Apache Gaan Exhibit by Gordon Lewis

Apache Gaan by Gordon Lewis, Yavapai-Apache. Four figures represent the cardinal directions, while the center Messenger or Clown carries a bull-roarer associated with Thunder and the laughter of the spirits.

Five figures in the Museum of Indigenous People introduce visitors to a living Apache tradition. Created by Gordon Lewis, identified on the museum label as Yavapai-Apache, Apache Gaan depicts four Mountain Spirit dancers connected with the cardinal directions and a fifth figure known in English as the Messenger or Clown. Together, they open a larger story about healing, responsibility, federal efforts to suppress Native ceremonies, and the Apache people who kept the dance alive.

The figures stand on individual wooden bases, but Lewis designed them to be read as a group. Bent knees and extended arms give them a sense of movement. Tall painted crowns rise above four of the dancers, while the center figure wears a smaller crown and carries a bull-roarer.

According to the museum’s Sacred Colors panel, the colors used on the figures are sacred to the Apache and correspond to the four cardinal directions. Black represents East, green or blue represents South, yellow represents West, and white represents North. Lewis repeats these colors across the crowns and other painted elements, visually connecting the four Mountain Spirit figures with the directions they embody.

These details are not simply decorative. They identify relationships and responsibilities within the dance. Lewis’s work asks the visitor to look beyond costume and spectacle and to recognize a ceremonial tradition grounded in Apache knowledge.

The Mountain Spirits and the Five Dancers

Gaan, also written Ga'an in some English-language sources, refers to powerful Mountain Spirits within Apache traditions. The Apache-led Apache Crown Dancers describe the Crown Dance as a ceremony of healing, blessing, and protection. Their public account explains that the Creator sent the Mountain Spirits to teach Apache people how to live in harmony.

The dance commonly brings together five male dancers. Four represent the Mountain Spirits and the four cardinal directions. Their crowns, body paint, and painted wooden swords carry symbols connected to animals, spirits, and the natural world. Drum and song guide their movement.

The fifth dancer holds a different responsibility. Often called the Messenger or Clown in English, he can be frightening, unpredictable, and funny. He may challenge harmful forces while teaching through surprise and laughter. In Lewis’s sculptural group, the center figure holds a bull-roarer, a thin object attached to a cord that makes a low, vibrating sound when swung. The museum label connects that sound with Thunder and the laughter of the spirits.

Apache communities do not all explain or present the dance in exactly the same way. Some knowledge belongs within the community and is not meant for public interpretation. The museum display offers an introduction to what Apache cultural practitioners have chosen to share. It is not a substitute for ceremonial knowledge or for the authority of Apache people to decide how their traditions are represented.

Gordon Lewis: Art Grounded in Community Knowledge

The Museum of Indigenous People identifies Gordon Lewis as Yavapai-Apache. Public event records also describe him as an Apache singer, storyteller, teacher, and participant in Crown Dance presentations.

At the 2014 Pueblo Grande Indian Market, Lewis appeared with five Apache Crown Dancers. After the presentation, the group explained the Mountain Spirits, the four crowns, the drum, and some of the materials used in the dancers’ regalia. A 2016 Phoenix event described Lewis as a traditional Apache singer and storyteller who taught hand-drum building with his brother, Andrew Ecker Lipan.

That background matters when viewing Apache Gaan. Lewis was not treating the dancers as characters from a distant past. His figures come from knowledge carried through music, dance, storytelling, teaching, and community participation. The work preserves the shape of a ceremonial group while pointing beyond the museum case to a tradition that remains active.

This is one reason the display belongs within MIP’s larger commitment to presenting Indigenous cultures as living cultures. The museum’s permanent collections connect historical materials with contemporary Indigenous art and voices. Lewis’s figures do the same. They carry history, but they also direct attention toward the people who continue the tradition today.

When Federal Policy Tried to Silence Native Ceremony

The history of the Gaan Dance is sometimes reduced to a simple statement: the United States banned the ceremony, and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act restored it in 1978. That shorthand is inaccurate. Federal policy changed at several points, while Apache people sustained the tradition through the years when government officials tried to suppress it.

In 1883, the U.S. Department of the Interior established rules commonly known as the Code of Indian Offenses. The Department’s 1883 Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs introduced the Courts of Indian Offenses and included the rules under which they operated. The policy treated Native religions, dances, and systems of cultural authority as barriers to forced assimilation.

The courts, working within the federal reservation agency system, were authorized to punish certain ceremonies and the work of traditional religious leaders. Penalties could include the withholding of food rations, fines, hard labor, and imprisonment. A recent National Park Service historical study describes the code as an effort to outlaw Native religious ceremonies and cultural traditions.

The rules did not name every Apache ceremony, and enforcement varied from one reservation and time period to another. Even so, their purpose was clear. Federal officials claimed the power to decide which Native beliefs could be practiced and which gatherings could take place. Missionary pressure, boarding schools, surveillance, and later agency orders added to the effort to replace Indigenous religious and social life with government-approved practices.

Apache people did not simply abandon their beliefs because outside officials demanded it. Like many Native communities, families and cultural leaders protected knowledge, continued practices away from public view, and taught the next generation. The history is therefore not one of disappearance. It is a history of survival under pressure.

1934, 1978, and the Return to Public Practice

Federal policy began to change on January 3, 1934, when Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier issued Circular No. 2970, Indian Religious Freedom and Indian Culture. The circular directed agency officials to stop interfering with Native religious life and ceremonial expression.

The National Library of Medicine’s Native Voices project describes the policy as opening the way for the public renewal of practices that many communities had continued privately despite earlier prohibitions.

That change did not erase the damage caused by decades of suppression. It also did not guarantee that every local official, school, museum, or other institution would immediately respect Native religious freedom. It did, however, mark an important break with the federal government’s earlier campaign against Indigenous ceremony.

Congress took another step on August 11, 1978, when it enacted the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. The law declared it federal policy to protect and preserve the inherent right of Native people to believe, express, and practice their traditional religions. It specifically recognized access to sacred places, the use and possession of sacred objects, and freedom to worship through ceremonies and traditional rites. The act also required federal agencies to review their policies in consultation with Native religious leaders.

The 1978 law was an important national acknowledgment, but it did not bring an extinct dance back to life. Apache people had already carried the tradition through the years when public practice could invite punishment or interference. The law helped remove federal barriers and gave Native communities a stronger basis for challenging government restrictions. The survival of the dance, however, belonged to the people who protected it.

Revival Was Also Continuity

Today, Apache Crown Dancers continue to appear at Tribal gatherings and, when communities choose, at public cultural and educational events. PBS LearningMedia’s program with the White Mountain Apache Crown Dancers and group leader Joe Tohonnie Jr. helps viewers understand the dance’s history and continuing cultural role. Apache-led groups also explain that selected public presentations can teach audiences while supporting cultural preservation.

These appearances became an important part of the dance’s public renewal. They allow Apache groups to teach audiences, strengthen cultural pride, and show that the tradition remains alive. They also reflect decisions made within Apache communities about what parts of the tradition they choose to share publicly.

The Gaan Dance became more visible as federal restrictions changed, but its life did not begin again in 1934 or 1978. Its return to public spaces rests on a deeper continuity maintained within Apache communities.

Apache Gaan by Gordon Lewis, What These Figures Carry Forward

Lewis’s five figures bring those histories together. The four directional dancers and the Messenger or Clown represent a ceremonial relationship centered on healing, balance, instruction, and protection. Their presence also recalls the era when the United States tried to criminalize Native religious life and the generations who refused to let that policy decide the future of their traditions.

Seen this way, Apache Gaan is not a miniature record of something that has passed away. It is a work by an Apache artist about living cultural knowledge. The figures carry movement even while standing still, and they point beyond the display toward the dancers, singers, families, and cultural leaders who continue to give the tradition life.

That understanding reflects the Museum of Indigenous People’s mission and stewardship. Indigenous history does not end when an object enters a collection. It continues through Native artists, communities, governments, languages, and ceremonies in the present. Visitors can explore more of that living story at the museum in Prescott and through MIP’s articles.

Sources and Further Reading

• Apache Crown Dancers, “The Apache Crown Dance”

• PBS LearningMedia, “About Apache Dances | Native American Culture”

• U.S. Department of the Interior, “Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1883”

• National Park Service, “Federal Indian Boarding Schools Nationwide Historic Context Study”

• University of North Dakota, “Rules Governing the Court of Indian Offenses”

• Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, “Circular No. 2970: Indian Religious Freedom and Indian Culture”

• National Library of Medicine, Native Voices, “1934: Commissioner Calls for Religious Freedom for American Indians”

• GovInfo, “42 U.S.C. § 1996: Protection and Preservation of Traditional Religions of Native Americans”

• Congress.gov, “American Indian Religious Freedom, Public Law 95-341”

• U.S. Indian Affairs, “Final Report on Indian Religious Freedom Task Force”

• Pueblo Grande Indian Market, “Gordon Lewis and the Apache Crown Dancers”

• Phoenix New Times, “Native American Hand Drum Building”