In the early morning of the first day of her Sunrise Dance an Apache girl and her assistant (a friend who has already gone through the ceremony herself) bake four different kinds of corn bread on the San Carlos Apache Reservation in Arizona, USA. The girls are dressed in camp dresses. The Sunrise Dance, the first menstruation rite of an Apache girl, is held during the summer, within one year after the girl has had her first menstruation, and lasts for four days. The ceremony is 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. The rites are also supposed to prepare the girl for adulthood and to give her a long and healthy life without material wants.
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