Values lived, not just stated
Writers on Apache cultures often describe family and community as the setting in which values are practiced. That is a helpful way to read the subject. A value such as respect or generosity is not mainly a belief a person holds in private; it appears in how someone greets an elder, brings food to a neighbor’s household or shows up when a relative needs help. This article describes some of the values that appear most often in published accounts, with the caution that “Apache values” is not a single list. The Apache nations differ, families differ, and individuals differ, and a summary cannot do justice to any of them.
The site is independent and does not speak for any nation. What follows draws on ethnographic and historical writing as well as on public statements by Apache communities, and readers wanting a community’s own account should look to that nation’s official sources.
Respect
Respect is the most commonly named value, and it takes concrete forms. Accounts describe deference to elders, careful speech toward certain relatives, restraint in how one behaves in front of others and attention to a person’s place in the web of relationships. In earlier ethnographic accounts, for instance, respect customs between particular in-laws were documented for several groups. Respect also extends to the land, to animals and to knowledge, and it is often considered something that is learned over a lifetime.
The role of elders as people owed respect is explored further in a separate article in this cluster.
Generosity and sharing
Many accounts emphasize the expectation of sharing. Someone who had food, particularly from hunting, was traditionally expected to distribute it, and generosity gave a person standing. In return, those who gave could count on help. Apache gift giving and hospitality is a topic that grows out of this, as is the practice of feeding guests. In modern life, these values show up in the way families pool resources, host relatives who need a place to stay and contribute food or money to community events.
This is a value of reciprocity and not of charity from a position of superiority. The giver and the receiver are bound together by it, and each may be in either role at different times.
Responsibility to relatives
Obligation to family is another recurring theme. An individual’s choices were traditionally understood as affecting relatives, and a person’s good or bad conduct reflected on the family. Obligations included caring for children and older relatives, supporting those in difficulty and taking part in family events. Today, these obligations are frequently what people mention when they discuss decisions about moving away for work or school: the pull of relatives at home, and the effort to remain involved in family life from a distance.
Community, not only family
Family sits within the wider community. Local groups, in the earlier ethnographic record, cooperated in farming, gathering, defense and ceremonies, and neighbors who were not close relatives were still part of a mutual-aid network. Today, the same spirit appears in community events, volunteer work, and help given to those in difficulty. The idea of Apache community mutual support is covered further elsewhere, and community service is its own topic.
Patience and teaching through example
Observers have also written about the way values were passed on: through stories, through the example of older people and through gentle correction in which the whole family took part. Stories often carry guidance on behavior, and the topic of stories and moral teaching shows how listeners are expected to draw lessons themselves. Because many stories are tied to particular times, places or tellers, some are not shared publicly, and that restraint is itself a value.
Cautions against stereotypes
Descriptions of “Native values” can easily become stereotypes, presenting a people as living outside time, as uniformly gentle or as perfectly harmonious. None of that is accurate. Apache communities have disagreements, face social problems and include people with many views and ways of life, as any community does. Values are ideals that people hold themselves and each other to, and they are applied imperfectly in practice. They also change in response to circumstances; the pressures of the reservation era, boarding schools and economic change affected how families lived out their obligations, and communities continue to work on rebuilding and strengthening them.
Reading further
For a view from inside a community, readers can look to the cultural programs, museums, language programs and official websites of the Apache nations, which publish materials intended for the public. Authors who are themselves Apache have also written about family and community; sources of that kind are the strongest basis for understanding how values are understood and lived today.