One Week in Apache Land

Well I didn't get to eat Peyote like I hoped and I didn't get to spend that much time at the Sunrise Dance like I planned but its all good because I had a great time nonetheless. Truly, Robert and Alice were such hospitable hosts, I'm so lucky I ended up with them. There are a few lessons I learned and impressions I came out with. Some of which I will share, and some which out of respect, I will not.

Life on the San Carlos reservation, I hoped would be much more traditional in an Apache way. Not that I thought people lived in tee pees but I thought traditions would have been kept. Instead I came to realize that life on the reservation, to my disappointment, was almost the same as an American town. I hoped I would eat much more traditional food, but instead I was kindly fed pizza, bacon, eggs, hot dogs, and broccoli rice. I did get to eat some delicious acorn dumpling soup though which was delicious, nothing like I have ever had before. Most people on the reservation cannot even understand Apache, let alone speak it and that's why I realized that people looked at me weirdly when I tried to greet them in Apache. It made me think about some things about me. I cannot criticize the Apaches for losing so many elements of their culture, I can say the same thing about my own. I became very disappointed seeing the effects of a people who lose their beautiful traditions.

Drinking is such a problem on the reservation (rez). A DUI is like a coming of age celebration in many ways. It was very sad to see how alcohol controlled these peoples lives. The only convenience store that sells alcohol at the reservation, the C store, from what I heard is the number one seller of alcohol in the whole state of Arizona. As a matter of fact Budweiser executives have been known to visit there. I have seen a great majority drinking 40s in the early morning or late at night. That's just what people do, drink. As a consequence, most of the community is unproductive and as Robert put it to me, the people on the reservation have no self determination, they just want to have fun. And as another consequence there is a huge problem with diabetes, heart problems, and obesity. Most people on the rez are unattractively overweight. For the tiny community of 4 or 5 thousand there is a whole diabetes center; I have never seen that in a community that size before. The Apaches have not adapted and have not evolved to the disgusting habits of modern life, drinking in alcoholic ways and fatty foods. They were once a healthy people who got everything from the environment around them, gathering and hunting, but the situation is very different now.

It is such a shame how traditions are lost. I was 'invited' to go to a Pentecostal service by an Apache minister. Christianity and Islam have both, unlike any other religion, conquered, converted, and completely dissolved the traditions of other people for the sake of seeing the light. It is so so disappointing to me.

Having said all this, there are still the proud few. I was very happy to hear one of my 'tour guides' Jameson talk to me about the Apaches fighting against a copper corporation from Australia trying to buy and mine Apache land for the sake of economic growth. When the Chinese mayor of Superior hosted a delegation of Apaches to try and find out why they were fighting, they told him that this was their sacred land that they prayed and lived on. He told them that when he came to America, he dropped his chopsticks for a spoon. Jameson wasn't there but he told me how frustrated he became with that comment. He said that his people didn't hop here on a boat from a foreign land. This was Apache land for years and years. They wouldn't give their land up to a corporation that was going to pollute their waters with toxins, destroy their holy sites and pay their ununionized workers shit wages so they can make as much money as possible and send it back to wherever they came from. That made me happy to hear.

The Apache culture is a beautiful one. Every culture is a beautiful one. The lesson I learned coming out is how sad it is to see traditions lost because of a conqueror who forcibly brings theirs upon you to bring you a better life. Life on the reservation today is a sad consequence of bringing that better life, just like the Aborigines who live in desperate poverty in Australia. I have left San Carlos and its people behind, but they will always have a special place in my heart.

The journey continues in search of more answers, which bring more questions, and force me to keep travelling. Life is good.