Apache Creation Tale/White Painted Lady: According to the Apaches the “Giver of Life” Ussen warned White Painted Lady of a coming deluge and directed her to take refuge in a floating abalone shell which came to rest after the waters receded at White Sands , New Mexico, birth place of the Apache people. There she gave birth to 2 boys: “Child of Water” and “Killer of Enemies”. White Painted Lady is viewed by Morris Edward Opler (Myths and Tales of the Chiricahua Apache Indians, Univ. Nebraska Press, 1994) as a cultural archetype of life, fertility and renewal. She taught the people how to rid the world of evil represented by giant, eagle, buffalo and antelope by “making” for her children, especially Child of Water, a bow and arrows which he used to slay the Giant. Upon slaying these “Dragons” then the world came into existence with people, animals, and flora. Later however “Child of Water” and “Killer of Enemies” broke into different people: “Child of Water” would be creative force for Apaches and “Killer of Enemies” for the Pindah. The Apaches were to live “on yucca fruit, pinon nuts, and all other wild plants”, whereas whites on corn and wealth, which later represented a significant cultural/paradigm divide between tribal and modern thinking about life and man’s relationship to Nature.
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