NOTES
FROM "THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN" BY EDWARD S. CURTIS
LOCATION: New Mexico-In the mountains of northern New Mexico on both sides of the Rio Grande river.
DRESS: The Jicarilla's dress had a close
resemblance to the tribes of the plains with feather headdresses. Men wore a
deerskin shirt, hip leggings and moccasins. Women wore a knee length deerskin
shirt, leggings, and moccasins with high tops and a broad leather belt.
DWELLINGS: The Jicarilla dwellings were the same as a plains tipi, made of buffalo skins with a smoke hole at the apex.
RELIGION AND CEREMONIES: Girls puberty (Maturity) is an annual feast. There is also a four day medicine rite or "Bear Dance."
QUOTES FROM "THE NORTH AMERICAN
INDIAN:" "The Jicarillas, or as they are commonly called Jicarilla
Apaches, occupy a reservation of nearly four hundred and fifty square miles of
mountainous country in northern New Mexico. Linguistically the Jicarillas are
the same stock as the Apaches of Arizona; but here the relationship ceases, for
the two peoples have virtually no knowledge one for the other; each according to
their respective genesis myths, had their origin in the general region in which
they live to-day, while the dialect, mythology, legends, and medicine rites of
the Jicarillas more closely resemble those of the Navaho than any of the Apache
groups."
"Owing to their composite nature, the Jicarillas are a particularly interesting group. Too small in numbers to resist the cultural influence of other tribes, and having long been in contact with the buffalo hunters of the great plains as well as in close touch with the pueblo of Taos with its great wealth of ceremony and ritual, it is not surprising that the Jicarillas, in life and in ceremony, have been deeply influenced by other tribes."
"The dead are buried in secret, only a few of the close relations having knowledge of the place. Immediately after the death the body is carried on horseback to a high point, where it is placed on the ground and covered with the personal possessions of the deceased... and all over heaped brush and stones."
"The Jicarillas, like their kindred the Navaho and the Apache, pay much attention to religion and ceremony. Compared with the Navaho their life seems almost lacking in ceremony, but when contrasted with the various Yuman tribes on the Colorado and Gila rivers of Arizona it is fairly rich. Their healing or medicine rites include a dance, called 'Isante,' that occupies four days and four nights, and many one-day 'sings' in all of which dry-paintings are employed. Like the Apaches the Jicarilla attach much importance to the girls' puberty ceremony and still rigidly adhere to it."