The Western Apache Scouts of the 1870s who assisted the United States Army in tracking down the Chiricahua Apaches that had escaped from the federal reservations in the Arizona Territory laid the foundation for what became seventy-six years of military service in the U.S. Army. Consolidated and reassigned to Ft. Huachuca, Arizona in 1922, these scouts continued to serve with distinction long after the Army needed their skills as trackers. In 1947, the final four scouts retired from United States military service, each having served for over twenty-five years. This thesis explores how these men used their military service in order to survive, serving with honor while maintaining their cultural traditions within a changing world.

Although human land use in the industrial and post-industrial world has had demonstrable impacts on global climate, human land use may also improve or reduce the resilience of ecosystems to anthropogenic and natural climate change. This dissertation tests the hypothesis that low severity anthropogenic burning by prehistoric and protohistoric indigenous societies in the ponderosa pine forests of east-central Arizona improved the resilience of these forests to low frequency climate change. I use sedimentary charcoal, phosphorus, stable carbon isotopes, and palynology to reconstruct changes in fire regimes over the last 1000 years from seven radiocarbon dated alluvial sequences in five watersheds across a gradient of indigenous land use and occupation histories. Paleoecological evidence from occupied watersheds is consistent with small-scale, agricultural burning by Ancestral Pueblo villagers (between AD 1150-1325/1400) and anthropogenic burning by Western Apaches to promote wild pant foods (ca. AD 1550-1900) in addition to naturally frequent, low severity landscape fires. Statistical reconstructions of climate driven fire activity from tree-ring records of annual precipitation indicate that Southwestern forests were vulnerable to increased fire severity and shifts to alternative stable states between AD 1300-1650. In watersheds that were unoccupied or depopulated by AD 1325, paleoecological and sedimentological evidence is consistent with an increase in fire severity, whereas areas occupied and burned by indigenous people until AD 1400 did not yield evidence of increased fire severity. These results suggest that anthropogenic burning by small-scale societies may have improved the resilience of Southwestern forests to climate driven environmental changes.

abstract: Public discourse conveys and constructs sophisticated, nuanced and often conflicting notions of place, identity, culture, and religion. Comprehending the significance of place-based discourse is essential to understanding many of the contemporary difficulties facing Native American peoples. This is particularly true of the Western Apache people who constitute their places via discursive engagement. This project examines the Western Apache in their fight to save Dzil nchaa si an (Mount Graham) from a multi-telescope observatory upon its summit. Using discourse and text analysis to examine the public rhetoric, I suggest that the Western Apache understand the mountain as a participatory partner in community viability and Apache identity. I also suggest that the discourse surrounding the Mt. Graham controversy provides a mechanism to understand how Apache discourse links past and present practices and identity as seen through four emerging thematic elements: ethics, relatedness, knowledge, and religious verbiage. Understanding how discourse reveals cultural norms and practices and sustains cultural integrity is important as communicative disjunctures impact the effective responses of Native American and other diverse groups. These issues are framed within the national debate regarding cultural significance and bear directly upon the success of other preservation efforts. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Anthropology 2012

I sampled the eastern portion of the Fort Apache Indian Reservation from June 19 to August 8 in 2008 and from May 6 to June 19 in 2009. I used scat detection dogs to find wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) scat on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation during 2008 and 2009. My population size estimate of the wolf population was 19 individuals (95% CI = 14 - 58; SE = 8.30) during 2008 and 2009. My study also used DNA analyses to obtain an accurate assessment of Mexican wolf diet and, compare prey remains in Mexican gray wolf scat with prey remains in two other sympatric carnivore species (coyote, C. latrans, and puma, Puma concolor). Percent biomass of prey items consumed by Mexican wolves included 89% for elk, 8% for mule deer, and 3% for coyote. Percent biomass of prey items consumed by pumas was 80% for elk, 12% for mule deer, 4% for turkey, and 4% for fox. I included an ethnographic feature to my research. My study showed evidence of shared knowledge about the wolf within Western Apache culture. My data fit the consensus model based upon the large ratio between the first and second eigenvalues. I provided a literature review of how traditional ecological knowledge has enhanced the field of conservation biology but also the challenges of collecting and incorporating it with western science. Lastly, I provide an historical perspective of wolves throughout Arizona, an assessment of their historical abundance, and document a possible mesocarnivore release. Between 1917 and 1964, 506 wolves, 117,601 coyotes, 2,608 mountain lions, 1,327 bears, 19,797 bobcats, and 21 jaguars were killed by PARC agents, bounty hunters, and ranchers as reported in U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey Annual Reports in Arizona. The relationship between the numbers of coyotes and wolves destroyed was investigated using Pearson correlation coefficient. There was a negative correlation between the numbers of wolves and coyotes destroyed in Arizona between 1917 and 1964 (r = -0.40; N = 46; p = 0.01) suggesting a possible mesopredator release of coyotes with the extirpation of the wolf in Arizona.

The use of family, friends, and neighbors ("kith and kin") as caregivers for young children is a common practice in many cultural minority and impoverished communities in the U.S. Such caregivers often serve as trusted, familiar, affordable, and accessible sources of care, however, the quality of such "informal" child care is often questioned. This, I contend, is a consequence of the application of narrow constructs of quality derived from the values, practices, and experiences of the dominant class and culture.This dissertation details the roles that kith and kin caregivers fill in the White Mountain Apache community in east-central Arizona, and the functions such caregiving performs. Being in the care of kith and kin is important in giving children a sense of "place" within their extended family and the community. It teaches them their relations as well as the role and importance of family and community and reciprocity, and builds and reinforces family and community networks. It places children in the hands of grandmothers and other individuals with high cultural capital, hence providing a space, time, and opportunity for cultural learning. Kith and kin caregiving thus assists in the preservation of Apache language and culture by providing not only a context for cultural transmission and access to those with the greatest cultural knowledge and linguistic competence, but also by reinforcing a pedagogical role central to Apache culture and emphasizing the importance of family.While important, such functions of kith and kin care are ones not easily accounted for in existing constructions of quality. In order for standards of quality to have any meaning or utility in cultural minority communities, I argue that we need to encourage the development and utilization of culture and context specific definitions of caregiving quality and the inclusion of community standards. Constructs of quality must also speak to the well-being of children in their own communities and cultures. For Native communities, the incorporation of Native culture and language into child care programming and settings is essential to the health, maintenance, and cultural survival of these communities.