Native American Indian & Alaskan Heritage Month

“The complex cycle of interrelated responsibilities and concepts that is the Hopi religious system is all the more complicated because each of the twelve Hopi villages possesses the autonomy to carry out Hopi religious practices independently. The timing of ceremonies, the underlying concepts may vary among the Hopi villages. Nevertheless, throughout the land of the Hopi, the religious mission is the same: to promote and achieve a “unity” of everything in the universe.” (Alph H. Secakuku, Following the Sun and Moon, The Hopi Kachina Tradition)

The First Laugh Ceremony in Navajo tradition welcomes a new baby into the family with a large party that honors loved ones and the act of generosity

Albert Brent Chase, artistic director of The Pollen Trail Dancers, explains the purposes of dance in Navajo culture. He notes that dance is a form of honoring one’s self and the connection with one’s surroundings; that dance has a healing purpose; and that dance and songs are ways of carrying on traditional teachings and history of the Navajo people.

Traveling south from Canada hundreds of years ago, the Nde (Apache) people joined the Sonoran Desert region of the Pimería Alta around 1200 AD according to most historians and linguists. The Nde people refer to themselves as Nde, Inde, Tinde, or Tinneh, which means, “The people.” The term Apache that is commonly used to refer to the Nde people actually comes from the Zuni word ápachu, which means “enemy”.

The N’dee/N’nee/Ndé, more commonly known as “Apaches”, are the peoples indigenous to the southern United States and northern Mexico. In the United States – in Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma – there are a total of nine federally and state-recognized Apache nations or tribes, yet no apache community is recognized as existing in Mexico.

The Apache Crown Dancers are enrolled members of the White Mountain Apache Tribe and live in Whiteriver, Ariz. In this video segment, the group leader, Joe Tohonnie, Jr., talks about the long history of the dance and its role in Apache culture as the dancers perform Crown Dances.