Ruth M. Boyer

Effects of Acculturation On the Personality Traits of the Old People of the Mescalero and Chiricahua Apaches

HILE compiling data to be used in a land claims project, Basehart (1959, W1960) observed a contrast in the quality of responses given by aged Mescalero and Chiricahua Apaches to inquiries pertaining to aboriginal subsistence patterns and socio-political organization. The Mescaleros were unable to generalize and draw abstractions; their replies were brief, concrete and specific. To obtain information from them was a tedious process, although they were eager to co-operate, since the project was conducted for their own potential material benefit. To the contrary, the old Chiricahuas generalized and drew abstractions and spontaneously enlarged from single items to related data. The Boyers later confirmed Basehart’s observation The aged Chiricahuas appeared to have taken

Apache “Learners” and “Nonlearners”

Abstract While the Mescalero and Chiricahua Apaches of the Mescalero Indian Reservation aboriginally probably had very similar if not identical patterns of cognition and perception, present day aged members of those tribes have strikingly different patterns, demonstrable by clinical behavior and Rorschach responses. While in kindergarten, about half of the grandchildren and greatgrandchildren of those aged Mescaleros and Chiricahuas are unable to adjust themselves to the expectations of school teachers and are retained for a second year of kindergarten. Those children, here designated as nonlearners, are found to respond to Rorschach stimuli as do the aged Mescaleros with a high degree of statistical reliability.

Apache "learners" and "nonlearners." II. Quantitative Rorschach signs of influential adults.

Summary Aboriginally probably equivalent, following divergent acculturative patterns, the perceptual and cognitive techniques of the Chiricahua and Mescalero Apaches differed. Today, half of Apache children (the learners) adjust to ordinary expectations in grammar school: their Rorschach patterns resemble those of aged Chiricahuas; half (the nonlearners) fail to adjust: their responses are those of the less-acculturated Mescaleros: It was hypothesized that the learners would have identified with the techniques of the more-acculturated Chiricahuas. Adults influential in the early lives of the children were tested. The hypothesis as stated was not verified. What was consistent in the responses of learner influentials was a more balanced approach to Rorschach stimuli than was shown by nonlearner influentials.