Prayer on Top of the Earth

"Kay Parker Schweinfurth's Prayer on Top of the Earth: The Spiritual Universe of the Plains Apaches is based upon the extensive field notes of William E. Bittle and describes the spiritual universe of the Plains Apaches. Central to the text are the numerous stories recounted by seven self-appointed tribal historians, the last surviving primary repositories of Apache history, born between 1876 and 1903. The Plains Apaches' mystical kinship with the land and the natural environment that the tribes perceived and nurtured is embodied in their four sacred medicine bundles - the "prayer on top of the earth."". "In Prayer on Top of the Earth, we are introduced to the fascinating world of Apache bird, animal, and human spirits, a world enlivened by the antics of the beloved Coyote. Intrigued by the world of the medicine man, we follow the Apaches' vibrant ever-evolving religious community from the U.S. government's banning of native religions to the arrival of evangelistic Christianity to the birth of the peyote religion. And finally, we share in the Apaches' frustration with the lack of white cultural sensitivity." "Prayer on Top of the Earth: The Spiritual Universe of the Plains Apaches presents and preserves important ethnographic information on the Plains Apaches for the first time in a single source. This book will be an invaluable tool for anthropologists and scholars and will engage the general reader interested in the heritage of the Plains Apaches."--BOOK JACKET.