Dulce, N.M. – Days before the Jicarilla Apache’s Go-Jii-Ya celebration, thousands of campers start to multiply on the flat, sage-covered fields surrounding the usually placid Stone Lake.
They erect traditional tepees and colorful nylon domes. RVs park alongside ramadas, which are shady, hand-hewn shelters framed with sturdy branches of Gambel oak and thatched with freshly cut aspen.
Under the ramadas, women cook mutton and green chile stews over open fires – the smoke mixing with swirling dust and truck exhaust to create a haze over this Brigadoon-like settlement.
Its centerpiece is the 350-yard- long racetrack where the great foot race between clans is run every Sept. 15.
At its heart, several Apache elders say, Go-Jii-Ya is a harvest celebration, a time to thank the sun, moon, earth and wind. Non-Indian guests are welcome to watch the race, but camping is reserved for tribal members and their guests.
For a people who fought back from the brink of extinction at the turn of last century, it is a great day, a lavish fete where ears of corn, chile peppers, apples and candy literally rain down on participants at the climax of their race.
Before Thursday’s race, Apache boys and men gather at each clan’s kiva, circular enclosures fashioned from aspen that sit at opposite ends of the course. Ceremonial leaders bless the runners and decorate their bodies with feathers and paint made from water and earth that is red, ocher, brown, white and black.
The Red or Llanero Clan (Sand People) runs against the White or Ollero Clan (Plains People) to prove who is swiftest, strongest and purest. And, many believe, the identity of the victor means much more than bragging rights.
A victory for the Red Clan, which represents the moon and the plants, could mean a cold, wet winter that might be hard on the animals. A victory for the White Clan, which represents the sun and the animals, could mean a milder winter, but too many mild winters can lead to drought.
“It’s not like you win or lose,” says Bryan Vigil, a member of the White Clan. “It really depends on everything being done right. If you don’t know Apache, you don’t know the songs. If the prayers aren’t in Apache, it’s just a carnival.”
“We’re still here”
The Jicarilla were once a band that hunted and farmed across 50 million acres of mountains, valleys and plains of what is now southeastern Colorado, northeastern New Mexico and the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas. There were 10,000 Jicarillas before the second Spanish conquest of the region in the 1700s. After American settlement in the 1800s, the Jicarilla population dwindled to 330.
The only permanent official presence of the Jicarilla left in Colorado is the chief in headdress portrayed in the great mural on the state Historical Society building. But in northern New Mexico, the Jicarilla own almost 900,000 acres.
“We want people to know we’re still here,” says Lorene Willis, manager of the tribe’s cultural center.
Now 3,300 strong, the tribe is rebuilding its economy, land base, institutions and culture.
But the number of Jicarilla fluent in Apache is probably fewer than 250, Willis says.
Some 20 elders got together in 1993 and decided something had to be done.
Their language is now taught at the new elementary school. And instruction is offered in beadwork, moccasin making, tepee-pole cutting and other traditional activities.
The power of ritual
But culture is not an academic pursuit at Go-Jii-Ya. It lives and breathes.
This year, the Red Clan triumphs at the race. Officials end the contest when one side laps the other.
Afterward, the two sides march from their respective ends of the track to meet in the middle and present gifts.
But presentation has evolved into a good-natured food riot with people lobbing treats at one another.
“You’re only supposed to throw what’s grown, not candy,” says Vigil, of the White Clan. He also worries that there were some irregularities in running order at the race that could cause trouble.
“The weather’s going to be all messed up,” he says, shaking his head. “We do this to ourselves.”
Head runner for the Red Clan, Leo Vicenti, a 19-year-old who attends college in Durango, led his clan in the race for the fourth straight year.
Before the race, Vicenti’s grandfather, Melbourne Pesata Sr., decorated the runner’s head with two eagle feathers and painted his bare chest with dark and light earth. He stuck small tufts of eagle down on his grandson’s arms.
Sprigs of yucca blossoms were secured to his ankles and wrists by yucca leaf fibers.
“These things make you fly,” Vicenti says.
He doesn’t speak Apache fluently, he says, but he knows the power of the Apache rituals and the things his grandfather does for him.
Staff writer Electa Draper can be reached at 970-385-0917 or edraper@denverpost.com.
