Charles W Hogan Collection, Gift of Miriam S. Hogan Revocable Trust
This style of Apache two-piece dress is now made almost exclusively for ceremonial occasions. A major ritual among the Western Apache is the Girl’s puberty or Sunrise Dance ceremony, which symbolically invests young women with physical and mental attributes needed to transform successfully into adulthood. Among the Chiricahua Apache such dresses are referred to as “debut” dresses, marking a girl’s entry into womanhood. The young woman would be as beautifully dressed as the parents could afford for their daughter. Such dresses comprised two pieces – a cape and skirt and were decorated with large areas of native paints, narrow lines of beadwork and rows of tiny metal cones attached for their musical effect.
