APACHE

On hearing the name Apache, pronounced uh-PATCH-ee, many people think of the chief Geronimo, along with the warlike nature of the tribe. Throughout most of their history, the Apache raided other tribes for food and booty. The ZUNI, who feared them, gave them the name apachu, meaning “enemy.” The Apache also stubbornly resisted Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo-American expansion. But there was of course much more to Apache culture than warfare. Like all Indian peoples, the Apache had a well-defined society and a complex mythology. Different versions of the Apache native name include Tineh (Tinneh), Tinde, Dini, Inde (N’de), Deman, and Haisndayin for “the people.”

The Apache ancestral homeland was located on the region of North America referred to as the Southwest Culture Area, and they are classified as SOUTHWEST INDIANS. The numerous Apache bands roamed far and wide in this region—territory that now includes much of New Mexico and Arizona, as well as northern Mexico, western Texas, southern Colorado, western Oklahoma, and southern Kansas.

The various Apache peoples migrated to the Southwest later than other Indians. Before Europeans reached North America, Athapascan-speaking bands broke off from other ATHAPASCANS in present-day western Canada and migrated southward, probably in about 1400 (although some scholars have theorized as early as 850), and became known as the Apache. Other Athapascans who migrated to the region became known as the NAVAJO.

The Apache can be organized by dialects into the following groups, each made up of various bands: San Carlos, Aravaipa, White Mountain, Northern Tonto, Southern Tonto, and Cibecue in Arizona; Chiricahua and Mimbreno in Arizona and New Mexico; Mescalero in New Mexico and Mexico; Lipan in Texas and Mexico; Jicarilla in New Mexico and Colorado; and Kiowa-Apache in Oklahoma. Members of these different groups intermarried or were placed together on reservations by non-Indians later in their history, altering the various subdivisions. For example, the San Carlos and White Mountain groups, sometimes together called the Western Apache (along with the San Carlos subgroup, the Aravaipa, as well as the Cibecue and Tonto), came to include members from other more easterly groups, such as the Chiricahua and Mimbreno.