TRAINING AND DISCIPLINE

"Teaching the children to become good adults was an important task for the Apache families. As the Apache children grew up, their elders taught them skills they would need to be productive and resourceful adults. The children in the Apache culture did not learn at school. It was because Apaches believed “that children should learn through observation and experience, not by being sat down and told what to do.”⁴ Although the children did not receive any formal education, they were well trained and well behaved. Since men and women played different roles in the Apache culture, the Apache boys and girls received different types of training.

The Apache boys were trained for the difficulties of raiding and war. They did not learn from the books, but learned by listening to their fathers’ or grandfathers’ stories of their experiences in hunting. They also learned by listening tales of the historic deeds of the Apaches. Besides to learn by listening, the Apache boys also learned by practicing. Their fathers made bows and arrows for their sons, and they showed the boys how to use the weapons and made them practiced until they became skillful. The Apache boys learned what they needed to know to be successful in the hunt all from their older men in the family. As a boy reached his sixteenth birthday, he was expected to be skillful in hunting and was ready to take his manhood test. For the test, the boy had to go on four raids with the men of his group. If the boy did well on the four raids, he was thought to be a man. This meant that he was free to marry, hunt, and raid with the men of his band.⁵

Since the women had to be able to guard the camp while the men were away, they were also taught to take care of horses, to use weapons, and to hunt small games. While the boys were being trained to be good hunters, the girls were taught by their mothers about food gathering, cooking, tanning deer hides, sewing, and basket weaving. Moreover, the girls were taught how to build the family’s wickiup and to take care for younger children. As the girl was about thirteen years old, she was said to be ready for adulthood, and a coming-of-age ceremony called Nah-ih-es was held for her. It was a four days long ceremony which celebrated a young girl ‘s entry into womanhood. The ceremony was the most important event in a young girl’s life, and after the ceremony, the girl was ready for marriage".⁶