Belongings of living communities
When people speak of “Apache relics”, it is easy to imagine the objects as remains of a vanished culture. They are not. The baskets, tools, clothing, cradleboards and other items in museums were made and used by ancestors of Apache people who are alive today, and the nations that descend from those makers continue to have a stake in them. Seeing objects in this light changes the questions worth asking: not only what an item is, but who made it, how it left its community, and who should have a say in its future.
Where Apache objects are found
Objects made by Apache peoples are held in many kinds of institutions: large natural history and art museums, university collections, regional and state museums, historical societies, military and government collections, and private collections. Because Apache lands lie in the Southwest and southern Plains, many items are in institutions in Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, but others are in distant cities and in museums abroad.
Common types include baskets, which were widely collected, along with hide clothing, moccasins, beadwork, bows and arrows, and tools. The craft traditions behind some of these are discussed in the articles on Apache basket makers and Apache beadwork. Photographs, documents and army records are also held in archives, and they are sometimes catalogued alongside objects.
How objects reached collections
Objects entered collections in different ways, and it is worth being plain that the circumstances were often unequal. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a period of intense collecting, anthropologists, army officers, traders, tourists and dealers acquired items, sometimes by purchase, sometimes by gift, and sometimes under conditions of poverty, confinement or military pressure. Apache communities lived under the reservation system at this time, and some prisoners of war, notably Chiricahua people held at military posts, produced goods for sale.
Because records vary, the history of an individual object, known as its provenance, may be partial or missing. A catalogue entry that says only “Apache” may not say which nation made the piece, and a label that names a group may reflect a collector’s guess. Researchers working with these collections therefore try to be careful about attribution, and the nations themselves are often the best source of knowledge about what an item is.
How Apache nations engage with collections
Over recent decades, museum practice has shifted from treating Native communities as subjects of study to treating them as partners. Engagement can take several forms:
- Consultation, in which museum staff invite tribal representatives to view collections and advise on description, care and display.
- Loans and exhibitions developed with community input.
- Digital access, so that community members can see items held far away.
- Return of certain categories of items under United States law, discussed in the companion article on NAGPRA and Apache repatriation.
- Collections held by Apache nations themselves, in tribal museums and cultural centers, which can be a way to keep items close to the community.
Some objects are not suited to public display at all. Certain items connected with ceremonial life are treated with restraint, and nations may ask that they not be shown, photographed or described. Respecting those wishes is part of good practice, and this site does not describe sacred objects in detail. The topic of Apache sacred objects is addressed generally elsewhere.
Reading a museum label critically
A visitor can ask a few simple questions in front of a display. Does the label name the specific Apache nation, or only “Apache”? Does it speak in the past tense as though the culture had ended? Does it say who made the item, or when and how the museum obtained it? Labels that describe Apache peoples as living, name the community, and credit Apache advisers tend to reflect more current practice.
Finding current information
Collections and policies change, and museum websites update their holdings and contact details regularly. Anyone who wants to see Apache items, or to understand a particular collection, can start with the institution’s own website and with the official websites of the Apache nations, many of which have cultural or historic preservation offices. This site is independent and does not speak for any nation or museum.