storage complex, believing that it will provide jobs and other economic benefits for decades to come -- only time will prove the value of that gamble. Since 2002, all homes on the reservation have been provided with broadband internet service. Many Mescalero Apaches serve in the US Armed Forces and there are quite a few World War II, Korean and Vietnam veterans. The majority of the adult Mescalero Apaches are registered voters who participate in all elections. As the Native Americans in general have become increasingly economically successful through establishment of Casinos, and after Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) in 1988, there has been a renewed focus on sending Native American youth to college, and a particular interest in pursuit of Law School degrees in order to protect their Sovereignty Rights.
"The Mescalero Apache adjustment to the complex ways of the white man's society is not yet complete. However, the Mescaleros have come far along the new road and the trail should be smoother from now on." - from the General Information brochure on the Mescalero Apache Reservation.
Shamans and other trained or gifted people often provide us with access to an intersection between the “Real World’ of spirit and the “Shadow World’ of the material plane, through what is known as a ‘chiasm;' which, according to James Gleick, is "where there is a phase transition or a boundary 'between two realms of existence.' A chiasm can be found in people, places, or events. One might experience a chiasm during a girl’s puberty rite, when a crowned and masked ritual clown invites participants to examine their material and spiritual values by representing conflicting advertising slogans painted upon his body. The Mescalero continue to adapt reservation life within the boundaries of what they believe it means for their culture to remain Apache. The reservation continues to be a place of metamorphosis. And although cultures must evolve or they will become stagnant and die, too much rapid change produces chaos that can be detrimental to the community. The Mescalero Apache continue to rely upon their flexible, yet consistent base metaphor, the quartered circle, to illustrate that "It's the same thing," and help them put cultural flux back into balance.
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Works Cited
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Davis, Britton. "The Truth About Geronimo." Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska, 1929.
Debo, Angie. "Geronimo: The Man, His Time, His Place." Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976.
Farrer, Claire R. “Living Life's Circle.” University of New Mexico Press: Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1991.
Forbes, Jack D. "Apache, Navaho, and Spaniard." Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960.
Gleick,James. "Chaos: Making a New Science." New York, NY: Viking Penguin, 1987.
Hyde, George E. "Indians of the High Plains: From the Prehistoric Period to the Coming of the Europeans." Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1959.
Inn of the Mountain Gods. http://www.innofthemountaingods.com/. April 30, 2003.
Opler, Morris E. "Mescalero Apache." Sturtevant, William C. ed. Handbook of the North American Indians, Vol 10: the Southwest. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1983
Opler, Morris E. "The Apachean Culture Pattern and Its Origins." Sturtevant, William C. ed. Handbook of the North American Indians, Vol 10: the Southwest. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1983
Perry, Richard J. "Western Apache Heritage: People of the Mountain Corridor." Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1991.
Ski Apache. http://www.skiapache.com/. April 30, 2003.
Sonnichen, C. L. "The Mescaalero Apaches." Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1958.
Sweeney, Edwin R. "Cochise." Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.
Watson, Chris "’It's the same thing,’ the base metaphor of the Mescalero Apache." NAMS200, Intro Native Americans, Professor Big Eagle, SSU Fall 2001. http://www.thebicyclingguitarist.net/studies/samething.htm. April 30, 2003.