White Mountain Apache Culture Center and Museum/Sunrise Dance 1 (1976)

Summary: 
Edgar Perry interview on Fort Apache and Apache/Ndee history, interview with Bill O'Keene, and beginning of a Sunrise Dance/Na’íí’ee, a puberty ceremony performed by a girl accompanied by and older dancer (cont. on 2nd and 3rd videos in this series).
Description: 

(Inside the White Mountain Apache Culture Center) White Mountain Apache/Nde/Ndee man (ndeeń) Edgar Perry holding a microphone stands in front of a fireplace mantel with trophies and other items, then walks over to a table in foreground, sits down and picks up a fossil embedded in a softball-sized rock and then an illustration of a dinosaur with four feet and long tusks (looks like a mammoth), back to closer shots of Perry, and camera pans down to his name plate on the desk that reads beneath his name “Culture Center Director”; NEW SCENE: various shots of Perry outside reading the text from a memorial grave marker, close-ups of the marker and the surrounding garden, trees and fence; Perry picks up and clears a rock or lump of dirt from a garden wall; camera pans over to a woman who is off to the side changing the film on her still camera; NEW SCENE: camera takes in the nearby landscape with a summer sun shade, mesas and dark skies; NEW SCENE: close-up of an Apache man (Fort Apache Culture Center Chairman, Bill O'Keene) wearing a cowboy hat who looks directly into the lens, then camera pulls out as he turns and walks over a dirt field, trees beyond; he heads down a dirt path between shrubs to a dome-shaped hut built from bent branches (a sweat lodge), a bit of greenery on top; close-up of where two branches are joined with yucca plant fronds, then pans up to the man speaking into a mic; another perhaps Apache man hands him the binding material to explain how it’s used and then enters the shot to hold the mic while the older man explains, then close-ups of the man talking, and pan down to the yucca and back up to the two men talking; close-ups of the lodge’s joins, pile of rocks inside, then pan over to a fire pit and back; close-up of the younger Native interviewer and Sam as the former gathers up some rocks and they walk off down the path; NEW SCENE: a big group assembled outside (all ages, genders) forms a circle as men place a rug on the ground in the middle; partially hidden, a group of men are doing something (maybe the drum circle?), and then camera pans back/forth between them and the larger circle; about 21 minutes in a teenage girl (na'ilín) with a feather on each shoulder enters the center of the circle; from behind her two men are setting up the Sunrise Dance ceremony/Na’íí’ees on the center rug; they move in closer on her face and then pull out to show a woman is tying a feather in her hair and a small heart which hangs on her forehead; the older of the men talks to her as the woman fixes the girl’s hair; the man then removes his cowboy hat and faces them and starts the ceremony by addressing the crowd surrounding her; then closer view of the girl, holding a decorative cane with bells, feathers at the curve at top, feathers and a circle at top, and the woman next her look downward, the man gestures and continues to address the crowd; the man gestures right near the girl and then puts his hat back on and walks off as the girl and woman continue to stand, looking downward.


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