The agriculture of the Western Apaches

The Western Apaches in the eastern part of Central Arizona live in a region, where some of the oldest cultivated plants of the american Southwest were grown for the first time. The Apaches looked after balance.

The men hunted big game, tilled the fields, but all en masse, so that the didn't endanger themselves and the nature. But they didn't let distract them from their pleisure of hunting.

The Western Apaches lived nomadic, their camps were in the south. In Spring they moved on to the mountains to plant, hunt and gather wild fruits. Gathering time was from august to october, afterwards they went back to their wintering grounds. The farming served as reserve for bad times. The fields always were very small and the eldest explained: "Apaches never cultivate a big field strip, always only a small strip corn, five - six pumpkins, just enough for the family."

A family owned perhaps six small farming units, but only two per year were used. The Apaches considered the animal's droppings as causative organism and therefore didn't use it as dung for the fields. The Western Apaches acted in accordance with the sun to learn, when they should begin with the cultivation of corn. As soon as the "standing moon" stood in the sky - at any time in March - they started the new cultivation season.

When the grass went green und yellow flowers covered the Mesquite tree and when the spring birds below the Salt River appeared they knew that it was time to return to their fields.

Fieldwork was women's domain, but there was nothing derogative or cheap. The men helped out but for the women it was a more serious affair than for the men. About the Apachen men was told: "In the old days women had everything under control; man doesn't spend big thoughts; mistakes are easier made by men; women always were the better farmers."

Women always knew about the ritual ceremonies. The choose a woman with the right touch to lay the seed into the planting holes. The elected woman said: "Grow quick, don't carry about you worms, become a good fruit!" She also asked the mythic "corn people" for help.

Fortuneless women - which were for example biten by a snake or strucked by lightning - were not allowed to plant, as well as pregnant women. When larvals threatened the corn, the Apache women collected  them in a water jug and let them rot. Then they scattered them  over the field in a special ritual to cast out the other bugs.

With the crickets it was different, they were the "musicians of the field" and were protected. When it became cold and an Apache found them, he laid them in a copse where it was warmer. When an Apache stepped on a cricket he suddenly begged her pardon.

A plant that was surrounded from smaller of the same kind was called "mother with her children". A dead tree they called "an old lady with grey hair", some plants were "sisters" and others "brothers".

If an Apache accidentally stepped on a spider, he laid the blame on his enemies. When they later on were in war with the United States, the Apache warriors used to say to such a misfortune: "IT WAS WASHINGTON!"

Red Cloud