Thunder Rides A Black Horse: Mescalero Apaches And The Mythic Present

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three major examples of life in the "mythic present" that I
will primarily be discussing are the astronomical concept of the Mescalero
Apache, the kin-system that the Apache implore, and lastly the Apache
girl's puberty ceremony. Although I have only selected three examples,
there are obviously many more such as the cultural heroine, White Painted
Woman, the creation process in which Apache people are seen as the weakest
link in the being-chain, and reciprocity, among others.
The first example of the "mythic present" I will discuss is the
astronomical concept that the Apache Indians have and how they apply it.
This also includes their "Indian time". The Apache Indian Calendar is not
nearly as artificially constructed as our Western version. Only after
reading this book did I realize how artificial "our" calendar actually is.
Although this calendar was designed like most others to be the time between
which it takes for new moons to appear, it is actually not even close. ...

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of the ceremony in which Bernard awakens the author before sunrise to
prepare for the many events that would occur during the day. Farrer states,
"as usual, his watchless and clockless time sense wasimpeccable, for we
would have just enough time to do all that must be donebefore he moved into
the ceremonial arena for the start of this July'sceremonial" (41).
I feel. by saying "as usual", she means that this is a frequent
occurrence of their amazing ability to "feel" what time it is or know the
amount of time needed to accomplish a certain event. There is also the
instance towards the end of the book in which Bernard tries to teach the
author Apache astronomy. He explained ...

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