Apache girl performing Sun Rise Dance

An Apache girl dances with her godmother and godfather at her Sunrise Dance, a first menstruation rite, on the San Carlos Apache Reservation, Arizona, USA. The three are covered with sacred yellow pollen from the cattail plant, which has been applied as a blessing by the medicine man and the relatives. The Sunrise Dance 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: 4539.jpg
Copyright: Copyright © 2004 Anders Ryman. All rights reserved.
Image Size: 5584x3709 / 12.7MB; American Southwest Apache Arizona Blessing Changing Woman Coming of Age Dancing Horizontal Indian Life Cycle Ritual Native Americans Native North Americans North America Religion Rite de Passage Rite of Passage San Carlos Indian Reservation Sunrise Dance USA United States of America adulthood animal hide blue sky buck-skin buckskin camp dress cane cattail ceremony cultural and ethnic dress dawn decorated decorations drums eagle feathers ethnic clothing ethnic group ethnic minority first menstruation fringed hat holy indigenous people life cycle ceremony longevity maturity medicine man medicine-man minority music music instrument musical instrument musical instruments musician native-americans ornament pollen puberty rite quilt religious sacred shirts skirts small group of people solemn spiritual standing stick sunshine three persons with others
Contained in galleries: Apache sunrise dance, USA

An Apache girl dances with her godmother and godfather at her Sunrise Dance, a first menstruation rite, on the San Carlos Apache Reservation, Arizona, USA. The three are covered with sacred yellow pollen from the cattail plant, which has been applied as a blessing by the medicine man and the relatives. The Sunrise Dance 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.