Apache girls bake bread at Sunrise Dance

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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Copyright: Copyright © 2004 Anders Ryman. All rights reserved.
Image Size: 5053x3313 / 10.7MB; America American Indian American Indians American Southwest Apache Arizona Changing Woman Food Horizontal Native American Native Americans Native North Americans Native-American North America North American Indian Outdoors Religion Rite of Passage San Carlos Indian Reservation Sitting Sunrise Dance Traditional and Ethnic Costume Traditional and Ethnic Dress Two People US USA United States of America activities activity adulthood baking blurred motion bowls bread camp dress ceremony charcoal coal of fire cuisine diet ethnic ethnic group ethnic minority food and nutrition indigenous people life cycle ceremony maturity minority motion blur native-american native-americans outside puberty rite religious shovel spade two persons only
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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.