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Post-Contact Social Organization of Three Apache Tribes. Post-Contact Social Organization of Three Apache Tribes. © 1999 by James Q. Jacobs Apachean is the only Athapaskan language found in the Southwest. The Southern Athapaskans migrated from Northern Canada and were well established in the Southwest during the 1500's. Southern Athapaskan culture was probably uniform before this time. Today there are seven Southern Athapaskan speaking tribes with closely related Apachean dialects. While little was known about the cultural evolutionof these tribes during the post-contact Spanish and Mexican periods, theirterritories were well defined. Although the Spanish and the successiveMexican governments claimed the Apachean territories, numerous militaryforays failed to dominate them. Despite centuries of conflict the Spaniardsnever subdued the Apaches. The Apache tribes were the preeminent militarypowers in their respective regions until after 1856. The War on Mexicoaffected all the Apache tribes. With the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgoand the 1853 Gadsden Purchase Mexico ceded and then sold the majority ofthe Apache territories to the United States. Spain, Mexico and the UnitesStates have never recognized Indian titles to their aboriginal territories.After 1850 Anglo miners and ranchers invadingthe Apache territories clashed with the indigenous occupants. Numerousmilitary forts were established by the United States. Most of the Apacheswere confined to reservations by 1872, when General Crook ordered thatany Indians not on the reservations be hunted and killed. In 1873 300 Indianmen were executed for leaving the Fort San Carlos Reservation. By 1877over 5,000 surviving Apaches were confined. Some Apaches still refusedto capitulate. Most opposition was crushed by 1883. Military conflict endedwith the 1886 surrender of Geronimo.By this time the customs described herein weredisrupted. Most information about the Apaches dates from after these events.Reliable ethnographic data on the Western Apaches dates from the early1900's, when information on pre-reservation life was collected from elders.This paper addresses what is understood about Chiricahua, Mescalero andWestern Apache social organization before the conquest of their territoryand the consequent disruption of their life ways.The Apachean speaking peoples can be distinguishesinto two broad groups which share kinship systems. Morris E. Opler dividedthe Southern Athapaskan kinship systems into two types, Chiricahua andJicarilla. The three linguistic tribes considered herein, the Chiricahua,Mescalero and Western Apaches, share the kinship system classified as theChiricahua, where it was first studied by Opler. The early or proto-Apacheansystem from which these derived was most probably matrilineal, matrilocal,and characterized by the sororate, sororal polygyny, the levirate, sisterexchange and bi-lateral cross-cousin marriage.In the Chiricahua system matrilineal marriagegroups are organized by generations, with matrilineal relatives being important.Sororate, levirate and sororal polygyny was practiced. The Chiricahua kinshipis bilateral and organized in generational terms. Except the parent-childterms, all terms are self-reciprocal. Parental siblings are distinguishedby side but otherwise are classified together without regard for sex andwith terms extended to their children. In ego's generation the two genderdetermined terms siblings, parallel cousins and cross-cousins are usedreciprocally. Grandparent terms are extended to their siblings. Male relationshipwith a female sibling is restrained, yet very caring towards her offspring.In-law avoidance is common.The Chiricahuas, Mescaleros and Western Apacheswere, in all probability, derived from a single Athapaskan migration. Theyshared many common features of social organization. The extended matrilinealand matrilocal family, their basic social unit, was ideally composed ofa couple, their unmarried children and the families of their married daughters.Extended family dwellings formed clusters with each nuclear family in aseparate dwelling. The principal obligations of a married man were to thefamily of his wife. Women were the anchors of these basic social units.The matrilocal grouping endured for the lifetimes of the members. As aresult of these characteristics, women enjoyed high status.Extended families provided suitable-sized unitsfor many activities, including hunting and food gathering and preparation.Division of labor by gender ordered these activities. Women gathered andpreserved foods, preserved hides, built homes, gathered firewood, preparedfood, cared for children, and wove baskets. Men were responsible for hunting,security, horses, making weapons and conducting warfare or raiding. Withsurvival dependent on collective activity personal wishes were often subordinateto the extended family.Local groups were the next order of social organization.The local groups consisted of several units of extended families occupyinga given territory. The Chiricahua and Mescalero local groups had as manyas 30 extended families. Among the Western Apaches the local groups werecomprised of from two to six large, extended family units with three toeight nuclear families each and as many as 200 people.Each local group had a headman or leader. Localgroup leaders were invariably men. Typically the leader was the most respectedextended family head in the settlement and the most influential memberof the local group. Leadership was informal and advisory rather than compulsive.The headman exercised little arbitrary or coercive power over individualsand yet was the arbiter of disputes. An important chiefly role was preventionof disharmony. Leaders were called upon to speak at public occasions andwere expected to be eloquent. The office of chief was not hereditary, thougha tendency for sons to replace fathers existed.Among the Chiricahuas and the Western Apacheslocal groups comprised loose confederations called bands. The bands wereephemeral territorial units, not formal political groups. Nonetheless thebands had distinct names and leadership.. The Mescalero did not have bands.No leadership existed for any of the tribes as a whole. The three tribesconsidered here are culture and language tribes, rather than politicalgroups. Tribal cohesion was minimal in the sparse desert environment andno formal tribal or local group governments ever existed. This is exemplifiedby the absence of true native tribal names, at least no self-referencingones.The Chiricahua Apache were divided into threeto five regional bands (depending on the source). Their total estimatedpopulation was 3,000. The Chiricahua were hunters and gathers with a limitedamount of agriculture. The Eastern Chiricahuas territory was roughly southwesternNew Mexico west of the Rio Grande. The Central Chiricahua band inhabitedsoutheast Arizona, extreme southwestern New Mexico and a small range inMexico. This group was also known as the Cochise Apaches, after their famousleader. The Southern Chiricahua band ranged in Mexico and a small areain southwestern New Mexico. Geronimo was their best known leader. Spanishaccounts place Chiricahua Apache bands in these territories by the eighteenthcentury.Each Chiricahua band consisted of from three tofive local groups. The majority of marriages were intra-local group andfamilies related by marriage supported each other. Typically the most wellspoken person ascended to band leadership. Band rank adhered to familyheads. Local group leaders gained prominence due to personal esteem andceremonial knowledge. No peace or war determined leadership roles existed.Ceremonial experts and great fighters had higher prestige.The Mescalero Apaches territory was east of theRio Grande in New Mexico, along both sides of the Rio Grande in Mexicoto below the Pecos confluence and along both sides of the Pecos River northto near Fort Sumner and Belen. Spanish slave trafficking prompted hostilitiesearly in the contact era. The Spanish and Mexican eras were predominantlyperiods of hostilities, with only intermittent peace. There were probablyaround 2,500 to 3,000 Mescaleros in 1850. In 1881, at the end of hostilitieswith the United States, only 431 survived.With the Mescaleros, unlike the Chiricahuas andWestern Apaches, culture was uniform throughout, without notably distinctbands or moieties. The practice of hunting buffalo, available only in theeastern part of their territory, required a fluid spatial arrangement.By comparison, the Chiricahuas and Western Apaches could complete theirannual rounds in distinct territories.The Mescaleros were also hunters and gathers.Only a little agriculture was practiced by some families. From their settlementssmall groups exploited surrounding resources, and rarely would the entirepopulation be in residence. During agave harvests and buffalo hunts mostof the population would be absent. Unlike the Chiricahuas or Western Apaches,the Mescaleros adopted the tepee. Advantage attached to having large localgroups. Many people were required for buffalo hunts and agave harvestingand large groups served as deterrence to attacks.The Western Apaches were established in theirEastern Arizona territory during the 1700's. By the middle of the eighteenthcentury they had, by means of the addition of horses to their culturalinventory, established a far reaching network of trading or raiding relationshipswith a dozen other groups, spanning from Northern Arizona to Central Sonora.Aspects of their culture were influenced by these contacts. There territorywas remote from Spanish intrusions. They were not as affected by hostilitiesas the Chiricahuas and Mescaleros, a fact perhaps reflected on their greatersedentism and established horticultural traditions.Western Apache sub-tribes were the White Mountain,Cibecue, San Carlos and Tonto. Some modern authors distinguish betweenthe Southern and Northern Tontos. These groups were autonomous and haddistinct territories, separate identities and minor dialect differencesthat did not interfere with communication. Each group had two to five bandswith separate hunting territories. The 1880 mean size of these bands hasbeen computed at 387 individuals, with considerable variation. Within thelocal groups family clusters had a headman who led daily affairs, withthe best headman as local group chief.The Western Apaches led a uniform leafy. Theirsubsistence was about 75 percent wild food and 25 percent horticulture.Older members tended mountain gardens in the summer. Their adoption ofhorticulture was of sufficient extent to produce seasonal sedentism. Aunique feature of the Western Apache kinship pattern seems to have developedin connection with the management and transmission of claims to horticulturallands, that being a system of matrilineal clan designations. There are62 Western Apache clans. These derive from three archaic clans, on whichbasis they are grouped into phratries. Clans are associated with the clanmother's garden site. The clan name is related to this place of its origin.Clans, unlike bands and local groups, are notspatially defined and create networks of relations that transcend bands.Clan relationships provided bonds with distant groups, enhancing cohesionfor the larger groups and promoting peaceful relations. Clans are distinguishedas closely related, related or distantly related. Closely related and relatedclan marriage is taboo. A limited amount of intermarriage took place betweenthe regional bands. Local groups were named after their territorial locationwhile matrilocal families bore the name of the clan of its core lineage.In these three Apache tribes we see both the communalityof their origins as expressed in their similarity, and their subsequentdifferentiation in response to distinct territories and environments, bothphysical and political. Today they have been forced to readapt by new circumstances,the forced reduction of their territory to several small reservations bythe United States government. In the future these changes too will be reflectedin their social organization.  Sources in: Handbook of Middle American Indians,Volume 10, Southwest. Alfonso Ortiz, Volume Editor. Smithsonian Institution,Washington D. C., 1983. Next on the Southwest Web Ring: A History of Havasupai Political Organization SOUTHWEST PHOTO GALLERIES Mesa Verde National Park Spruce Tree House Canyon de Chelly Chaco Culture National Historical Park Aztec Ruins Salmon Ruins Hovenweep National Monument Trail of the Ancients Betatakin Pecos National Historical Park Canyons of the Ancients Edge of the Cedars Coronado State Monument Bandelier National Monument Blythe Intaglios Salinas Pueblo Missions Montezuma Castle Museums SOUTHWEST ARTICLES Water Politics and the History of the Fort McDowell Indian Community Social Organization of Three Apache Tribes A History of Havasupai Political Organization Diabetes: Thrifty Genotype or Thrifty Phenotype? Southwest Archaeology Lecture Notes Pueblo Grande Mound A Labor Analysis Rattlesnakes of Arizona The Chaco Meridian Besh-Ba-Gowah WORLD WIDE WEB HUBS BY THE AUTHOR: Home - Photo Galleries - Archaeology - Andes - Astronomy - Art - Web Design Southwest Anthropology and Archaeology Pages © 2007 by James Q. Jacobs. All rights reserved. Photo Stock. Your comments, inquiries, etc. welcomed. Contact and Educator Permissions.  Latest News: ArchaeoBlog: Mound Builders of the Eastern Woodlands |
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