>>[narration] Beneath White
Mountain, in New Mexico,
the Mescalero Apache reservation
prepares for a coming of age ritual.
Over the span of four days,
13 year old Dashena Cochise
will pass through ancient tests
of strength, endurance, and character
that will make her a woman.
The Mescalero Apache hold the
ritual every Fourth of July,
it is a grueling ordeal intended
to prepare girls for the trials of womanhood.
>>[Millette] When she was a little girl,
I knew this was what
I wanted to have for her.
>>[narration] Dashena's mother,
Millette, has spent more than a year
preparing for this week of ceremony.
Family members and friends will help her
feed and care for more than 50 guests.
The family's most important task is
selecting Dashena's Medicine Woman.
Zelda Yazza will instruct Dashena in the
ways of traditional Apache womanhood.
The four day ceremony encapsulates
the Apache creation story.
Dashena will move through
the stages of life:
infant, child, adolescent, woman,
culminating in an all night dance
that will test her endurance.
The ritual begins with the
rising of the morning star.
The ceremony requires that
Dashena live by strict rules.
These four days mean little sleep, scant food,
and the need to set aside emotion.
Throughout the ordeal, she must
wear a face of stoic resolve.
>>[Dashena] I'm very excited and
happy, even though I can't smile.
I try to show it in some way.
>>[narration] Before Dashena joins
the other girls, she is blessed,
dusted with pollen
the symbol of fertility.
The girls start their
journey in a sacred teepee
built by their male relatives.
The basket is filled with pollen
and other ceremonial objects.
As their ancestors did,
the girls run toward the rising sun,
circling the basket four times
to mark the four stages of life.
The fourth and final day brings
Dashena to the cusp of womanhood.
She ascends the hill to
pray to the mountain spirits
for a long and successful life.
With darkness near, it's time to
dance beside the ceremonial fire.
Dashena and the other girls
will dance all night long,
much of the time
hidden in big tepee.
More than ten hours later,
Dashena is still dancing.
The medicine men greet the sun, a
signal that the final test is near.
The girls' faces are painted with
white clay, symbolizing the goddess.
On their last circuit
around the sacred basket,
the girls wipe away
the symbolic clay.
With the falling of the tepee,
their rite of passage is complete.
Dashena receives her Apache
woman's name, Morning Star Feather.
>>[Dashena] Morning Star Feather.
>>[Zelda Yazza] Morning Star Feather.
Everything went well,
she's a strong woman.
>>[narration] Her community gathers
acknowledging that this girl has
earned the right to live
as a woman in the tribe.
As an Apache woman, Dashena
serves as a symbol of her culture,
renewing and protecting a way of
life that's in danger of vanishing.