Gahe (Mountain Spirits)
The Gahe (Gaan in Western Apache) are the Mountain Spirits, powerful supernatural beings in Apache tradition who live inside sacred mountains. They appear as masked dancers wearing distinctive tall wooden-slat headdresses with black-and-white body paint and black buckskin kilts. The Gahe ceremony is central to the Girls' Puberty Ceremony (Sunrise Ceremony), the longest and richest Apache ritual. Four Mountain Spirits typically dance together with a clown figure, moving in syncopated rhythm to si