No.'^Yer" ^^^' ^^^^ ^^ CHANGING WOMAN — ^BASSO 155 



This maiden [Changing Woman when she was young] running as you say the 

 sun began it they say. Then in this fashion sun toward this way she sat they say. 

 Then sun from it shone in rays it was they say. Then in here it shone it became 

 they say. 



Goodwin's (1939, p. 17) account, taken from a man named Bane 

 Tithla of the Eastern White Mountain Apache band (see also Good- 

 win, 1942, ch. 1) relates: 



Then as the Sun came up she puUed up her dress toward Sun and spread her 

 legs apart, so that Sun shone between her legs. When Sun came up one of his 

 beams went right into her, a red one. Then she got her menstrual period and the 

 blood started to come. After that she became pregnant. 



A somewhat fuller description of this episode was told to me by a 

 Cibecue Apache named Teddy Peaches, who is nearly 60 years old. 



This way I heard it from my grandfather. He was from Carrizo, but they 

 tell it always the same way over here [at Cibecue]. She was living all by her- 

 self and went out one day for berries to get. It was before the Sun came up that 

 she went out. Then when the Sun came up, she felt tired and sat down. She 

 looked at the Sun and kneeled down like the girl does in na ih es in front of it. 

 When she did that one of the Sun's red rays came and went in there. After that 

 she noticed that she was bleeding from there and she didn't know what it meant 

 because it was her first time. When it stopped she found out she was pregnant. 

 That's all I know about that part of the story. I don't think there is any more 

 to it. 



Before the first song in phase II, na ihl esn takes the girl's cane 

 and places it upright between the two baskets or boxes farthest from 

 the buckskin. Then the gM takes a kneeling position, with her knees 

 some 20-25 inches apart. As the song begins, she raises her hands 

 to the level of her shoulder, and then, looking into the rising sun, 

 begins to sway from side to side not necessarily following the beat of 

 the drums. Na ihl esn dances beside her. 



The emphasis of phase II is on Changing Woman's first menstrua- 

 tion, and not on the conception of nay en ez gane. The all important 

 fact that the pubescent girl has recently had her first period is given 

 a vivid symbolic portrayal by her assumption of the posture in which 

 Changing Woman is generally believed to have experienced her initial 

 menstruation. Pubescent girl and mythological figure "share" this 

 in common during phase II, and never is their identification with 

 each other more thorough. 



Despite the unmistakable sexual nature of phase II, it is not in- 

 tended to promote the girl's fertility. Apaches assume that any girl 

 who menstruates is fertile and, moreover, that this quality cannot be 

 heightened effectively by supernatural means. 



