The Chiricahua Apache Nation has been, from our origins with White Painted Woman, matriarchal, matrilineal, and matrilocal. From White Painted Woman down through every Chiricahua woman comes the ultimate source of power and authority. Chiricahua Mothers have the ultimate responsibility for the spiritual well-being of the Chiricahua. Our structure of organization and authority flows through our Mothers, as does the root of our lineage. Our sense of place is tied to our Mothers–those that birthed us, and those that birthed them, and those who bear our children and grandchildren and raise them. On marriage, Chiricahua men leave our families to become part of the family of Chiricahua women. Family traditions, the circle of life and all that awaits in the circle, rites of passage to womanhood, our understandings of the need to work hard and to change and embrace change and to be strong, and many ceremonies are grounded in White Painted Woman and her teachings and of the Mothers who carry on her lineage and wisdom.