An Apache Life-Way: The Economic, Social, and Religious Institutions of the Chiricahua Indians

by Morris Edward Opler

Overview

A majority of ethnographer Morris Edward Opler’s research was done on Native American groups of the American Southwest. He studied specifically the Chiricahua Indians, who were the subjects of one of his most famous books, An Apache Life-Way: The Economic, Social, and Religious Institutions of the Chiricahua Indians. Opler studied many Native American groups, but the Apache were a main focus of his.

An Apache Life-Way traces the life of an Apache year by year. Rather than a history, the book explains the day-to-day Apache experience, detailing the chronological order of one’s life. The lifestyle described in the book is from a time before the Americans started the long era of hostile interactions with the Apache.

The people designated as “Apache” in this book are those who spoke the Apache language in the area that is now New Mexico, Arizona, Sonora, and Chihuahua. There were many smaller sub-groups that populated these areas, three of them different groups of the Chiricahua Apache.

An Apache Life-Way is divided into several main parts: Childhood; Maturation; Social Relations of Adults; Folk Beliefs, Medical Practice, and Shamanism; Maintenance of the Household; Marital and Sexual Life; The Round of Life; Political Organization and Status; and Death, Mourning, and the Underworld. Each section is divided into more specific subcategories that explore each phase of life and the rituals associated with it.

Originally published in 1941, An Apache Life-Way remains one of the most important and innovative studies of south-western Native Americans.

“First-class...in the best ethnographic tradition. It fills a great gap in our anthropological knowledge and...deserves to be one of the most used of American tribal records.”—Ruth Benedict, author of Patterns of Culture

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789126594
Publisher:	Borodino Books
Publication date:	12/05/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	539
Sales rank:	629,524
File size:	12 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Morris Edward Opler (1907-1996) was an American anthropologist and advocate of Japanese American civil rights. His chief anthropological contribution was in the ethnography of Southern Athabaskan peoples, i.e. the Navajo and Apache, such as the Chiricahua, Mescalero, Lipan, and Jicarilla.

Born on May 3, 1907 in Buffalo, New York, Opler earned his Bachelor’s Degree and a Master’s Degree from the University of Buffalo, and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1933. He simultaneously began a path of impactful anthropological fieldwork and research among the Apache people, and worked actively in his field for almost 50 years.

His anthropological fieldwork began in 1931, when he began doing fieldwork in New Mexico among the Mescalero Apache tribe. He had a lifelong interest in the indigenous people of western America, specifically the Apache, and consistently focused his studies on their lifestyles and practices. In addition to his anthropological studies, Opler entered the world of academia, working as a professor for many years, beginning in 1937, when he was employed at Reed College. This was followed by positions at Claremont College, Harvard University, Cornell University, and finally, at the University of Oklahoma, after he had retired from Cornell University in 1969. Interspersed between these academic positions, Opler also worked for the Office of War Information (1943-1946) and at the Manzanar War Relocation Center during WWII. After retiring a second time, this time from the University of Oklahoma in 1977, he dedicated his time to writing and publishing articles relating to the conditions of Apache life.

Opler died on May 13, 1996, aged 89.