A majority of ethnographer Morris Edward Opler's research was done on Native American groups of the American Southwest. He studied specifically the Chiricahua Indians, who were the subjects of one of his most famous books, An Apache Life-Way: The Economic, Social, and Religious Institutions of the Chiricahua Indians. Opler studied many Native American groups, but the Apache were a main focus of his.
An Apache Life-Way traces the life of an Apache year by year. Rather than a history, the book explains the day-to-day Apache experience, detailing the chronological order of one's life. The lifestyle described in the book is from a time before the Americans started the long era of hostile interactions with the Apache.
The people designated as "Apache" in this book are those who spoke the Apache language in the area that is now New Mexico, Arizona, Sonora, and Chihuahua. There were many smaller sub-groups that populated these areas, three of them different groups of the Chiricahua Apache.
An Apache Life-Way is divided into several main parts: Childhood; Maturation; Social Relations of Adults; Folk Beliefs, Medical Practice, and Shamanism; Maintenance of the Household; Marital and Sexual Life; The Round of Life; Political Organization and Status; and Death, Mourning, and the Underworld. Each section is divided into more specific subcategories that explore each phase of life and the rituals associated with it.
Originally published in 1941, An Apache Life-Way remains one of the most important and innovative studies of south-western Native Americans.
