The Holy Ground Church Among the Yavapai Indians

FAIN: FT-13881-78

Sigrid M. Khera
Unaffiliated independent scholar

To investigate the role of the Holy Ground Church (founded by the Western Apache medicine man Silas John Edward in 1920) as a force among the Yavapai Indians in the 1920s. The Holy Ground Church was ardently accepted by the Yavapai, following a period of external pressures to remove them from their reservation, loss of political leadership and severe population losses, and led to reintegration of their society. Main emphasis of study will be on a qualitative analysis of symbols, rituals, and moral code of the new religion.