This remarkable book introduces us to four unforgettable Apache people, each of whom offers a different take on the significance of places in their culture. Apache conceptions of wisdom, manners and morals, and of their own history are inextricably intertwined with place, and by allowing us to overhear his conversations with Apaches on these subjects Basso expands our awareness of what place can mean to people. Most of us use the term sense of place often and rather carelessly when we think of nature or home or literature. Our senses of place, however, come not only from our individual experiences but also from our cultures. Wisdom Sits in Places, the first sustained study of places and place-names by an anthropologist, explores place, places, and what they mean to a particular group of people, the Western Apache in Arizona. For more than thirty years, Keith Basso has been doing fieldwork among the Western Apache, and now he shares with us what he has learned of Apache place-names--where they come from and what they mean to Apaches.

Drawing on current theory in symbolic anthropology and sociolinguistics, this interpretive essay investigates a complex form of joking based on material collected in a Western Apache community wherein Apaches stage carefully crafted imitations of Anglo-Americans.

This volume grew out of a symposium held at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in November 1969 at New Orleans, Louisiana. The "Apachean Symposium" was designed to provide an opportunity for scholars engaged in research on southern Athapaskan cultures to report upon their findings, and wherever possible, to link them to known fact and existing theory. The diverse work presented here will add significantly to the knowledge about Apachean cultures, and each of contributions also pertains directly to wider spheres of anthropological concern.

This is a remarkable series of personal narrations from Western Apaches before and just after the various agencies and sub-agencies were established. It also includes extensive commentary on weapons and traditions, with Apache words and phrases translated and complete annotation.