The ancestors of the American Indians known as the Apaches, who call themselves the Inde, are believed by scholars to have migrated south from western Canada around 1200 A.D. They left behind the forebears of such tribes as the Carrier and Chipewyan Indians, all of whom are classified in the Athapascan language family.
Traveling along the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountain cordillera, these Apache ancestors eventually settled on the western edge of the Great Plains. Living in skin tepees and hunting buffalo afoot, they composed one of the largest prehorse Plains Indian cultures. In 1541 Spanish explorers observed them in what is now eastern New Mexico and western Texas.
As the Plains population bulged westward, fed by the collapse of the prehistoric Cahokia culture of the Mississippi River Valley and the advent of European settlement on the Atlantic coast, the Apaches also migrated west, though the band now known as the Kiowa Apaches stayed behind in territory later called Kansas. Known as the Tanima, or "liver eaters," the Kiowa Apaches became the bane of American settlers, fighting fiercely to defend their land. Their descendants live on the Kiowa-Apache reservation in Oklahoma.
The band known today as the Lipan Apaches also remained on the Plains. Early in the seventeenth century, as their fellow tribesmen migrated into New Mexico, the Lipans chose to remain in what is today south-central Texas. Primarily hunter-gatherers, the Lipans were accomplished Buffalo hunters, seasonally breaking down into two subgroups to maximize their kill. Following the hunt, the Lipans reorganized into small extended family groups. Led by respected headmen, each matrilocal family functioned autonomously until the next buffalo hunt or until threatened by their traditional enemies, the Comanches. The Lipans were deeply tied to their homeland, and were known to roll on the ground in reverence upon returning to their own territory. Modern descendants of the Lipans can be found in Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico.
Closely related to the Lipans were the Jicarilla Apaches, "the little basket makers," who chose to push west into what is today northern New Mexico. Though extended matrilocal families formed the basic unit of social organization, the Jicarillas broke down into two subgroups for ceremonial purposes. Those living east of the Rio Grande were known as the Llaneros, or "Plains people." Those living west of the Rio Grande were known as the Olleros, or "potters." Contrary to the theories of modern anthropologists, the Jicarillas believe they originally emerged from beneath the earth at a sacred site thought to be near Taos, New Mexico, or San Juan, Colorado. The Pueblo culture of New Mexico heavily influenced the Jicarillas. It is believed that they adopted their ritual relay race from the Pueblos, and imitated the Pueblo agricultural complex. The Jicarillas cleared fields, cut irrigation ditches, built dams, and cultivated crops on family plots.
While the Kiowa Apaches and Lipans developed ceremonial curing rites to ensure their survival on the dangerous Plains, the Jicarillas' spirituality focused on hunt medicine, to guarantee success while hunting far to the east of their homeland. Unlike other Apaches, the Jicarillas caught and ate fish as part of their diet. But it was the women's labor in gathering edible food that provided the mainstay of the Jicarillas' diet. Jicarilla women found ample time to devote to food gathering because their social organization accented the grandparent-grandchild relationship, freeing middle-aged women from the day to day rigors of raising children.
Scholars classify the Kiowa-Apaches, the Lipans, and the Jicarilla Apaches as the eastern group of the southern Athapascans. The Mescaleros, Chiricahuas, and Western Apaches comprise the western group of southern Athapascans, along with the closely related Navajo tribe. While the Jicarillas migrated to northern New Mexico, to land they still maintain as a reservation, the Mescaleros settled in south-central New Mexico, where their reservation was still located in the early 2000s.
The Spanish first observed the Mescaleros in 1653, calling them the Faraones (pharaohs). Secure in permanent villages in the Sierra Blanca Mountains, the Mescaleros maintained close relations with the Jicarillas, sometimes intermarrying with them. Also at times they aided the Lipans in their struggle against the Comanches. With less access to the Plains than the Lipans and Jicarillas, the Mescalero food complex centered on venison and natural harvests, most especially the mescal cactus, for which they were later named. In relation to certain ceremonies, the Mescaleros occasionally ate mountain lion and bear. Though seasonal nomads, extended matrilocal families regularly settled in wickiup villages to repair hunting and farming implements and sit out severe winter weather.
Southwest of the Mescaleros, the Chiricahuas inhabited the mountains of present-day southern Arizona and northern Mexico. Masters of their rugged mountain strongholds, the Chiricahuas scourged the Spanish to the south, and raided the Piman-speaking peoples to the west. By 1790, allied with the Lipan and Mescalero Apaches, the three Chiricahua subbands, the Chokonens, Chihennes, and Nednai, formed an impenetrable barrier to encroaching Spaniards. Despite their strength, Americans eventually defeated the Chiricahuas, exiling them to Florida. Not until the twentieth century did they find an adopted home with the Mescaleros.
North of the Chiricahuas lived the largest Apache band, the Western Apaches, composed of twenty subbands, of which the White Mountain Apaches were most numerous. An overarching matrilineal clan system linked the various subbands of the Western Apache, creating an enduring net of obligatory clan bonds and obligations. While they were the most agricultural of the Apache bands, the Western Apaches also raided deep into Mexico. They avoided the Chiricahuas, with whom they occasionally intermarried. The Western Apaches aided the Americans in their fight against the Chiricahuas, however, strengthening their hold on their own homeland, where they still lived in the early 2000s.
By the time Americans arrived in the Southwest, an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 Apaches controlled an area of the Southwest one thousand miles east to west and five hundred miles north to south, from mountaintops to the desert floor. It took the Americans almost forty years before they could be confident of their authority in what had previously been Apacheria.
Bibliography
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Bender, Averam Burton. A Study of Western Apache Indians, 1846–1886. New York: Garland, 1974.
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—Victoria A. O. Smith
