A Closed Ceremony, Described From Outside

The Sunrise Ceremony, na'ii'ees, is the puberty ceremonial of the Western Apache, held for a girl after her first menstruation to mark her passage into womanhood under the sponsorship of the community and of White Painted Woman, the culture heroine and holy figure at the centre of Apache tradition, whom the girl is understood to embody for the ceremony's duration. It is a closed ceremony belonging to a living Apache religious tradition, led by the girl's godmother and by a medicine person versed in the songs and the extensive knowledge the rite requires, and its specific ritual content, songs and procedures are not published here or generalised for outside audiences, in keeping with Western Apache communities' own stated wish that the ceremony's substance remain theirs to teach and theirs to hold.

What can be said from the outside, drawn from published ethnography written with community cooperation, is the ceremony's shape and significance rather than its performance: it runs across several demanding days, involves the whole extended community in sponsorship and support, and is remembered by Apache people as one of the central surviving expressions of a religious and cultural identity that endured a long and documented history of forced removal, boarding schools and suppression of Indigenous religious practice in the United States.