Don't Let the Sun Step Over You: A White Mountain Apache Family Life, 1860–1975

by Eva Tulene Watt, Keith H. Basso (Primary Contributor)

When the Apache wars ended in the late nineteenth century, a harsh and harrowing time began for the Western Apache people. Living under the authority of nervous Indian agents, pitiless government-school officials, and menacing mounted police, they knew that resistance to American authority would be foolish. But some Apache families did resist in the most basic way they could: they resolved to endure. Although Apache history has inspired numerous works by non-Indian authors, Apache people themselves have been reluctant to comment at length on their own past. Eva Tulene Watt, born in 1913, now shares the story of her family from the time of the Apache wars to the modern era. Her narrative presents a view of history that differs fundamentally from conventional approaches, which have almost nothing to say about the daily lives of Apache men and women, their values and social practices, and the singular abilities that enabled them to survive. In a voice that is spare, factual, and unflinchingly direct, Mrs. Watt reveals how the Western Apaches carried on in the face of poverty, hardship, and disease. Her interpretation of her people’s past is a diverse assemblage of recounted events, biographical sketches, and cultural descriptions that bring to life a vanished time and the men and women who lived it to the fullest. We share her and her family’s travels and troubles. We learn how the Apache people struggled daily to find work, shelter, food, health, laughter, solace, and everything else that people in any community seek. Richly illustrated with more than 50 photographs, Don’t Let the Sun Step Over You is a rare and remarkable book that affords a view of the past that few have seen before—a wholly Apache view, unsettling yet uplifting, which weighs upon the mind and educates the heart.

368 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1904

Reviews

[Mary June-el · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, I'm biased (I helped with production of this book) but this is the best book I've ever worked on. The format is short stories so you can read in order or jump around. The academic stuff (historic context) is all in the endnotes so you can just read the stories and enjoy. Between family photos and historic photos, you'll get a visual glimpse into the lives of Western Apaches in the 19th and 20th centuries. Mrs. Watt is gone now, but she was a fantastic storyteller. These are the REAL stories of Apaches, and she even mentions Geronimo!

[Reannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a amazing book because it tells about how it was back in the day about a apache women , about how life was compared to now. How my Apache people were treated , and how they survived off the land. I would rate this book a 10/10 it makes you wanna keep reading and reading to find out what happens next. I suggest you read this book so you can get educated on apache people it’s a heart touching book and after I read this book it made me proud to be a apache. So if you wanna know more about apache people then read this book .

[River James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hear the way it was in their own words. Globe, AZ 2007.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is just such an important book. Eva Watt tells the tales of her family; most of it is what she lived. How many books tell the story of life as a White Mountain Apache in the twentieth century? As the reader, you hear an authentic voice. You become embroiled in family life on the reservation. You learn how to tame a wild horse. You learn how to educate your children without them being shipped away from you. Eva tells her life and the lives of her brothers. I loved this book.

[Red Haircrow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-reading “Don’t Let the Sun Step Over You“, the collected stories by Eva Tulene Watt assisted by Keith Basso made me write my mother and say, “Tell me a story”…and she did. She did, and it was good! If you’ve read the work, you’ll know why I add emphasis just so in the previous sentence. And why I wanted to hear from my mother about our people, our cousins, our family, about the past that touches the present and the future. The stories she was told or the things she observed.

Re-reading “Don’t Let the Sun Step Over You” made me want to hear songs. Made me want to hear songs I’d never heard before in this life and songs I already knew. One of them was “I’ve Been Around”, a popular Apache song that somehow voices all those stories of the hardworking, big-hearted, fierce, gentle, humorous, resilient, pragmatic, whimsical and wise Apache. “They’re always walking, walking, going around and doing things. They worked hard!”

I hear my ggrandmother’s voice again, and the stories she told and tried to tell us even when we weren’t listening, only halfway or transfixed cause they seemed light, even funny, but were deep. Stories when she was cooking or cleaning or working or chasing us (me!) with a switch when I had done something she directly told me not to do but I did it anyway because I was stubborn and/or curious.

Stories tell you why you should do things or why not to do other things. They give you purpose. They give you hope. They help you remember why you’re here now, right this very minute and not just what our ancestors endured. Stories help explain why they are important, to be kept, and remembered so our children understand and know. Some stories are shared with non-family, not-of our People, but others are special. Knowing them helps you understand why we defend them and how when someone copies you, culturally appropriates, or takes and changes your stories into their fantasies, these critically important parts of your culture and identity, it is beyond offensive but also really hurtful. Painful. That they do not care, that they make excuses, rationalize or say its just “fantasy” or “honoring” you is even worse. It’s terrible for native identities and cultures.

Some do think they are honoring but obviously they’ve never read or really interacted in depth with native cultures or peoples. If they really knew/learned true history, not just the stuff written by mostly non-natives however expert the “world” thinks they are…if they really knew, they wouldn’t do it. They would understand. They would be respectful and learn without trying to “become” what they study or explore, or fantasize native “stories” into entertainment a.k.a. money-making schemes that boost their own image of themselves, positively reinforcing their centuries long mendacity.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Neat, the story of White Mountain Apache life from the late 1800s into the 1970s. The language is terrific; it reads like being spoken to. The narrator says of her mother that "It seemed to me that she looked at each corn--each one, row by row--and she knew it. She knew each plant like it was a person and she treated it that way. But nowadays, it seems like to me, very few people do that." ( p 167)

[Kristen]

Life story and cultural stories of an Apache woman. Fascinating.