Embracing the Ndee Past as the Present: Ndee Cultural Tenets as Sovereignty-Driven Practice and Community Well-Being

Summary

In 2004 the White Mountain Apache Tribe passed a tribal resolution approving the White Apache Tribe Cultural Heritage Resources Best Management Practices (Welch et al.). These practices presented and delineated in guideline form discuss cultural heritage resource definitions; management and necessary steps before, during and after project implementation for any ground disturbing projects potentially adversely affecting cultural heritage resources on Ndee (Apache) trust lands. However, since the tribe’s adoption of the practices little has been done in reference to the application of such tenets/concepts found within the guidelines to real world cultural and archaeological methods and practices. Moreover, diversity at the tribal community level during oral collaborative interviews demonstrates that tribal knowledge systems that drive such best management practices and overall sovereignty-driven research need to be considered as directly affecting how these practices might be applied at both the intra- and intertribal level. This paper suggests that such cultural precepts including respect and avoidance can be used and applied to Ndee research contexts that not only embrace such cultural tenets, but contribute to overall community well-being as well as a sense of balance, beauty and harmony known as Gozho for Western Apache communities.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20806