Apache girl dancing at Sunrise Dance

An Apache girl dressed in traditional buckskin clothes dances beside a bonfire at a Sunrise Dance, a first menstruation rite, on the San Carlos Apache Reservation, Arizona, USA. The figures in the background are mountain spirits (gaan) or crown dancers. The girl is not the young girl for whom the puberty rite is held, but one of four girls chosen to dance with her and the mountain spirits by the evening bonfire. The Sunrise Dance 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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Filename: 4607.jpg
Copyright: Copyright © 2004 Anders Ryman. All rights reserved.
Image Size: 5518x3661 / 21.6MB; Afterglow American Southwest Apache Arizona Changing Woman Coming of Age Costume clothing and fashion Dancing Fire Horizontal Life Cycle Ritual Native Americans Native North Americans North America One Person with Others Outdoors Red Religion Rite de Passage Rite of Passage San Carlos Indian Reservation Sunrise Dance USA United States of America adulthood blurred motion bonfire buck-skin buckskin ceremony crown dancers cultural and ethnic dress dancer dancers ethnic clothing ethnic group ethnic minority evening female feminine first menstruation fringed fringes gaan gaans girl holy indigenous people life cycle ceremony maturity minority mountain spirits native-americans nighttime outside puberty rite religious sacred spiritual yellow youth
Contained in galleries: Rites of Life, Apache sunrise dance, USA

An Apache girl dressed in traditional buckskin clothes dances beside a bonfire at a Sunrise Dance, a first menstruation rite, on the San Carlos Apache Reservation, Arizona, USA. The figures in the background are mountain spirits (gaan) or crown dancers. The girl is not the young girl for whom the puberty rite is held, but one of four girls chosen to dance with her and the mountain spirits by the evening bonfire. The Sunrise Dance 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.