Apache

The Spanish first used the term Apachu de Nabajo (Navajo) in the 1620s, referring to people in the Chama region east of the San Juan River.

Willem de Reuse finds linguistic evidence supporting only three major groupings: White Mountain, San Carlos, and Dilzhe'e (Tonto).

In a detailed study of New Mexico Catholic Church records, David M. Brugge identifies 15 tribal names that the Spanish used to refer to the Apache.

[26] In 1719, French explorer Jean Baptiste Bénard de La Harpe encountered the Lipan Apache near what is now Latimer County, Oklahoma.

[26] Some Lipan people were moved further east, into present day Louisiana, largely through enslavement of women & children[27][28][29] by Caddo tribes and French Settlers.

Upon gaining their freedom, they settled in the same area, present day St. Martin (Prairie Marron) & Lafayette Parishes (Bayou Tortue), along the Vermilion (aka "Red") River.

Other names for them include Ná'įįsha, Ná'ęsha, Na'isha, Na'ishandine, Na-i-shan-dina, Na-ishi, Na-e-ca, Ną'ishą́, Nadeicha, Nardichia, Nadíisha-déna, Na'dí'į́shą́ʼ, Nądí'įįshąą, and Naisha.

[citation needed] In April 1541, while traveling on the plains east of the Pueblo region, Francisco Coronado referred to the people as "dog nomads."

Recent experiments show these dogs may have pulled loads up to 50 pounds (20 kg) on long trips, at rates as high as two or three miles per hour (3 to 5 km/h).

[citation needed] Although the first documentary sources mention the Apache, and historians have suggested some passages indicate a 16th-century entry from the north, archaeological data indicate they were present on the plains long before this first reported contact.

[citation needed] In general, the recently arrived Spanish colonists, who settled in villages, and Apache bands developed a pattern of interaction over a few centuries.

By 1856, authorities in horse-rich Durango would claim that Indian raids (mostly Comanche and Apache) in their state had taken nearly 6,000 lives, abducted 748 people, and forced the abandonment of 358 settlements over the previous 20 years.

These have often been distorted through misunderstanding of their cultures, as noted by anthropologist Keith Basso: Of the hundreds of peoples that lived and flourished in native North America, few have been so consistently misrepresented as the Apacheans of Arizona and New Mexico.

Glorified by novelists, sensationalized by historians, and distorted beyond credulity by commercial film makers, the popular image of 'the Apache'—a brutish, terrifying semi-human bent upon wanton death and destruction—is almost entirely a product of irresponsible caricature and exaggeration.

Most United States' histories of this era report that the final defeat of an Apache band took place when 5,000 US troops forced Geronimo's group of 30 to 50 men, women and children to surrender on September 4, 1886, at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona.

Although the Western Apache usually practiced matrilocal residence, sometimes the eldest son chose to bring his wife to live with his parents after marriage.

The most elaborate system was among the Chiricahua, where men had to use indirect polite speech toward and were not allowed to be within visual sight of the wife's female relatives, whom he had to avoid.

The notion of a tribe within Apache cultures is very weakly developed; essentially it was only a recognition "that one owed a modicum of hospitality to those of the same speech, dress, and customs.

Additionally, there are two terms for a parent's opposite-sex sibling depending on sex: -daʼá̱á̱ "maternal uncle (mother's brother)", -béjéé "paternal aunt (father's sister).

Below is a description of Chiricahua wickiups recorded by anthropologist Morris Opler: The home in which the family lives is made by the women and is ordinarily a circular, dome-shaped brush dwelling, with the floor at ground level.

For waterproofing, pieces of hide are thrown over the outer hatching, and in rainy weather, if a fire is not needed, even the smoke hole is covered.

When we settled down, we used the wickiup; when we were moving around a great deal, we used this other kind ...[48]Recent research has documented the archaeological remains of Chiricahua Apache wickiups as found on protohistoric and at historical sites, such as Canon de los Embudos where C. S. Fly photographed Geronimo, his people, and dwellings during surrender negotiations in 1886, demonstrating their unobtrusive and improvised nature.

Other game includes bighorn sheep, buffalo (for those living closer to the plains), cottontail rabbits, elk, horses, mules, opossums, pronghorn, wild steers, and wood rats.

Other game included beaver, bighorn sheep, chief hares, chipmunks, doves, groundhogs, grouse, peccaries, porcupines, prairie dogs, quail, rabbits, skunks, snow birds, squirrels, turkeys and wood rats.

Other animals included beavers, bighorns, black bears, burros, ducks, elk, fish, horses, mountain lions, mourning doves, mules, prairie dogs, pronghorns, quail, rabbits, squirrels, turkeys, turtles, and wood rats.

Other plants used by the Chiricahua include: agarita (or algerita) berries, alligator juniper berries, anglepod seeds, banana yucca (or datil, broadleaf yucca) fruit, chili peppers, chokecherries, cota (used for tea), currants, dropseed grass seeds, Gambel oak acorns, Gambel oak bark (used for tea), grass seeds (of various varieties), greens (of various varieties), hawthorne fruit, Lamb's-quarters leaves, lip ferns (used for tea), live oak acorns, locust blossoms, locust pods, maize kernels (used for tiswin), and mesquite beans.

The abundant agave (mescal) was also important to the Mescalero,[note 3] who gathered the crowns in late spring after reddish flower stalks appeared.

Other plants include: acorns, agarita berries, amole stalks (roasted and peeled), aspen inner bark (used as a sweetener), bear grass stalks (roasted and peeled), box elder inner bark (used as a sweetener), banana yucca fruit, banana yucca flowers, box elder sap (used as a sweetener), cactus fruits (of various varieties), cattail rootstocks, chokecherries, currants, dropseed grass seeds (used for flatbread), elderberries, gooseberries (Ribes leptanthum and R. pinetorum), grapes, hackberries, hawthorne fruit, and hops (used as condiment).

Sandpainting is an important ceremony in the Navajo, Western Apache, and Jicarilla traditions, in which healers create temporary, sacred art from colored sands.

Other linguists, particularly Michael Krauss (1973), have noted that a classification based only on the initial consonants of noun and verb stems is arbitrary and when other sound correspondences are considered the relationships between the languages appear more complex.