Ethnological Notes
Morris Opler
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Ethnological Note 1
The Chiricahua home was of the wickiup type, often
thatched with grass.
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Ethnological Note 2
The informant is alluding to the cotton and woolen
blankets sold by the white men today. Of course, the Chiricahua used robes of
animal skin before white contact. [See the third sentence following.]
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Ethnological Note 3
The reference is to wild cattle which seem to have been
present in the territory before the white men had arrived in any appreciable
numbers.
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Ethnological Note 4
The Apache sling is a diamond-shaped piece of rawhide,
made pliant or partially perforated down the center. A thong is tied to each
side. One of these thongs only is looped at the end. The stone is placed on the
diamond-shaped piece of-rawhide and the rawhide is folded over it. The thongs
are held in the hand, a finger being passed through the loop to hold the one
cord. The sling is whirled around the head once and then thrown forward. The
unlooped cord is released at the same time, so that the rawhide may unfold and
allow the missile to fly.
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Ethnological Note 5
Mountain mahogany was one of the woods used.
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Ethnological Note 6
The reference is probably to the culture hero, Child of
the Water.
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Ethnological Note 7
Flint knives were used for the purpose.
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Ethnological Note 8
Protuberances on the trunks of oak trees especially,
were utilized in this manner.
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Ethnological Note 9
A better account of Chiricahua Apache food plants may be
found in E. F. Castetter and M. E. Opler, The Ethnobiologyof the Chiricahua and
Mescalero Apache [University of New Mexico Bulletin, Biological Series, Vol. 4,
No. 5, 1936.]
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Ethnological Note Ethnological Note
[For the same reason cited in Ethnological Note to
Chiricahua text 19, note 5, this sentence has been modified from the original
version. In the original, this sentence is translated: "One worships those to
whom one can do nothing."--MEC]