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Apache

Apache are a group of related Native American nations of the southwest and the Plains states. In contrast, Apachean refers to both Navajo and Apache, who share related languages and traditional creation beliefs deeply rooted in their sacred land of the southwest.

Due to linguistic similarities across the Pacific northwest and northwestern Canada, some historians suggest that a migratory hunter-gatherer group descended from Canada to the southwest of what is now the United States from 1000 to 1500 c.e. and splintered off into several Apachean groups. Regional, cultural, and linguistic groupings of Apaches include the Western Apache, Chiricahua Apache, Mescalero Apache, Jicarilla Apache, Lipan Apache, and Plains Apache. Federally recognized contemporary Western Apache Nations are now all located in central or western Arizona and include the Yavapai-Apache Nation of the Camp Verde Reservation, the Tonto Apache Nation, the White Mountain Apache Tribe of the Fort Apache Reservation, and the San Carlos Apache Tribe. Federally recognized Chiricahua Apaches are located with the Mescalero at the Mescalero Reservation in New Mexico, at the Fort Sill Apache Nation of Oklahoma, and at the newly acquired Fort Sill Apache Reservation in Arketa, New Mexico. Jicarilla Apache are located in New Mexico on the border with Colorado.

Two Native American men stand in a doorway on the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico around 1936. Two Apache reservations, Fort Apache and San Carlos, were among the 10 largest reservations in terms of population in 2010.

None

The Apache Nation of Oklahoma is the only exclusively Plains Apache people, although the Lipan Apache of Texas came to occupy the southern plains of Texas and deserts of New Mexico and Mexico and as of a 2009 gained state recognition; they are headquartered near the southernmost Texas-Mexico border. A minority of unrecognized bands of Apaches still struggle for recognition throughout the southwest.

Apache Religion

Traditional religious beliefs among Apaches involve various related creation beliefs. For example, the Jicarilla recount how Black Hactin, the child of Black Sky and Earth Woman, created humankind, who eventually emerged from a lower world on sunbeam ladders into the present world. Apache origins have many variations that involve a creator, sometimes known as Giver of Life or Ussen; White-Shell Woman, White-Painted Woman, or Changing Woman; and her two children, Killer of Enemies and Child of Water, who rid Earth of evil represented by various monsters. Commonalities across Apaches include a belief in power gained by nonhuman spirits, an avoidance of ghosts, and the girl's puberty ceremony.

Apache spiritual leaders or medicine people can acquire their power through dreams, visions, and contact with power through physical manifestations, such as animals, or by the learning of complex songs and rituals. Apaches may approach a different healer, shaman, singer, or medicine person to ask for protection from enemies and illness, for the diagnosis of an illness, and for curing it. For many Apaches, Crown Dancers traditionally embody the Mountain Spirits who help guide Apache life on earth. Core ceremonial and historical knowledge is embedded in the landscape and can be evoked by place-names in ceremony, story, or song. In many Apache traditions, ghosts are avoided because they can harm the living unless helped along in their transition through a four-day ceremony.

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