An Apache girl's Sunrise Dance

An Apache girl drinks water through a straw at her Sunrise Dance, a frist menstruation rite, on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona, USA. Behind the girl, who is dressed in buckskin clothes, the medicine man and his helpers, who sing and beat their drums during the dance, are having a rest. 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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Copyright: Copyright © 2004 Anders Ryman. All rights reserved.
Image Size: 5428x3599 / 11.4MB; American Indian American Indians American Southwest Apache Arizona Changing Woman Dancing Feathers Horizontal Joy Native Americans Native North Americans North America Religion Rite of Passage San Carlos Indian Reservation Smiling Sunrise Dance USA United States of America Women adulthood animal hide buck-skin buckskin camp dress ceremony cultural and ethnic dress dawn daybreak decorated decorations drinking drums ethnic clothing ethnic minority first menstruation fringed fringes girl godmother happiness happy indigenous people kneeling life cycle ceremony longevity maturity medicine man medicine-man morning music music instrument musical instrument musical instruments musician native-americans ornament puberty rite quilt religious shirts skin skirts small group of people sun up sunrise sunrises sunshine teenage girl water
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An Apache girl drinks water through a straw at her Sunrise Dance, a frist menstruation rite, on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona, USA. Behind the girl, who is dressed in buckskin clothes, the medicine man and his helpers, who sing and beat their drums during the dance, are having a rest. 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.