One topic, many nations
There is no single Apache way of raising children. The Apache peoples include the Western Apache (with groups such as the White Mountain and San Carlos Apache), the Chiricahua, the Mescalero, the Jicarilla, the Lipan and the Plains Apache. Each has its own history, language or dialect and customs, and each is a living nation today. What follows describes patterns that scholars and community sources have recorded for several groups, and it says where practices differed or where the record is thin. Some knowledge, especially about ceremonies, is not shared publicly and is not covered here.
Learning inside the family
For most of the period before reservations, education was not a separate institution. Children learned by being around adults who were doing the work of daily life. In many Apache groups, including the Western Apache and Chiricahua, a married couple often lived near the wife’s family, a pattern usually described as matrilocal. This meant that grandmothers, aunts, uncles and cousins were close at hand, and the wider Apache extended family shared responsibility for teaching. Maternal relatives often had prominent roles, and the web of relatives was tied to the Apache clan system among groups such as the Western Apache.
Infants were commonly carried on cradleboards, and small children were watched by many people. As they grew, children were given small tasks that matched their age: carrying water, gathering firewood, helping with food, minding younger siblings, or learning to care for horses where the family kept them. Girls and boys often learned different skills, but the line was not always rigid, and details varied by group and period.
Stories, correction and example
Instruction often came through telling rather than lecturing. Elders told stories that carried lessons about behaviour, caution and respect, and in many families this kind of teaching through stories was seasonal, with certain narratives told at particular times of year. The role of Apache elders teaching the young was central, because grandparents were frequently the main storytellers and carers. Some accounts of the Western Apache describe how places in the landscape were linked to stories, so that a place name could recall a lesson; this is one example of the land itself serving as a teacher.
Correction was often indirect. Accounts by outside observers and by later community writers describe teasing, shaming and quiet reminders as common tools, along with the example set by relatives. Because those accounts were written by people with different purposes, they should be read with care, and they do not describe every family.
Practical skills
Children were gradually taught the knowledge a family needed to live in its homeland: where and when to find wild plants, how to prepare foods, how to recognize weather and terrain, how to move safely across country, and how to treat animals and other people with respect. The details differed with the environment. A family in mountain country, a farming family along a river, and a Plains-oriented group on the southern Plains drew on different resources, which shaped what children needed to learn. The knowledge of Apache plant uses and Apache gathering foods was typically passed on in the course of actual work, season after season.
Play, games and growing up
Play was part of learning as well as recreation. Children’s games and imitation of adult tasks built physical skill and social habits, and contests such as footraces were part of community life.
Marking stages of life
Growing up was also marked by community events. Among several groups, a girl’s passage into womanhood is celebrated with a major ceremony, known to Western Apache communities as the Sunrise Ceremony. These Apache rites of passage are public in some respects and private in others, and sacred details are not appropriate for a general website. Boys’ paths to adulthood varied by group, and published accounts differ, so sweeping statements should be treated cautiously.
Schools and forced assimilation
From the later nineteenth century, the United States government, often working with churches and missions, set up schools meant to change Native children. Many children were taken from home to distant schools, and the policy aimed at replacing Native languages and ways with English and Euro-American habits. This history is generally understood as a policy of forced assimilation with lasting harm to families and communities, and it is often discussed under the heading of Apache boarding school history. Day schools and mission schools also operated on and near reservations, with mixed experiences. Children from different Apache nations lived this period differently, since the timing of reservations and of schooling varied by group.
The effect on upbringing was deep. Time away from relatives interrupted the ordinary handing down of language, stories and skills, and some families lost fluency in their languages within a generation or two.
Education today
Today, Apache children attend a mix of public schools, tribal or tribally supported schools, and other schools, depending on the nation and the community. Many nations place emphasis on language and culture, and efforts in Apache language revitalization and Apache youth programs are among the ways communities try to restore connections between generations. Federal laws since the 1970s have given tribes more say over their own education, and the Indian Child Welfare Act reflects a related principle about keeping Native children connected to their families and nations.
Programs, schools and policies change, so readers who want current details should consult each nation’s official website or education department, which speak with authority that this independent site does not. Outcomes in education are mixed and uncertain everywhere, and Apache communities themselves set their own priorities.
Reading about childhood carefully
Most written descriptions of Apache childhood come from early twentieth-century ethnographers, military accounts, and later community-authored work. Early outside sources are valuable but incomplete and sometimes biased, so it helps to look for material by Apache authors and for statements that name the specific group being described.