Place is part of the ceremony
For many Apache peoples, religious and cultural life cannot be separated from particular places. Mountains, springs, canyons, rock formations and old camp sites are not just scenery. They are understood to hold meaning, history and, in some traditions, a living presence. Because this knowledge is closely held in many communities, this article does not list ceremonial sites or describe what happens at them. It explains the general relationship and then looks at two disputes that have been public: Dziłnchaa Si’an (Mount Graham) and Chí’chil Biłdagoteel (Oak Flat).
The link between landscape and belief is not unique to the Apache, but each nation has its own geography. The Western Apache are tied to the mountains and rivers of what is now Arizona. The Chiricahua are tied to the ranges of southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico and northern Mexico. The Mescalero are connected to the mountains of south-central New Mexico, and the Jicarilla to northern New Mexico. Descriptions of one group’s relationship to land should not be applied to another.
Places as teachers
The best known published work on this subject is the anthropologist Keith Basso’s Wisdom Sits in Places, based on his work with Western Apache people in the Cibecue area. It describes how place names and stories attached to places teach moral lessons, and how people use references to places to remember and to guide behavior. The book records Apache speakers’ own explanations, so it is a more reliable source than many popular summaries. It also shows that place-names carry history and instruction, a point that holds for Western Apache place-names generally.
Apache oral tradition ties creation stories, family histories and ethical teaching to the land. Public accounts of Apache sacred mountains suggest that certain peaks are understood as homes or sources of beneficial power. How specific mountains figure in ceremony, though, is not something most communities share, and it would be wrong to guess.
Why access and condition matter
When a place is part of religious life, its condition matters. A site that is flattened, fenced off, mined, built over or crowded with visitors may no longer serve its purpose. Access matters as well, because ceremonies and plant gathering may need entry to places that are now under the control of federal agencies or private owners. Much Apache homeland was taken or lost over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and Apache land loss left many sacred places outside reservations. So the relationship between ceremonial life and land has become part of legal and political life.
In the United States, protecting sacred places on public lands has been difficult. The First Amendment protects religious exercise, and other laws, such as the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 and the National Historic Preservation Act, give some procedural protections, but courts have often been reluctant to block land uses even when a site is central to a religion. That legal background helps explain the following two cases.
Mount Graham (Dziłnchaa Si’an)
Dziłnchaa Si’an is the Apache name for Mount Graham, in the Pinaleño Mountains of southeastern Arizona. It is described by the San Carlos Apache Tribe and other Apache people as a sacred mountain. In the 1980s, plans for an astronomical observatory on the mountain led to a long dispute among Apache leaders, scientists, environmental groups, Congress and the courts. Environmental questions about an endangered subspecies of red squirrel were central to part of the debate, and Apache concerns about the mountain’s sacred character were central to another. Telescopes were eventually built on the mountain. The dispute is a common example in discussions of how religious claims and scientific projects collide.
Oak Flat (Chí’chil Biłdagoteel)
Chí’chil Biłdagoteel, known in English as Oak Flat, is an area in the Tonto National Forest in Arizona, east of Phoenix. Apache people, including members of the San Carlos Apache Tribe and others, describe it as an important sacred place associated with gathering, ceremony and the coming-of-age observances of young women. The area also sits above a large copper deposit. In 2014, Congress passed a law authorizing a land exchange involving the site for a mining company, which prompted protest, lawsuits and a continuing national discussion. Apache groups and supporters argue that mining would destroy a place central to their religion, while the company and other supporters point to economic benefits. Legal proceedings and administrative steps have continued over the years, so readers should check current news and the nations’ own statements for the status of the case. In public coverage, Oak Flat and Apache landscapes are often discussed together as an example of how federal land law can overlook Native religious concerns.
What these disputes show
Two points stand out. First, sacred places are not abstractions. They are specific locations whose loss would affect ongoing religious practice. Second, the claims are made by living nations who use these places or hold them in trust for future generations, not by people speaking of a vanished past.
Respecting places as a visitor
- Stay on public routes and obey closures, signs and permits.
- Do not move, remove or take objects, plants or stones from archaeological or ceremonial sites.
- Do not ask Apache people to point out or explain sacred locations.
- Be cautious about sharing coordinates or photographs of sensitive places online.
The key point for the general reader is that Apache ceremony has a geography. Understanding that makes it easier to see why debates about roads, mines and telescopes can also be debates about religious freedom.