No single boys’ ceremony
Among several Apache nations the best-known public coming-of-age event is the girls’ puberty ceremony. For boys, public sources describe something less formal: a long process of training and increasing responsibility, with certain milestones, rather than one ceremony that turned a boy into a man. The details differ among the Western Apache, Chiricahua, Mescalero, Jicarilla, Lipan and Plains Apache, and most of what is written comes from early twentieth-century ethnographers such as Morris Opler and Grenville Goodwin. Their accounts describe the past, were written by outsiders, and are not a description of how families raise sons now.
Training in childhood and youth
Descriptions of boyhood commonly stress physical hardiness and self-discipline. Boys were encouraged to rise early, run, and become used to cold and discomfort, and to learn Apache hunting skills, to handle horses and to read the land. Elders gave advice, sometimes in the form of stories and examples. Learning to listen, to be modest and to behave properly toward relatives was as important as physical skill, and Apache children survival skills education was carried out through everyday family life as much as through any special instruction.
Training was also social. A boy’s obligations were to his relatives, and a young man was expected to provide for and protect family members as he matured. In societies where a married couple usually lived near the bride’s relatives, a young man’s adulthood also involved earning his place among his wife’s kin, for example by hunting and contributing to the household.
The novice custom
Descriptions of Apache novice warrior training come mainly from the Chiricahua, with somewhat different forms reported for other groups. They describe a system in which a young man could take part in a raid or war expedition as a novice or apprentice before being treated as a full participant. The custom is often reported as involving four expeditions, since the number four has wide ritual importance in Apache accounts. During this time the novice served the party, took on camp duties, and followed special rules and a distinct manner of speaking that older participants taught. A novice who completed the period was considered ready to go on his own.
These reports need careful handling:
- They come from specific groups and periods, and the customs differed. They should not be treated as a rule for every Apache nation.
- Raiding and warfare took place in particular historical conditions: long conflict with Spanish, Mexican and later United States forces and settlers, and with other Native nations, as well as economic pressures that made raiding one of several ways to obtain livestock and goods. The Apache warrior stereotype that portrays all men as perpetual fighters is a later invention and does not describe the many other roles that men held.
- The novice system was a form of apprenticeship with responsibilities and obligations, not simply an initiation into violence. Accounts also describe hunting, caring for animals and gathering resources as central parts of a man’s adult life, a reminder that the raiding-only stereotype leaves most of Apache life out.
Raiding as an institution ended with the loss of land and the confinement of Apache peoples on reservations and, for the Chiricahua, as prisoners of war. Younger men’s lives changed with it, and the older route to recognition was no longer available.
Other markers of maturity
Beyond the novice custom, the markers that sources mention include:
- skill as a hunter, and sharing meat with others;
- competence with horses and, later, with cattle and farm work;
- reliability within the family and generosity to relatives;
- knowledge of the land, its water sources and its seasons;
- eventually, marriage and the founding of a household.
Roles in ceremony could also come with adulthood. Some young men are invited to take part in ceremonial activities as dancers or helpers, with instruction from older men. These are sacred matters, and the details are not given here.
Modern equivalents
Today the markers of maturity are different, and each family and community decides what to emphasize. Among the paths commonly described in general terms are:
- finishing school and moving into work, college or training;
- military service, in which Apache men and women have a long record, including Apache veterans of the World Wars and later conflicts;
- work in tribal enterprises, ranching, forestry or firefighting, or other jobs on or near the reservation;
- learning a language, songs and ceremonial responsibilities from elders;
- taking part in sports, rodeo and community events.
Many communities also run programs for young people, which sometimes combine mentoring, language learning, outdoor skills and cultural teaching. Which programs exist changes over time, and the nations’ own websites are the best place to check. Apache youth programs of this kind reflect a continuing concern for helping young men and women become capable, grounded adults, which is the same concern that shaped older customs.
Reading the topic with care
Because this subject is easily sensationalized, it helps to remember three things. First, most of the written record on “warrior” training was shaped by non-Apache observers and by writers with a taste for dramatic material. Second, Apache men’s social roles included being fathers, brothers, hunters, farmers, ceremonial helpers, leaders in councils and teachers, none of which fit a simple warrior image. Third, the people concerned are living communities today, and what outsiders find interesting in the past may be only a small part of what those communities want to say about their young men.