Apache Sunrise Dance, the coming-of-age ritual for an Apache girl

An Apache girl and her helper, both dressed in buckskin dresses, dance at her Sunrise Dance, a first menstruation rite, on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona, USA. The girl holds a cane that symbolises longevity. Behind her the medicine man and drummers sing and beat their drums. The Sunrise Dance is supposed to prepare the girl for adulthood and to give her a long and healthy life without material wants. The ceremony is also an enactment of the Apache creation myth and during the rites the girl ’becomes‘ Changing Woman, a mythical female figure, and comes into possession of her healing powers.

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Copyright: Copyright © 2004 Anders Ryman. All rights reserved.
Image Size: 5585x3711 / 11.1MB; American Indian American Indians American Southwest Apache Arizona Changing Woman Dancing Horizontal Native American Native Americans Native North Americans North America North American Indian Religion Rite of Passage San Carlos Indian Reservation Sunrise Dance Traditional and Ethnic Costume Traditional and Ethnic Dress USA United States of America adulthood animal hide bell bells buck-skin buckskin cane ceremony cultural and ethnic dress dawn daybreak drums eagle feathers ethnic clothing ethnic minority first menstruation fringed fringes indigenous people life cycle ceremony longevity maturity medicine man medicine-man morning music music instrument musical instrument musical instruments musician native-americans ornament puberty rite religious skin small group of people sun up sunrise sunrises sunshine teenage girl
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An Apache girl and her helper, both dressed in buckskin dresses, dance at her Sunrise Dance, a first menstruation rite, on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona, USA. The girl holds a cane that symbolises longevity. Behind her the medicine man and drummers sing and beat their drums. The Sunrise Dance is supposed to prepare the girl for adulthood and to give her a long and healthy life without material wants. The ceremony is also an enactment of the Apache creation myth and during the rites the girl ’becomes‘ Changing Woman, a mythical female figure, and comes into possession of her healing powers.