University of Virginia Library

Ethnological Note 1
These "foolish people" are said by the Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache to have been an actual group, formerly living near or in Mescalero territory and speaking an Apache language. Two persons now living on the Mescalero Apache Reservation are pointed out as the last living descendants of members of this group. It is barely possible that some small Mescalero family or local group whose members were not considered over-bright and which has since been decimated and scattered, has been made the butt of these stories. The stories themselves are purely traditional, however, and are now used to rebuke the stupid, to train the young [by teaching them what not to do], to furnish a socially controlled outlet for pent up sexual interest and repression [most of the episodes of this type do not appear in these texts], and to serve as good stories for the long winter evenings. Other Apache tribes tell almost identical stories.