Barbara A. McCabe, the Aache Cultural Resource Specialist for the Yavapai-Apache Nation, kicked off the Sedona Heritage Museum’s fall “Sedona Stories” on Thursday, Oct. 9.
“My grandparents were very good to us, they were loving, kind and caring, they took care of us and taught us. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be here telling you things today,” McCabe said. “I learned the value of life and what it can give to us and why we should respect one another … the plant life we use every day you give it respect to everything and anything that was created by the almighty our Creator has a purpose and a reason.
“We have stories. I wish we could be able to just go through [my culture] but it doesn’t work that way, it’s something that comes from your upbringing and your family.”
Born on May 27, 1943, at the San Carlos Indian Hospital, McCabe was raised by her grandparents on the San Carlos Reservation. She attended grade school in San Carlos, junior high in Globe and high school at the Phoenix Indian School before earning her degree from Window Rock High Scho ol on the Navajo Nation.
McCabe traces her maternal family roots to Clarkdale and is a member of the Apache clan K’aib Taa Ilnago’tela, the Willow People clan.
“I’ve been working for [YAN] since 2016 as a resource specialist, mainly because of my upbringing, which is totally the old Apache way of life,” McCabe said. “Not a whole lot of people can say that today, especially in the Camp Verde and Clarkdale area. That’s where the culture program comes in. We’re available to help anybody that wants to learn how to speak, how to make this craft, this food, that’s my responsibility.”
McCabe wrote she continues to draw inspiration from her grandfather’s words, passed down to her in childhood: “To always remember who she is, where she comes from and to never forget her language.”
As of Oct. 6, she announced her promotion to Dilzhé’e Apache culture director, a position previously held by the late Vincent Randall, who passed away on Dec. 16, 2023. McCabe said YAN Tribal Archaeologist Chris Coder also died earlier this year, on Feb. 22.
“[Coder] began work with Yavapai-Apache Nation as tribal archaeologist in the late 1990s; he was with the Nation until his death and had become deeply connected there,” his obituary reads. “He uncovered and made sense of the complex history of the Nation through archival research, oral history, and archaeology, and he counted as a major success the completion of a 25-year process to [effect] a land exchange, paving the way for a water settlement-crucial to the future of the Nation.”
The YAN is made up of members of the Yavapai and Apache peoples and has “lost a lot in the way of culture and tradition and mainly in the language area,” McCabe said. “More recently, since I’ve been living in the area, they’ve lost a lot of elders. I remember when I first came to work with Mr. Randall, there were like 13, 14 elders that made up an advisory board for the community. Anyone in the community could come to these elders and say, ‘this is what’s going on. How do we deal with it in our traditional way?’ These people would be there to help them and guide them.”
However, currently there are only two or three elders older then McCabe, she noted, which makes cultural preservation a challenge.
In 2023, however, the YAN took a major step toward cultural preservation by launching a digital dictionary of both the Yavapai and Apache languages. The project, created in partnership with the nonprofit Language Conservancy and supported by a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, aims to help tribal members learn and preserve their native tongues.
SHM’s next free Sedona Stories presentation is Thursday, Nov. 13, at 10 a.m. with Sedona Sister Cities Association board member Don Groves discussing the group’s history and the naming of Canmore, Alberta, Canada as Sedona’s first sister city. Additionally SHM’s annual Veterans Day Tribute with the city of Sedona is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, Nov. 11, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the historic Apple Shed at the museum in Uptown
