A policy aimed at culture
From the late nineteenth century, United States policy toward Native nations increasingly aimed at assimilation, meaning the replacement of Indigenous languages, religions, dress and community life with the customs of the wider American society. Government agents, schools and many church missions carried out this goal. For Apache peoples, who by the 1880s were largely confined on or near reservations or held as prisoners of war, officials had unusual day-to-day control over community life.
This article describes that pressure at a general level. It does not describe ceremonies themselves, since much ceremonial knowledge is not shared publicly, and the impact varied by nation, agency and decade.
Limits on ceremony and religion
Federal officials and missionaries often viewed Native religious practice as an obstacle to “civilization”. In the 1880s the Bureau of Indian Affairs set up rules, sometimes called the Code of Indian Offenses, that restricted certain Native ceremonies and customs on reservations. The extent to which rules were enforced differed from place to place and depended heavily on the local agent. Some practices were discouraged, driven out of public view, or required permission.
Many Apache communities responded in different ways. Some people adopted Christianity, in some cases blending it with older beliefs or practicing both. Others kept to their own traditions privately. Religious change itself is discussed in other articles; the key point here is that the pressure was real and the choices were varied. In later decades, particularly after the 1930s and again with the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, the legal climate changed, though protection of sacred sites and practices remains a matter of ongoing public discussion.
Language
Boarding schools were one of the most direct tools of assimilation. Children were often sent away from home, in some cases hundreds of miles, and were commonly required to speak English and punished for using their own language. Chiricahua children who were held with their families as prisoners of war were also sent to the Carlisle school in Pennsylvania. The general harm of these schools, including separation from family and loss of language, is widely recognized, and the topic of Apache boarding school trauma is covered separately.
Language shift was also driven by other pressures: the need for English in wage work and dealings with agencies, and later the growth of English in media and public schools. As a result, the number of fluent speakers of Apache languages has declined in many communities, a topic discussed under Apache language revitalization. Different nations have taken different paths, and readers should consult each nation’s own information for current programs.
Dress and appearance
Agents and teachers frequently pressed Native people to adopt American clothing and haircuts. In boarding schools, children’s hair was cut and traditional clothing replaced with uniforms. These were not minor changes. Dress and appearance carry personal, family and community meaning, and being made to alter them was often experienced as an attack on identity. Over time, everyday dress shifted for many families, but traditional clothing remained part of ceremonial and celebratory life, a subject touched on in the traditional Apache clothing article.
Names, work and household life
Government record-keeping also left its mark. Agents sometimes assigned English names or recorded people under names that did not match their own naming practices. Efforts to encourage farming, individual households and wage labor were intended to change family and economic life along American lines. These pressures overlapped with the broader changes to kinship described elsewhere in this section.
Quiet continuity
Cultural suppression did not end Apache culture. Communities kept practices alive in many ways: teaching children at home, telling stories in the winter months, passing along skills like basketry and beadwork, and continuing family and clan relationships. Some ceremonies went on in private, adapted to circumstances, or were held at times and places that drew less attention. Because families chose carefully what to share, the record in published sources is incomplete.
Revival and ongoing work
Beginning in the twentieth century and continuing today, Apache nations have supported language classes, cultural programs, museums, gatherings and education led by their own people. These efforts are part of what many communities call cultural revitalization. They are led by the nations themselves, and what they choose to make public, and what they keep within the community, is their decision.