Apache notes
SIMPLE SOLUTION:
May the sun
bring you new energy
by day.
May the moon
softly restore you by night.
May the
rain
wash away your worries.
May the breeze
blow new
strength into your being.
May you walk
gently through the world
and know
its beauty all the days of your life.
Forced into the desert southwest of New Mexico
and Arizona, this nomadic tribe survived by following wild game, hunting mainly
buffalo and deer, and gathering wild fruits. They used dogs, and later horses,
as pack animals and lived in buffalo or deerskin teepees or wickiups
— short, rounded huts made of twigs and mud — which could be moved
easily and quickly.
Known for being physically tough, the Apache were
forced into becoming fierce fighters as Europeans advanced into their lands.
The Apache turned to raiding in order to survive when New Mexico became a
Spanish colony. With colonists using Apache resources, stealing goods and
livestock and reselling it became the tribe's only means for survival. The
Apaches fought bitterly for their land and were defeated by the U.S. military
in the Indian Wars of 1848. Upon defeat, the Apaches were forced into
reservations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache
http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/living/tourism/47819462.html
http://www.crystalinks.com/apache.html
http://www.ehow.com/about_4568474_apache-dress.html
http://www.ehow.com/way_5421035_apache-indian-crafts.html
http://www.ehow.com/about_4566267_apache-sweat-lodge.html
The Apache dwellings consisted of a dome shaped
frame of cottonwood or other poles, thatched with grass. The house itself was
termed, "Kowa" and the grass thatch, "Pi".
They pitched tentlike dwellings made of brush or hide, called 'wikiups'.
The wickiup was the most common shelter of the Apache. The dome shaped lodge
was constructed of wood poles covered with brush, grass, or reed mats. It
contained a fire pit and a smoke hole for a chimney. The Jicarillas and
Kiowa-Apaches, which roamed the Plains, used buffalo hide tepees. The basic
shelter of the Chiricahua was the domeshaped wickiup made of brush.
Apache Warrior ~ Yenin
Guy
It was created in 1903 by
Edward S. Curtis.
The picture presents a
stunning depiction of an Apache Warrior.
He is wearing a
traditional bandana, and has two feathers in his hair.
He also has a shield.
The man has a somewhat
sad look in his eye, possibly thinking about days gone bye.
In some ways he reminds
me of images of Geronimo
The Pollera of
Panama is one of the most beautiful and admired indigenous costumes of the
Americas. It is believed to have been adapted from gypsy dresses worn in Spain
at the time of the conquest of Peru and brought to Panama by the
servants of those who colonized the country. The hair ornaments, called tembliques,
are embellished with pearls and gold and are worn on top of the head like a
crown. They are part of a young lady's
dowry.
The Apache Jingle Dress
is trimmed with tin dangles as well as beading. It gets its name because the
trim jingles with every movement the wearer makes, walking or dancing. This
costume is a very fine, old, authentic example of a puberty dress. The puberty
rites for the young Indian girls last three days. They also wear their dresses
later to compete in dance competitions at powwows.
Apache Native Americans:
The Apache culture originated in Canada
but most migrated
to the American Great Plains. Some of the
Apache Indian
Bands settled in Texas, and several
settled in Arizona and
New Mexico.
Apaches were organized into bands that
traveled, hunted
and fought together. The Apaches were
skilled horsemen
and often teamed up when hunting buffalo.
Lipan Apaches
were also farmers which was very unusual
for Apaches.
Women also rode horses. See 1840 photo
taken at San Carlos Reservation below.
Apaches were a migratory, horse culture
which were
divided into multiple decentralized bands.
At times,
they had good trade relations with
Mexicans and Pueblos.
Mescalero had been rounded up
(frequently) and held (infrequently) at the Bosque Redondo of Fort
Sumner, New Mexico, since 1865, although
army agents in charge of them continually complained
that they came and went with alarming
frequency. Four centuries of almost constant conflict and
decimation by disease along with the loss
of the land base that had sustained them all combined to
reduce the Mescalero to a pitiful few by
the time their reservation was established.
The late 1870s through the teens of the
twentieth Century was a particularly difficult time,
because of inadequate food, shelter, and
clothing. Despite their own suffering, they accepted their
"relatives," first the Lipan
and later the Chiricahua, onto their reservation. By the 1920s there was
a small but significant improvement in
the standard of living, although attempts at making Mescalero
farmers have never succeeded. The 1934
Indian Reorganization Act found the Mescalero eager and
fully able to assume control over their
own lives, a fight they still wage through the courts today on
issues of land use, water rights, legal
jurisdiction, and wardship. Although the arena of the fight for
survival has moved from horseback to a
Tribal plane that makes frequent trips to Washington, the
Apache are still formidable foes.
The Apaches are well-known for their
superior skills in
warfare strategy and inexhaustible
endurance. Continuous
wars among other tribes and invaders from
Mexico
followed the Apaches' growing reputation
of warlike
character. When they confronted Coronado
in 1540,
they lived in eastern New Mexico, and
reached Arizona
in the 1600s. The Apache are described as
a gentle
people; faithful in their friendship.
The Apache attained their greatest fame
as guerrilla fighters defending their mountainous
homelands under the Chiricahua leaders Cochise,
Geronimo, Mangas Coloradus, Victorio, and Juh.
Apache Indian Jewelry
The Apache tribe is perhaps best known
for its amazing
variety of jewelry designs. The tribe was
renowned for mastery in silversmithing
which they
employed to create unique jewelry
designs. Silver
was the medium of choice when it came to
jewelry.
They would incorporate the use of some
exquisite
precious stones such as lapis lazuli and
Jade to
create some brilliant work of jewelry.
The designs
were inspired by historical symbols that
held great
significance amongst the tribe members.
The Western Apache of Arizona have a
beadwork tradition
that extends back at least to the middle
of the nineteenth
century. Beadwork is not a craft commonly
associated with
Above: Apache women wearing jewelry.
Southwestern Indian tribes, who are best
known for their pottery, basketry and textiles.
However, the Western Apache clothing (San
Carlos, Arizona), styles were sewn with beadwork
resembling that of tribes of the Southern
Plains and Great Basin.
The Eastern Apaches-Jicarilla, Lipan,
Kiowa and Mescalero-as well as the Chiricahua were all
beadmakers as well. The Jicarilla, Lipan
and Kiowa have a style very similar to that of the Southern
Plains tribes near whom they lived.
Beadwork styles of the Mescalero,
Chiricahua and Western Apache are all similar to each other, but
lack a strong Plains stylistic
connection.
The Western Apache also used the peyote
stitch technique to cover handles for objects such as
riding quirts (for horses or dogs), and
later cover bottles and make keychains.
See photos and
additional background on Apache Indian beadwork.
At right: Photo of Apache Shirt with
Peyote Stitching.
Why Apaches Were Considered Hostile
Apaches usually formed small,
undetectable groups to assault the cattle herds of missions and small
ranches, maintaining all the while their
pledges of peace. Nevertheless, on one occasion in the mid-
1750s, during a dry spell, hunger drove
them to organize a group of three hundred men that
descended on the mission herds near San
Juan Bautista, killing hundreds of cattle. Since the attack
occurred in March, the animals were thin
and the Apaches took "only the tongue," a common practice.
Similar butchering occurred among the
herds belonging to the San Antonio missions; one observer
suggested that Apaches took on average
twenty head of cattle a day for food by the 1760s and
1770s.
The Spanish responded cautiously to this
threat, primarily because they lacked the troops to
protect the new ranches and the civilian
population. The vecino populations of the small Spanish
towns and even the missions had more to
gain from continued trade with the Apaches, and they saw
little wrong with the poaching of wild
livestock. But when raids occurred which threatened the
existence of ranches and settlers, small
patrols, often consisting of ranchers, vecinos, and a few
soldiers, went after Indian parties,
occasionally engaging them in a fight or negotiating a return of
stock. Yet other, mostly futile, efforts
by Spanish authorities consisted of issuing orders
prohibiting the trading of guns, powder,
and sabers to Apaches by vecinos or mission Indians.
The situation turned more violent after
1770, however, when Spanish officials finally concluded
that more than three thousand Lipan
Apaches—probably an exaggeration—were roaming along the
lower Rio Grande butchering cattle and
horses. Their Mescalero relatives along the Rio Grande
below El Paso seemed to have adopted a
similar way of making a living. There is little evidence that
lives had been lost in any numbers on
either side at this point. Nevertheless, Bernardo de G‡lvez
attempted to stop the depredations that
fall, attacking a Mescalero village on the Pecos and killing
twenty-eight Indians. Two months later
the Mescaleros retaliated, destroying a mule train in Nueva
Vizcaya, killing seven men, and taking
one thousand mules. A similar assault occurred the following
year in Coahuila, where Lipans killed
thirteen members of a ranch community and carried off ten
captive children. They even briefly
assailed the presidio of Santa Rosa in July 1771, killing one
soldier.
The Spanish had started a war along the
Rio Grande by 1771. With the adoption of the Reglamento
de 1772, Lieutenant Colonel O'Conor
assumed command of the entire northeastern frontier and
Spain decided to exterminate the Apaches.
While O'Conor experienced some success at driving
Apache bands from the Bols—n de Mapim’,
inflicting damage on Mescaleros especially, his efforts had
little impact on the Lipans.
Lipans, already having fought with the
superior Norte–o groups, had altered their band structures
by forming small groups. The smaller
bands were less detectable and more successful at poaching
stock and maintaining exchange ties in
Spanish towns. Gancio was openly frustrated in
Coahuila because the Lipans who lived in
the region remained peaceful and could not legally be
punished without evidence of their guilt.
The poaching and raiding and the
diversity of the groups that did it had reached such a point by the
1770s that the term "Lipan"
ceased to have much meaning. Typical of such a group was a band under
the leadership of Josecillo El Manco, or
One-handed Joe, who came into San Juan Bautista in
December 1777. Joe had been baptized at
San Pedro de Gigedo in northern Coahuila and taken by
the Lipans in a raid when he was about
seven years old. He spoke Spanish fluently. Later, as a leader
of a small Lipan band, he cultivated good
relations with the Spanish and often exchanged goods in
Spanish towns.
When necessary his people quietly poached
livestock for food. Just as frequently they approached
San Juan as peaceful friends,
anticipating a warm welcome. They "spread out through the town,"
according to Morf’, "where they have
formed many friendships of little advantage to our people."
Joe, in the meantime, asked Ganzio for
corn, tobacco, bridles, and even gunpowder and shot while
waiting for his people to finish their
exchanges. Of course, Morf’'s assessment of this commerce
reflected the typical Spanish bias toward
native economies. He saw little in the exchanges that
benefited the Spanish Crown.
Few of the goods brought in by the Apaches
could be carried south to markets in Mexico; most
consisted of consumer goods for which
market value could not easily be determined. Nevertheless,
the Apache offering of dried buffalo or
horse meat, hides, tallow, and salt for corn, tobacco,
bridles, and a few munitions had become
important to the vecinos of San Juan Bautista. These
exchanges also worked to create regional
alliances, since the people involved pledged to look out for
each other's safety and shared important
information. Vecinos of small Rio Grande communities
received warnings and aid from nearby
Apaches, and they responded in kind, even protecting them
from attacks by Spanish troops.
Why Apache Indians Took Women and
Children Captive
The emergence of One-handed Joe as a
leader among the Lipan Apaches was not surprising to the
Spaniards who reported his existence.
Indeed, many people of Spanish descent lived with the
southern Apaches. When a patrol from
Coahuila recaptured a Spanish boy in 1776, they learned from
him that the Lipan band in which he had
lived harbored many different people—Indian, Hispanic, and
African. One of the band leaders, who
called himself AndrŽs, had escaped from the prison at
Durango. Considerable numbers of other
Spaniards, both women and children, also could be found in
the band.
The captive mentioned that some came from
Saltillo, well to the south, as well as from Nueva
Vizcaya and Coahuila. When brought into
the band, this Spanish boy was placed under the charge of a
"mulatto man, with the upper lip cut
in the middle," whose job included watching and directing the
captive herd boys. Although it
might be an exaggeration to suggest that Rio Grande Apache groups
were becoming havens for mistreated,
exploited, underprivileged elements in Spanish society,
certainly many such individuals had
joined them.
Just how many children and women were
carried off by Apaches is impossible to determine. Some
bands no doubt built their population
with captives. They had lost so many people of their tribe,
taking captives, instead of killing them
was a logical solution.
Fray Francisco Atanasio Dom’nguez, among
others, noted the kidnapping that occurred in the Spanish
towns along the Rio Grande in 1775,
suggesting that Apaches took children almost as frequently as
they robbed "horses and mules."
This taking of "captives of infants that they grab by the hands,"
the good padre asserted, had left their
parents "in misery." Such captives obviously replaced people
taken in the raids by the Norte–os as
well as by G‡lvez and O'Conor.
Morf’ found considerable evidence of
kidnapping in Coahuila and southern Texas two years later.
When Spanish troops overran a Mescalero
camp in December they took eleven women and thirteen
children prisoner, including three
"Spanish boys," who, according to Morf’ "had been taken captive
by
the Apaches and who had already forgotten
our language."
If these numbers were representative of
Apache society, fully a quarter of the children in their
camps could easily have been captives.
But it should be remembered that the Spanish could only
recognize children with fair complexions,
and many other Indian children, especially natives from
missions, probably escaped recognition.
The ethnic diversity in Apache camps
prompted changes in the relations of production. Various social
and economic roles changed as the Apaches
evolved from a method of production highly dependent on
buffalo hunting to one more closely tied
to raiding and poaching. 19 Herding became an ideal
occupation for captive children, who seem
to have been taken specifically for this purpose. Other
members of the society found it possible
to acquire more status through working in exchange
networks, and they learned the languages
necessary to deal with vecino populations, such as the one
at San Juan Bautista, and even other
natives who still lived in missions.
Captives who came into this changing
environment had to be indoctrinated, leading to a more
extensive projection of Apache identity.
The Spanish boy taken in 1776 noted that AndrŽs and his
followers picked out a soft spot along
his ear and continually aggravated it with an
occasional lashing, a seasoning process
administered to all the new Apache children and women.
Another captive a ten-year-old boy who
wandered into a Spanish military camp along the Rio Grande
in 1808, reported the same treatment.
Apaches "had whipped him cruelly at every turn," the
soldiers reported. With the lashing
came work, discipline, and cultural indoctrination.
Once accustomed to obeying orders,
captives performed work assignments without a guard and
were applauded for a job well done. In
addition to herding livestock, boys often hunted small game.
For women, gathering firewood and picking
berries and nuts were standard assignments. With
demonstrated loyalty came more rewards,
such as a new name and possibly adoption and the right to
enter manhood and womanhood ceremonies.
"New Apaches" reached
acceptance when they were allowed to serve as lookouts or even to join
raiding or poaching parties, or in the
case of women, receive a husband. The mulatto who commanded
the Spanish captives noted that his
position in Apache society was such that he enjoyed more
freedom than he expected would have been
accorded him in a Spanish town. Yet he remained a full
notch below his companion, AndrŽs, who
had bragged of his right to lead small poaching and raiding
parties, even though Spanish by birth.
Southern Apaches, then, certainly saw an
advantage in adding people of different ethnic origin to
their bands, dealing with the changes
that this brought by creating new structures and roles for
individuals. But adoptions created new
relations of production, directly influenced by poaching and
raiding. Captive boys were directed by
herd bosses, who in turn received orders from senior men.
When the boys could be fully trusted,they
helped guide poaching parties through Spanish ranchlands,
giving the society access to more
valuable stock. The use of boys, particularly as herders, freed
junior men to hunt, defend the society,
and poach and raid.
Despite gender roles and a hierarchical
structure, the Apaches embraced a social mobility that
seemed to have an important impact on the
assimilation process. This mobility even included flexible
marriage rules. While twentieth-century
anthropological field research suggests that Apache bands
in general maintained matrilocal social
organization and endorsed cross-cousin marriage,
considerable evidence shows that for the
eastern Lipan and their Mescalero relatives, such rules,
had they existed at all, fell into disuse
after 1750. A flexible marriage system had to be
implemented to incorporate so many
newcomers into the society.
Cementing Relationships Between the
Apache Indian Bands
Patrilocal or bilocal marriage became the
rule in southern plains Apache societies during the latter
decades of the eighteenth century. When
the Lipans negotiated peace at San Antonio in 1749, they
left a considerable number of their young
women behind to cement the agreement and to become
wives of mission Indian men, indicating
the use of patrilocal relationships in alliance.
A young male mulatto captive retaken from
the Mescaleros near El Paso noted that a chief and his
two sons controlled the group that he
lived with, strongly implying the handing down of political
control from father to son, along
hierarchical, patrilocal, or bilateral lines.
Even more telling, Antonio Cordero y
Bustamante, the most astute late-eighteenth-century
observer of Apache life, said simply that
''matrimony takes place by the bridegroom buying the one
who is to be his wife from her
father." In divorce, the woman was returned to her father, a clear
indication of patrilocal marriage.
Patrilocal marriage arrangements served to cement alliances
between various Apache bands.
MS in Apache language on skin, Southern Plains,
U.S.A., 19th c., 1 shield, diam. 50 cm, decorated with a central celestial
medallion with a crescent moon above and a pine tree below flanked by two
cross-hatched bars with zigzag elements emanating from top, circular motifs with
zigzags within, below, all in blue, red, yellow and black, with 2 yellow
foot-formed tabs attached to the top.
Provenance: 1.
Christie's East, New York, 20.6.2001:167.
Commentary: In addition to the
function as armour, the shield and its cover, combined with the painted symbols
and attachments, exuded protective power for the bearer, resulted from dreams
experienced by the warrior. Some of the Apache shields are reported to relate
to Gaan, or Mountain Spirits, - those generally benevolent beings largely associated
with health and wellbeing.
Chief Apache John
The very name Apache means
enemy and stands on the pages of all Indian history as a synonym for terror.
Since our knowledge of them, the Apaches have been hostile and in every
conflict they were favoured with rare and gifted leadership. It required the
skill, strategy, and profoundest generalship of two of the greatest generals of
the Civil War to subdue and capture the daring and reckless Geronimo, whose
recent death closed the final chapter of a long line of unspeakable Apache
atrocities. Koon-kah-za-chy, familiarly known as Apache John, because of his
surrender to civilization, visited the last Great Indian Council as a
representative of one of the many groups of this great body of Indians scattered
through the southwest. There is an indefinable
[pg 46]
air of stoicism in the
demeanour of all of these great chieftains. The subject of this text is not
lacking in this prominent Indian element. A keen and piercing eye, a sadly kind
face, a tall and erect figure, Apache John bears his sixty years of life with
broad and unbending shoulders. He was fond of becoming reminiscent and said:
ŇThe first thing I can remember is my father telling me about war. We then
lived in tepees like the one in which we are now sitting. We were then moving
from place to place, and the old people were constantly talking about war. That
was the school in which I was brought up—a war school. We kept on moving
from place to place until I grew to manhood. Then I came to see a real battle.
The first time I was in a battle I thought of what my father had told me. He
told me to be a brave man and fight and never run away. I think this was good
fighting, because I know what fighting meant from what my father had told me.
At that time if an Indian wanted to win distinction he must be a good man as
well as a good fighter. I was in a good many battles, until finally I had to
give up fighting. About seven years ago the Government gave me advice, and with
that advice they gave me different thoughts, and to-day I am one of the head
men among the Apaches. I am head chief among the Kiowa-Apaches and I counsel
peace among them. I used to think that my
[pg 47]
greatest honour was to be
won in fighting, but when I visited the Commissioner in Washington he gave me
other thoughts and other ways of thinking and doing until I felt that the new
kind of life was the better. When the Commissioner told me these things I wrote
them down in my mind and I thought that it was good. One of the greatest events
in my life was when I found myself surrounded by two tribes of my enemies. This
fight was by the El Paso River, and the bands of our enemies wore yellow
headgear; the fight continued all day long until about five o'clock, when the
Apaches were victorious.Ó
By long and stubborn tutelage both from his father and the members of
his tribe, this boy was taught the war spirit and in manhood he exemplified it.
The principles of peace taught him in one short hour at Washington changed the
whole tenor of his life: a pathetic commentary on what civilization might have
accomplished with the Indian.
