ABSTRACT
A recent study of Western Apache assessments of AngloAmericans (Basso 1979) describes in detail the joking behavior of the Southern Arizonan Apache. It seems that ‘Whitemen’ find their way into a good many Apache jokes, which Apaches use as a vehicle to consider the minute interactional detail which typically occurs in their everyday relations with whites. In the scenes the Apache jokers stage, Western Apaches invariably get ‘run over’ by Anglo-Americans, whose forward and aggressive style shows little sensitivity to the more silent presence of the Apaches (Basso 1979: 55). Through these mimes the Apaches hold up typical Anglo-American behavior to public satire and criticism.
