In Pursuit of the Apaches

(Left) Map shows the Apache Indian Reservation as it exists today in east-central Arizona. Collecting of Apaches and placing them on reservations began with the peace policy formulated by the U.S., following the Camp Grant Massacre of 1871.

(Right, below) On his trek to locate the legendary 'Seven Cities of Cibola' in 1540, Coronado's column marched through what is now the Apache reservation. If the Apaches had seen them it would have been their first sight of blackand white-skinned men, as well as mules and horses. Arizona Historical Society and worked at making undecorated pointed-bottom pottery. Clothing and footwear were fashioned from the tanned skins of deer and antelope, and, prior to the acquisition of horses, the dog served as an important beast of burden.

It is believed that these proto-Apacheans lived in small scattered encampments, composed of extended families that periodically detached themselves from the larger group to follow herds of game and exploit floral resources. Political organization was minimal beyond the limits of the extended family, the activities of each camp being directed by an older man whose main responsibilities were to organize hunting parties, supervise overland treks, and settle personal disputes.

Evon Z. Vogt has provided the following sketch of the religion of the proto-Apacheans: "Ceremonial organization was probably focused around a shaman who derived power from visions, or other supernatural manifestations, and performed ceremonies. Girls' puberty was emphasized as an important rite of passage. Strong beliefs included fear of the dead and ghosts, and thatdisease is caused by contact withlightning and certain animals suchas the bear."

During the 1500s Plains-dwellingApaches established trading relationships with Puebloan peoples on the RioGrande, and by 1625 were firmly settled west of the river itself. In 1630Fray Alonso de Benavides, a Franciscanmissionary, reported that a peopledescribed by him as "Xila Apaches"were living in small rancherias on thepine-covered slopes of mountains inwest-central New Mexico. Farthernorth, Benavides noted, were "NavajoApaches" who led a more settled wayof life and practiced a limited amountof agriculture.

The earliest record of Athapaskan-speakers living west of the Rio Grandewas made by Espejo, who encountereda group of "Querechos" near the puebloof Zuni in 1582. Although many historians have identified these people asNavajo, it is entirely possible that theywere Xila Apaches. In fact, on the basisof recent work in Navajo archeology,it seems unlikely that the Navajoadvanced as far south as Zuni until themid-1700s.

It is uncertain when ancestors of theWestern Apache first penetrated Arizona; neither is it understood what theconditions were that enabled these people to establish themselves and securetheir territories.

Our lack of information concerning these and other important matters is adirect reflection of the fact that Europeans rarely ventured north of the GilaRiver before 1800. Since Coronado's epoch-making expedition in 1542 themajor thrust of Spanish exploration andcolonization had been directed farthereast. Consequently, the central andnorthern portions of Arizona saw relatively few outsiders and, in comparisonto Indian peoples in New Mexico andTexas, the Western Apache remainedisolated and aloof, their locations andnumbers poorly known, the course oftheir cultural development a mystery.

But the picture is not a total blank.When the northern frontier of theSpanish empire finally reached intosouthern Arizona, Apacheans weresecurely installed on both sides of theGila River. In the late 1600s Padre LuisVelarde was informed by Pimans thatApaches had closed to travel a routeleading north from Casa Grande, andwhen another priest, Padre Keller, attempted to use the same trail in 1743 he was forced to turn back because Apaches stole his horses.

It is possible, then, that as early as 1600-1625 a phalanx of Benavides' Xila Apaches or Espejo's Querechos entered Arizona in the vicinity of the Colorado River. And it can be stated with a measure of confidence that by 1700 these same people, who later came to be known as Western Apache, had successfully laid claim to an extensive territory, stretching south from the Mogollon Rim across the Natanes Plateau to the Gila River. It is not without significance that this interpretation coincides with a number of Western Apache clan legends which tell of a southward migration from points north of the Mogollon Rim, followed by expansions to the east and west.

Although very little is known about the content of Western Apache culture in the 17th and 18th centuries, we can infer that several important elements had been added to the proto-Apachean system.

One of these was agriculture. Having acquired the techniques of farming from the Pueblo or Navajo, the Western Apache adapted them to local conditions and thereafter managed to cultivate limited quantities of corn, beans, and squash. Although agriculture never replaced wild plant gathering and hunting as the dominant mode of subsistence, it did become sufficiently important to alter the economic cycle of Apache society from year-round traveling to one involving periods of settled residence near their farms.

Another important addition to the cultural inventory of the Western Apache was the horse. Introduced into the Southwest by Coronado, this animal became highly valued as a beast of burden and also as a source of food. Simultaneously, the horse served as a means of reliable transportation, which enabled the Apache to greatly increase their geographical range and exploit economic resources far beyond the boundaries of their own territories.

By the middle of the 18th century, the Western Apache had established an intricate network of trading and raiding relationships, which involved at least a dozen other cultural groups and reached all the way from the Hopi villages in northern Arizona to Spanish settlements in central Sonora. The development and maintenance of such an extensive system would have been impossible without the horse.

They responded to the impact of Spanish colonialism in different ways. Among the Western Apache the most conspicuous reaction, though by no means the only one, took the form of raiding and warfare.

It is not known when the Apache first began to attack Spanish settlements on a regular basis, but raiding was probably a well established practice by the middle of the 18th century. Present evidence suggests that the Western Apache did not organize raids for the purpose of increasing their already vast territory. Neither was their aim to drive away or destroy the Europeans who had settled along its margins.

To the contrary, these populations were viewed as valuable economic resources that could be regularly counted upon to produce substantial amounts of grain and livestock. It was to the Apaches' advantage that such resources remain functioning, a fact which may help explain why mass killing and wide-scale destruction of property never figured prominently in raiding.

Spanish attempts to control and defeat the Western Apache by military means met with failure. Presidios were established at various points on the northern frontier Arispe, Fronteras,Tubac, and later at Tucson but this was a porous line of defense, which Apache raiding parties, well-mounted and supremely elusive, were able to puncture at will.

(Right) Garbed in traditional buckskin, a modern Apache princess poses for her picture. While her genetic composition may have been altered by early day Mexican and Spanish captives, there is little to show they brought about any change in her Apache culture. Painting by Don Crowley. Courtesy of Husberg's Fine Arts Gallery.

(Below) A two-story adobe convento (mission) built by the Apaches, across the Santa Cruz River from the Old Pueblo, between 1797 and 1810. Called San Agustin de Tucson, it was abandoned when the Spanish pacification program failed, and was in ruins by the time the first Anglos arrived. Arizona Historical Society Between 1765 and 1780 hostilities intensified, and the Spaniards, now confronted with a situation they could not control, were forced to admit that their plan to exterminate the Apache was unrealistic and unfeasible. So, in 1786, following a reorganization of the administrative structure of New Spain, a new Indian policy was conceived and implemented by Viceroy Bernardo de Galvez.

Galvez's policy decreed that immediate offensive action be taken against all Indian tribes still at war. Once the "hostiles" had sued for peace, they were to be settled in villages near presidios where they could be supplied with cloth, food, inferior firearms, and alcoholic beverages.

These gifts, Galvez reasoned, would be so highly esteemed that the Indians would soon develop a wish to remain at peace and abandon all thoughts of war. Simultaneously, their weapons would become inoperative, thus weakening the Indians' ability to revolt. They would also develop an abiding fondness for liquor. On this last point, Galvez was very clear: "The supplying of drink to the Indians will be a means of gaining their goodwill, discovering their secrets, calming them so they will think less often of conceiving their hostilities, and creating for them a new necessity which will oblige them to recognize their dependence upon us more directly."

Cynical and subversive, the intent of Galvez's plan was to subdue the Apache by promoting social disorganization and corrupting their will to resist. In this way, it was hoped, the Indians would become docile and dependent, a harmless appendage of the Spanish crown rather than one of its most determined adversaries.

For nearly 25 years the new policy worked with moderate success. Some Western Apache groups did make peace, and a few took up residence in the vicinity of presidios. By 1800 the incidence of raids had dropped significantly, and Spanish mines and ranches began to appear in northern Sonora and southern Arizona. An uneasy symbiotic relationship came into being between Spaniards and Apaches, the latter acquiring weekly rations and, in the words of a Franciscan missionary living in Tucson, "... all of the Spanish vices and none of the Spanish virtues." Indeed, the strategy of pacificationthrough dependency might have been permanently successful if circumstances produced by the Mexican War of Independence had not prevented its continuation.

After 1821, the year in which Mexico's independence was finally achieved, the situation on the northern frontier began to deteriorate. Beset with serious financial problems, the new Mexican government could not continue to subsidize the rationing system, and more and more Apaches, displeased at this turn of events, drifted away from presidios and started to regroup in their homelands to the north.

At the same time, as a result of the shortage of funds and a depleted supply of troops and equipment, the presidios themselves ceased to function effectively. In 1831 the Western Apache resumed intensive raiding, and Sonora, weakened and confused, was thrown again into turmoil.

'Spanish and Mexican captives, the majority of whom were females taken as young children, undoubtedly altered the genetic composition of Western Apache populations...' The reaction of the Mexicans was impulsive and unwise. Rejecting outright the possibility of treaties with the Indians, it was decided instead to pursue a policy of extermination similar to the one that had failed six decades earlier. A volunteer army was raised but met with little success. Confident and rejuvenated, the Apache struck deeper into Mexico than ever before.

From the mid-1830s until AngloAmericans assumed control of Arizona in 1853, the population of Sonora declined. The capital city of Arispe, which had a population of 7000 in 1821, was reduced to 1500 in 1846. Tucson and Tubac were besieged on several occasions by large numbers of Apaches, but these attacks were repelled without extensive loss of life. Nevertheless, it was perfectly clear that the Mexican policy had backfired and that the "Apache problem" remained unsolved.

But while the Mexicans retreated, the economic life of the Apache had been revolutionized by contact with them. However, other aspects of Apache culture - language, mythology, ritual, and the basic forms of social organization did not undergo any radical alteration.

In large part this may be attributed to the fact that throughout the Spanish and Mexican periods the Western Apache remained on the borderland of the colonial administrative-missionization system. Western Apache territory never became the scene of Spanish settlements, and there never was any acceptance by the Indians of Spanish political domination.

As a result, the conditions under which contact took place, as well as the purposes it served, were determined and regulated by the Apache, thus enabling them to select for permanent adoption only those elements of Spanish culture that were in harmony with pre-existing institutions. Primarily, it appears, these elements consisted of items of material culture: the lance, perhaps the shield, the saddle and stirrup, the bridle, firearms, cloth, and playing cards.

Spanish and Mexican captives, the majority of whom were females taken as young children, undoubtedly altered the genetic composition of Western Apache populations, but there is little evidence to indicate that they played a major role as agents of culture change. To the contrary, most of them were fully enculturated as Apaches, willingly assumed the rights and duties of Apache women, and thereafter had neither the incentive nor the power to alter what they regarded as a coherent and satisfying way of life. Captives were responsible for introducing a few Spanish words into the Western Apache lexicon, several new forms of gambling, and certain modifications in dress and the preparation of food. However, beyond these and other essentially minor contributions, their influence upon Apache culture seems to have been negligible.

At the close of the Spanish-Mexican era, practically no reliable ethnographic information was available on the Western Apache. This situation continued basically unchanged until the 1920s, when ethnographic work was begun in earnest. The most significant research of this period was conducted by Grenville Goodwin, a self-trained ethnographer of impressive talents, who lived among the Western Apache for nearly 10 years. Goodwin died prematurely at the age of 33, but his major findings were preserved in a series of publications that represent the first successful attempt to describe Western Apache culture as an integrated system.

Working with a large group of elderly Apache consultants, Goodwin acquired massive amounts of data on the conditions of pre-reservation life. This material provided the basis for his major work, The Social Organization of the Western Apache, which is a detailed historical reconstruction of Apache society as it existed in the mid-1800s.

In spite of numerous similarities in language and culture, significant variation existed among the five Western Apache groups with respect to population, size of territory, use of the horse, and dependence upon agriculture. The White Mountain Apache was the largest division with an estimated population of 1400-1500, followed by the San Carlos and Cibecue Apache (9001000), the Southern Tonto (800-900), and the Northern Tonto (400-500). This ranking appears to have corresponded exactly to the relative amount of territory controlled by each division, as well as the extent to which its members utilized the horse. Only in regard to intensity of agriculture was the ordering partially disturbed. On this dimension the Cibecue Apache ranked first; the White Mountain Apache, second; the San Carlos Apache, third, and the Southern and Northern Tonto, fourth and fifth, respectively.

Although the Western Apache engaged in farming, their subsistence economy was based upon hunting and gathering. Goodwin estimated that agricultural products made up only 25 per cent of all the food consumed in a year, the remainder being a combination of meat and undomesticated plants. Because the Apache could not rely on cultural products made up only 25 per cent of all the food consumed in a year, the remainder being a combination of meat and undomesticated plants. Because the Apache could not rely on a surplus of crops, they were compelled to travel widely in search of food and, as a consequence, did not estabish permanent, residences in any one place. Indeed, except for the winter months, when plant gathering activities came to a virtual standstill, they were almost continuously on the move.

Each of the five Western Apache subtribal groups was divided into two to four bands. According to Goodwin, each band had its own hunting territory and, except when pressed by starvation, did not encroach upon that of its neighbors.

Bands were divided into local groups, these being the basic units around which the social organization, government, and religious activities of the Western Apache revolved. Each local group was associated with certain farm sites and hunting grounds, and each had a chief who directed it in such enterprises as raiding parties, food gathering expeditions, and dealings with other tribes. The local group was characterized by a high degree of social cohesiveness, primarily because the persons who composed it were related by blood or marriage and were thus bound together by enduring obligations of mutual support.

Local groups were made up of from two to six smaller units, which Goodwin described as family clusters. In most cases, a family cluster was no more than a large matrilocal extended family that is, three to eight households, each of which contained an adult female who was a sister or daughter of an older woman in the group. There were exceptions, however, for despite a pronounced tendency for married men to take up residence in their wives' family cluster, it was not unusual for an older son particularly an only son to remain in his own family cluster and bring his wife to live with him.

Each cluster was under the leadership of a headman. At first, a man who married into a family cluster was obliged to work for his wife's parents and be at their disposal. However, as he grew older, became the father of children, and developed the qualities necessary for leadership, he was released from these duties and assumed more and more responsibility for the group as a whole. Eventually, the family cluster's headman would come to him and say: "I have been looking out for these people for many years, but now I am growing old. I have done what I can do. Your children are part of these people now, so I think it should be you who watches out for them."

Western Apache social organization also involved an intricate system of matrilineal clans. Whereas bands, local groups, and family clusters had clearly defined spatial boundaries, clans did not. Members of the same clan lived scattered throughout Apache territory, thus creating an extensive network of relationships which cut across bands and local groups but also linked them together. Persons belonging to a clan considered themselves related through maternal kinship, the descendants of women who first established farms at the clan's place of origin. These locations provided the names for clans (e.g. "juniper standing alone people," "two rows of yellow spruce coming together people") and were held to be sacred. Altogether there were 60 clans.

Marriage between members of the same clan was not allowed, although marriage into the clan of one's father was permissible. Clan kin were expected to aid each other in a variety of ways, and if it was deemed necessary, the entire clan might be called upon to avenge a wrong done to one of its members. Beyond these responsibilities there was little in the way of clan government or law. The clan's main functions were to regulate marriage, extend reciprocal obligations beyond the family cluster, and facilitate concerted action in projects requiring more manpower than was available within the local group.

Western Apache women usually entered marriage before the age of 18; men, in their early 20's. Although proven ability in economic activities was desirable in a spouse it was not essential, for often youths were inexperienced in hunting and raiding and girls were unskilled in the full range of female tasks. However, laziness, truculence, and physical disabilities, which prevented the performance of adult labors, were vital nuptial hindrances. The practical aspects of marriage were prominent in the minds of parents, and in many cases it was they who arranged the alliance. Family status was an important consideration and marriage ties with a large, wealthy family were preferred. Such a family was able to make generous gifts prior to marriage and could be counted on for smaller contributions in the years that followed.

Despite the importance attached to economic factors, Apache parents did not insist upon marriages in which their children were reluctant to participate. Love was regarded as an essential component in lasting unions, and its absence was recognized as having destructive effects. However, young people were consciously trained to see that other considerations had comparable importance and for this reason were usually willing to accept the judgement of their parents.

Divorce was not infrequent, and there was nothing to prevent a husband or wife from marrying again. Acceptable grounds for divorce included laziness, incompetence in the performance of expected duties, continual bickering, unreasonable jealousy, infidelity, and the failure of a man to observe proper forms of respect with his wife's parents.

In pre-reservation times a few Western Apache men had more than one wife. Goodwin recorded only 12 polygynous marriages for the period before 1880, and in all of these the men were either local group chiefs or persons of unusual influence. All other marriages were monogamous.

The most prominent leaders in Western Apache society were the chiefs of local groups. These individuals were selected from the ranks of family cluster headmen on the basis of skill in hunting or raiding, and the possession of personal qualities that inspired confidence, allegiance, and respect. Among the Western Apache, chiefs lacked absolute authority over their followers and did not control by means of coercion.

Chiefs led effectively by strength of character, an ability to promote consensus within the local group, and the exemplary fashion in which they conducted their own lives. In short, they served as models for others to emulate and, in so doing, personified a set of values to which their followers could readily subscribe.

The dignity of a chief, furthermore, placed him above the performance of menial tasks, such as gathering firewood. And the dwellings in his camp tended to be somewhat larger than those of other people. He never traveled alone, and if by some extraordinary circumstance he was killed, his followers retaliated with all the force they could muster. It is highly significant, as Goodwin notes, that "No Apache could recall an unsatisfactory chief or one who had been removed because of incompetence. (continued page 39)