Apache Mothers and Daughters

Apache Mothers and Daughters, an illustrated family history of four generations of Chiricahua Apache women from 1848 to the present, is an eloquent testimonial to the strength and stamina of Apache women. Over the course of thirty-five years, anthropologist Ruth McDonald Boyer collected the remembrances of Narcissus Duffy Gayton, great-great-granddaughter of the Apache chief Victorio, and amplified this oral history with scholarly insight based on extensive fieldwork. This intimate record of Apache life, told from an Apache perspective, highlights the key roles women play in tribal life. The story begins with Dilth-cleyhen, Victorio's daughter, whose life encompassed much of the traditional culture of the Tchi-hene band of the Chiricahua Apaches. Her daughter, Beshad-e, was just sixteen in 1886 when the twenty-seven-year incarceration of the Chiricahua began. Beshad-e and her family were forced to move to Florida, Alabama, Oklahoma, and then New Mexico, where the Mescalero Apaches remain today. Beshad-e's daughter Christine, who was more comfortable with white ways and a believer in Anglo education, died of tuberculosis in her twenties, leaving her daughter Narcissus in Beshad-e's care. Narcissus's life incorporates both her mother's faith in education and modernity and her grandmother's commitment to traditional Apache ways. After struggling to obtain a complete education, Narcissus returned to serve her tribe as a registered nurse and an advocate for health care. Woven into this account are factual details about the Apaches, many presented for the first time. Documented are rituals such as the puberty rite and the cradle-making ceremony (with explicit differentiation between Mescaleroand Chiricahua methods); the importance of religion (traditional as well as Anglo, including the Silas John Cult) as a stabilizing force and aspects of family life, such as child rearing and the intense bond between mothers and daughters. This volume reflects the significant contribution by Apache women to the enduring vitality of their people.