I'm not a child anymore. We call it Sunrise Dance. When my time came at fourteen, I didn't want to have one. I felt embarrassed. Saturday is like an endurance test.
Men begin the chants at dawn.
They are really praying. Godmother tells me to dance while kneeling on a bucksin pad facing the sun - the Creator. In that position, Apache women grind corn. When the time comes for the running, I go fast around a sacred cane so that no evil will ever catch up with me. On Sunday, Godfather paints me from the top of my head to the bottom of my buckskin boots.