The best-known clashes between the whites and the Indians of this region are the series of Apache wars, particularly between the early s and the late s. Biographical Note. Michael G. Johnson has researched Native American history and culture for more than 35 years. Introduction - the American Southwest in prehistory The Spanish invasion, 16th century Brief history, lifestyle and culture, religion, wars, and eventual fate of the Yuman tribes the Havasupai, Walapai, Yavapai, Mohave, Maricopa, Yuma, etc.
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Google Books Search. The Piman peoples claim to be descended from the Hohokams. The later Developmental Pueblo Period Pueblo I and II saw a rapid rise in population, and innovation in pottery, food storage and agriculture. After this period, drought forced the people to move south, primarily to the Rio Grande Valley, Zuni and Hopi. Into a substantially sedentary and farming culture there arrived from the Plains, probably during the 15th century, a predominantly hunting, gathering and raiding people, the Athabascans — the ancestors of the Navajo and Apache of historic times.
Finally, from about , came the Spanish invaders. Coronado led a main party across the Southern Plains to an Indian town, Quivira, probably inhabited by a Caddoan people. Alarcon was the first known European to contact the Yuman peoples of the lower Colorado River. Gi San Carlos N. TIWA N. Northern To n t o R. Salton Sea S. The woman seems to wear the typical Apache female costume of a cape over a separate skirt.
Two Chiricahua Apache warriors with bows and arrows, The long arrows are probably of composite construction, with a heavier wooden foreshaft tanged into a cane shaft. Ancestors of the Apache arrived on the Texas and New Mexico plains as hunter-gatherers around the end of the 15th century. Armed with the sinew-backed bow, these proto-Apacheans hunted buffalo, antelope and deer, collected wild plant food, and lived in both tipis and wickiups.
By they had penetrated as far west as Zuni, and by , into Arizona. By then they were probably mounted, which greatly increased their range both for trading with and raiding Indian Pueblos and Mexican settlements. In Onate, a wealthy Basque silvermine owner from Zacatecas, Mexico, was ordered to begin formal colonization of New Mexico. He assembled colonists including women and children, with livestock, and reached the Rio Grande near modern El Paso.
Moving north, he claimed the area for Spain, and established a ruthless governorship at San Juan Pueblo. The colonists demanded tribute and supplies from the villagers, and when a few soldiers were killed Onate retaliated savagely against Acoma Pueblo, killing hundreds. The Spanish imposed a system of government on each Pueblo, establishing Catholic missions and suppressing native religion. Under Spanish rule the number of Pueblo villages in the Rio Grande Valley would decrease from 66 in to 19 by By , Spanish Franciscan missionaries were claiming 60, converts, and the colonizers were building garrisons, towns and ranches.
The Spanish brought significant changes to native culture by introducing new building techniques, cattle, horses, sheep, goats, and European fruits. However, their greatest impact was on Indian population numbers, which were drastically reduced due to the introduction of European diseases. In about , village Indians in 40 groups had lived in about 80 Pueblos and other farming settlements in presentday Arizona and New Mexico; after the devastating smallpox epidemic of the remaining sedentary population had been reduced by two-thirds.
The more nomadic Navajo and Apache were less affected. Havasupai Closely related to the Walapai, they lived in Havasu Canyon close to the confluence of Havasu Creek with the Colorado River, but their territory once extended across the Coconino Plateau to the south. In early times they occupied the canyon floor only in spring and summer to grow edible plants and grasses for seeds; in winter they hunted antelope, deer and mountain sheep on the plateau. They first encountered Spanish explorers as early as ; they were visited by Garces in , and contact with Anglo-Americans began in the s.
A small acre reservation was established in the canyon in but was later extended to include part of the plateau. Their population was never more than a few hundred; in it was reported by the Bureau of Indian Affairs BIA as people. Walapai Hualapai, Pai Inhabiting an area bounded by the Colorado River and the arid plateaus between the Coconino Plateau and presentday Lake Mead, they rarely numbered more than 1,, scattered in small bands of two or three families.
They had limited contact with the Spanish, but feuded with Americans after , and for a period were forced to live on the Colorado River Reservation with the Mohave. In they obtained a reservation in their own territory.
In they numbered 1, Between and a number of Spanish explorers passed through, but they had limited Anglo-American contact before the s. Incursions by prospectors and miners led to feuds and massacres, until subdued by Col George Crook in Alarcon passed through in , and Kino paused in their villages en route to California in In the Franciscan Garces established a mission, but this was destroyed in In a reservation was established, largely in California, but since the land was mostly too arid for agriculture the Yuma have relied heavily on waged work.
In the BIA reported 2, enrolled. A few women have continued to produce elaborate beaded capes and other tourist items. More warlike than their neighbors, they were traditionally hostile to the Pima, Papago, Maricopa and Cocopa. Alarcon may have reached their territory in ; Onate met them in , and Garces in — The gold rush brought inevitable friction, and Ft Mohave was built in to maintain peace.
Maricopa A Yuma man photographed playing a flute in c. Yellow Feather, a Maricopa woman photographed by F. Rinehart in Thought to have been originally part of the Yuma, they were driven up the Colorado River and along the Gila in pre-Spanish times by the Mohave, and then further eastward. During the early s they absorbed remnants of other Yuman tribes from the lower Colorado River. Late in the 19th century they were settled on the Gila River and Salt River reservations, and today are part of the Pima—Maricopa enrolled there.
Cocopa At first Spanish contact in it is estimated that some 3, lived in the Colorado River delta in Baja California. Those living in Arizona have two small reservations near Somerton, reported with people in ; others are in Mexico.
They are probable descendents of the Hohokam Culture which occupied southern and central Arizona for over a thousand years until c. AD , when their elaborate irrigation systems declined and disappeared. They attribute the large adobe ruins in their country, including Casa Grande, to their ancestors.
Padre Kino was among them in , and they had successive contacts with Spanish clergy and military during the 18th century. Padre Kino was probably the first European of note to visit the Papago, in , when they numbered about 6, people. By the mission of San Xavier del Bac had become one of the first permanent white settlements in Arizona. They were also visited by Garces between and ; by then they were acquiring horses and cattle, and in a short time became proficient cattlemen.
Their homeland came under American control with the Gadsden Purchase of ; they generally lived peacefully under the new government, despite occasional clashes with white ranchers over grazing and water rights.
During the period AD — substantial numbers of these peoples migrated southward through the Rocky Mountain states, probably on the eastern side as far as Texas, and finally moved to occupy territories west of the Rio Grande in New Mexico and Arizona. Prior to the process of separation into the Apachean and Navajo peoples they were semi-nomadic hunters and gatherers living in small, scattered bands. These Plains Apaches established trade relations with the Pueblos, and by were firmly settled west of the Rio Grande.
This southwestern division of the language family divides into the Navajo, Western Apache San Carlos , Chiricahua-Mescalero, Jicarilla, Lipan, and a small branch who attached themselves to the Kiowa tribe, the Kiowa Apache.
The acquisition of the horse gave the Apache a greatly extended network of trading and raiding relationships, stretching between the Hopi villages and the Spanish settlements in Sonora.
By the 18th century some agriculture had been adopted from the Pueblo or Navajo to supplement their plant-gathering and hunting subsistence.
In —80 hostilities between the Apache and the Spanish intensified, but a new policy was conceived following a major reorganization of the administrative structure of New Spain from The capture for adoption of Mexican women and children altered their genetic composition, though their language, mythology, ritual and social organization remained largely unaltered.
The exception were the Lipan people, who had extensive contact with the Spanish in Texas. The presence of the Apacheans in the Southwest is considered relatively recent by many investigators, who believe that the Querechos , Teyas, Vasqueros and Mansos reported by Spanish explorers on the Southern Plains or in northern Mexico were Apaches. An archaeological site at Dismal River, Nebraska, from c.
The Western Apache, whose historic territory lay south of the Navajo, may well have preceded them into their subsequent locations in New Mexico and Arizona. In the numbers of Apache still speaking their native languages were given as: Western Apache, 12,; Mescalero-Chiricahua, 1,; Jicarilla, ; Kiowa Apache, 20; and Lipan, just 3. The man wears a Navajo blanket, and a buckskin war cap heavily decorated with feathers — those of the owl, eagle and turkey were favored.
The five sub-tribes and their constituent bands were: 1 San Carlos proper. The major Mazatzal band in the Mazatzal Mtns, plus six very small bands near the Verde and Tonto rivers. Each of these five sub-tribal groups had its own hunting territory and farming sites, where persons primarily related by blood or marriage formed large extended families.
They also had a system of matrilineal clans that were not bounded by local groups, but had clan members scattered throughout Apache territory. Marriage within the same clan was not allowed, and most marriages were monogamous. Leaders were selected from local band chiefs, for their strength of character and their ability to promote consensus.
Raids were organized in response to a food shortage or to avenge the death of a kinsman, with small parties of 5—15 men usually attacking in the mornings.
However, war parties of up to men were not uncommon, under a single chief or a religious medicine man appointed to afford protection or instil the will to fight. In , 75 Western Apaches were massacred at Camp Grant by a mob from Tucson, after which a policy to collect the Apaches on reservations was instigated, both to encourage farming and stock-raising, and ostensibly so that they could be protected from white violence.
Camp Verde became the location of the Tonto Apaches, as well as some unrelated Yavapai. The total population for all Apache tribes in has been estimated probably too conservatively at only 5, Numbers have risen steadily since the census gave 6, exclusive of the Kiowa Apache; there were a grand total of 21, in In the BIA.
No specific mention of the Chiricahua was made by Niza in or Coronado in ; 17th- and 18th-century missionaries reported the Jocome and Jano peoples, who were probably Chiricahua. In the Gadsden Purchase was a prelude to American hostilities with the chiefs Mangas Coloradas and Cochise, who were unhappy with the reservations assigned and the treatment of their people. Successive campaigns by Gen Geroge Crook and Col Nelson Miles gradually forced their surrender, with Geronimo finally submitting in Photographed in c.
In the background, note the tus of twined basketwork, caulked with a vegetable paste and sealed with pinetree pitch to hold water or food. Here he is photographed in , wearing the formalized uniform of the US Indian Scouts. General Crook had employed hundreds of Apache scouts, but from March the number in the Dept of Arizona was reduced to just 50 — though that was still more than in any other regional department.
Photograph F. Rinehart Posed studio portrait of a Mescalero Apache man holding a painted shield and a lance, c.
The Mescalero were not quite as warlike as the Western Apache or the Chiricahua, but they were similar in language, culture and traditions. In , Chiricahuas settled with the Mescaleros and 84 chose to remain in Oklahoma. The former branch are no longer reported separately; the Ft Sill Apaches numbered in , but almost no speakers of their language remained. Mescalero Apache Closely related to the Chiricahua, their mutually understandable languages forming a dialectic division.
Two major bands were known: the Faraon or Band of Pharoah, and the Mescalero band proper, both living between the Rio Grande and Pecos rivers and ranging through southern New Mexico and southward into Coahuila.
During the summers they followed game through the mountains, and in the winters they collected wild plants such as mescal. They also hunted buffalo bison , and used the Plains-type tipi. They were often in conflict with the Comanches, who claimed the Texas plains as their own, and they also both raided and traded with the Pueblo Indians. Their first contacts with Spanish explorers were friendly, but by the late s they were resisting the colonizers. In —89 the Spanish launched a campaign against them that reduced depredations until In some were confined with the Navajos at Bosque Redondo, while others escaped to live in Mexico or join other Apache groups.
In —73 the Mescalero Reservation was established around Ft Stanton in south-central New Mexico, where the tribe have lived ever since. In , were reported, including a few Lipan; in they also absorbed some Chiricahuas.
In this combination was reported as numbering 3, Jicarilla Apache 12 Named from a Spanish term recognizing their expertise in making basketry, they occupied the mountainous region of SW Colorado and northern New Mexico in two major groups, the Ollero and Llanero.
These may have been the Vasqueros of the early Spanish chronicles; a mission was established amongst them in , but was soon abandoned. From their contact with the Pueblos they supplemented their hunting economy with some agriculture, but Spanish settlements provided a main source for horses and livestock.
They allied with the Utes against the Navajos, and shared and adopted a number of Plains Indian traits, including buckskin clothing, beadwork, and the use of tipis. The Americans attempted to settle them at Rio Puerco in , which resulted in hostility, and again at Ft Stanton in , but subsequently they were permitted to remain on a reservation set aside in west of Tierra Amarilla within their own territory, between the upper San Juan and Chama rivers in NW New Mexico.
Cattle-raising, the lumber business and fire-fighting have been typical occupations in recent times. Their population in numbered 3, They are descended from Plains Apaches, reported by early Spanish explorers as having well-trained horses and as hunting buffalo. In they attacked San Antonio; in a Franciscan mission was established for them, but was destroyed by their enemies the Comanche and Wichita.
Subsequent missions also failed. By some Lipans were reported in Coahuila, Mexico. They were constantly harried by the Comanche who invaded Texas from the northwest, and suffered greatly at the hands of the Texans themselves, who attempted to exterminate Indians within their borders. They made treaties with the Republic of Texas in , and a year later with the United States, at which time they numbered between and people. The remaining Lipans joined the Mescalero in New Mexico, the last from Coahuila numbering just 37 people in A few are thought to have accompanied the Tonkawa to Oklahoma.
Today they are not reported separately from the Mescalero. Opinion is divided about their origins: one theory suggests that they came from the north with the Kiowa, separately from the ancestral Southwestern Apache. Lewis and Clark are thought to have reported them in presentday Wyoming, but they were on the Southern Plains shortly thereafter. An alternative theory makes them part of the older Athabascan migration to the Southwest, but later split off and driven to the central Plains, perhaps by the Comanche in the early s.
They are probably the Gatacka or Padouca of early French and Spanish reports. With the Lipan, these Plains Apache may have been the first to have mastered the nomadic, buffalo-hunting Plains culture, and they originally had a total population of more than 5, In they numbered in Oklahoma; in the BIA gave 1,, but many with as little as one-eighth true Kiowa Apache ancestry. By this date the tribe had been settled for a generation on a reservation in their ancestral territory in northwestern New Mexico.
Mary Richards, a Lipan Apache, c. Before the arrival of the Comanche in their ancestral territory on the Texas plains in the 18th century they probably numbered at least 3, people, but thereafter they were constantly harried by the Comanche and later by the Texans. By there were just 25 Lipans on the Mescalero Reservation and 10 in Oklahoma, including this lady living among the Tonkawa.
This small tribe, part of the Kiowa at the beginning of the reservation period, was probably the remnant of an older independent Plains people. A Kiowa Apache warrior named Striker, He clearly wears a Euro-American shirt and vest, but he has a beaded pouch and a combined bowcase and quiver probably of mountain-lion skin slung on his back, and he holds a bow. The Western Apache, Chiricahua, Mescalero and Jicarilla used the wickiup, a dwelling with a brush or grass covering on a frame of light poles.
The Apache were largely dependent on meat for food, deer and antelope being the most important quarry. Buffalo were also a major food source for the Jicarilla, Mescalero and Lipan. Nuts, berries, prickly pear, yucca fruit, mescal, mesquite beans and acorns were important wild plant foods, but the Western Apache and Jicarilla also farmed corn, beans, squash and gourds. Some pottery was made by the Jicarilla, less by the Western Apache, but the latter excelled in basketry using coiled and twined techniques, the most popular forms being coiled trays and bowls.
The basketry of each Apache group was distinguishable; burden-baskets and later bowl-baskets with black designs are much sought after today. Clothing varied for each major Apache group. Jicarilla, Mescalero and Lipan men wore their hair in two braids, and dressed in buckskin shirts, leggings and moccasins similar to those of the Southern Plains tribes and Utes. Western Apache and Chiricahua men wore their hair loose. Their buckskin shirts were cut in European-like jacket forms with a fringe below the shoulders, and were sometimes painted with yellow ochre and beaded in lazy-stitch bands.
By the midth century Euro-American shirts, blouses and skirts had replaced buckskin for everyday wear. Hard-soled moccasin-boots reaching to just below the knee, with an upturned toe, were typical of the Western Apache, and were often partly beaded.
Western Apaches wore special buckskin war caps with eagle, owl or turkey feathers attached; in fairly recent times Jicarilla and Mescalero men wore the Plains-style war bonnet of eagle feathers. War gear and weapons included painted rawhide shields, lances, war clubs, bows and arrows. The self bow was more common among the Western Apache and the sinew-backed type among the Jicarilla.
Wooden arrows of the Plains type were used by eastern groups, while cane arrows with a wooden foreshaft were favored by the Western and Chiricahua Apache. Jicarilla Apache women wore buckskin dresses reaching below the knees, sometimes with a wide, separate, beaded yoke or cape over the shoulders.
Western Apache and Chiricahua women wore a two-piece buckskin garment comprising a poncho-like upper section and a skirt. Cradleboards for carrying infants were made from yucca slats with buckskin wrappers painted yellow, or later of cloth, and were carried with a burden-strap similar to those used for carrying large gathering-baskets. Special mention should be made of the Apache tus — a type of water-carrying basketry jar caulked with a paste of ground juniper leaves and sealed with pine pitch.
It was carried on the back with a tumpline over the head. The Apache used braided horsehair quirts, and large hide or buckskin saddlebags with cut-outs decorated with coloured cloth. They produced several musical instruments including flutes, drums and a type of fiddle. Apache beliefs The world was formed by the Creator of the Universe, Ysun, the source of all power.
Under this supernatural force four mythological deities created the universe in stages, with grasses and trees, streams and rivers, rocks and mountains, and finally wind. These and all other animate or inanimate objects were believed to have spirit, including the sun, moon, thunder and lightning, which were especially powerful. Another cycle of myths dealt with the origin of religious ceremonials, while yet another group served to instruct and amuse, recounting the adventures of the culture heroes Coyote and Big Owl.
At the beginning of time humans emerged from the earth. After undergoing arduous tests and weapons instruction, they killed the monsters that were causing death and misery. The majority of Western Apache ceremonials were directed towards curing, through the therapeutic effects of reiteration of myths, chants and prayers. All ceremonials had a defined structure, ritual paraphernalia, and sometimes masked dancers. Some important groups of rituals relating to male and female puberty are still held.
According to tradition the girl is identified with White Painted Woman, who initially taught this ritual to the Apache; she wears a special buckskin duplicating the one worn by White Painted Woman, with symbols of the moon, sun and stars, and a yellow-painted and beaded buckskin serape with downy eagle feathers at the shoulders. Four ribbons attached to it, in black, green, yellow and tan, symbolize the cardinal directions.
She dances on a large painted buckskin spread on the ground, to ensure a plentiful supply of deer. This ritual is still undertaken by families with sufficient resources among the Western Apache and Mescalero. In early days the Gaan dances were often performed to protect the bands from impending disasters such as epidemics, but today they are limited to the puberty rites and public exhibitions. The two opposing teams represent the Sun and the Moon: if the Moon wins it is interpreted as a good year for farming, and if the Sun wins a good hunting season will follow.
In Apache culture the hereditary aspect of chieftaincy was anyway provisional, and acknowledged leadership depended upon proven individual qualities. While raiding certainly played an important part in their history, many conflicts with the whites were the result of attempts at first to missionize them, and sometimes to exterminate them in the s the Mexican authorities paid a bounty for Apache scalps.
Later clashes were inevitably provoked by the incursions of white prospectors and settlers into their territory, and by mismanagement and bad faith on the part of the American military and civil authorities during the 19th century.
By the midth century Apaches were raiding Spanish settlements in Sonora and Chihuahua, and the Pueblo villages along the Pecos and Rio Grande rivers. Attempts to missionize them ended in full-scale rebellion in , and they had spread within the boundaries of presentday Arizona by Until the s Mexico was the favored raiding territory for Western Apache and Chiricahua war parties, which fanned out across the huge territory of Sonora to replenish their herds of horses and cattle.
To protect their settlements the Spanish established a line of garrisoned presidios across northern Mexico, and encouraged some Apache bands to settle permanently around them, hoping that their vigor would diminish as they became dependant upon the Spanish.
As late as , Tubac and other settlements in presentday Arizona were abandoned due to Apache raids. Conflicts with the Anglo-Americans began in the s when trappers and prospectors began to penetrate the vast Apache domain. By the US had gained full political control of the Southwest — a concept incomprehensible to the Apaches, who had roamed this land for years. The few green valleys in their homeland became magnets for settlers, and their life-giving springs became sites for military posts and trail stations.
Western Apache and Chiricahua After gold was discovered in California, fortune-seekers passed through Western Apache and Chiricahua country protected by organized military columns. In an incident at a mining camp near Pinos Altos in , Mangas Coloradas, chief of the Mimbreno Chiricahuas, was whipped, provoking his life-long hatred of the white man.
However, his son-in-law Cochise long resisted calls to fight the Americans, and granted them use of Apache Pass in SE Arizona as part of their trail to the West. In Cochise was accused of stealing cattle and kidnapping a boy from a ranch near Ft Buchanan. Wounded, Cochise managed to escape alone by cutting his way out of a tent.
When the soldiers refused an exchange of prisoners, both sides killed their hostages. In July , Apaches led by the two chiefs confronted California militiamen in the famous Battle of Apache Pass, only being forced to retreat by howitzer-fire. Cochise now exercised leadership of the Chiricahuas from his stronghold in the Dragoon Mtns of southern Arizona, and guerrilla warfare against Americans and Mexicans continued for years.
In April a number of Arivaipa Western Apaches under Eskiminzin came to Camp Grant for protection, but a mob from Tucson massacred 75 of them — mainly women and children, while the men were hunting in the mountains. In the aftermath of this outrage Co George Crook was appointed commander of the Dept of Arizona to bring hostilities to an end, while a peace commission led by Gen Oliver Howard negotiated with Cochise through the intercession of the trusted Tom Jeffords.
Cochise died that August, and the following year trouble broke out again when the Dept of the Interior closed his reservation, and disastrously sought to combine mutually hostile Chiricahuas and Western Apaches, with Yavapai, on the arid San Carlos Reservation. Victorio subsequently waged a brilliant guerrilla campaign against US and Mexican forces on both sides of the Rio Grande, but in October he was defeated and killed by Mexicans near Tres Castillos in Chihuahua.
In July the now-Gen Crook was recalled to deal with the crisis, due both to his campaign experience and his reputation among the Apache for honesty. Crook settled some grievances, agreeing that Apaches at San Carlos could disperse from the agency headquarters and settle along the creeks to raise crops and become self-supporting. He also employed large numbers of Apache scouts, upon whom he relied heavily in subsequent expeditions.
Bands led by the Chiricahua warriors Geronimo Goyathlay and Chato raided from the Sierra Madre, but in spring , after gaining Mexican agreement for US troops to cross the border, Gen Crook hunted most of them down. All the chiefs except Juh eventually submitted, including — finally, in March — Geronimo. Such changing of sides by individuals or clans was not regarded as treachery. However, the fact that Chato was given a Presidential medal for his services did not prevent his imprisonment in Florida with other Chiricahuas once Geronimo had finally surrendered.
Chato was killed in an auto accident in Salt Canyon Colora do R. Jemez de an Gr Moctezuma R. However, while being escorted to Ft Bowie he and a handful of his followers again broke free.
Crook was replaced with Col Nelson Miles, who committed 5, troops and scouts to the recapture of Geronimo. His band, with 38 women and children, eluded pursuit for six months until they were tracked down to a camp in the Sonora mountains.
With other Chiricahuas, they were sent by train to Florida and imprisoned for eight years. Subsequently they were moved via Alabama to Oklahoma; and finally, in , were allowed to settle on the Mescalero Reservation in New Mexico. Geronimo never returned home; he and some followers chose to remain in Oklahoma, where their descendants are still known as the Ft Sill Apaches. Geronimo died in Mescalero and Jicarilla Apache The Mescalero were also subjected to cruelties and slave-trafficking by the Spanish and Mexicans in the 17th—18th centuries.
In the Spanish led a punitive expedition against them, and they in turn harried the Spanish as they retreated south to El Paso during the Pueblo Revolt of Several campaigns were launched against the Mescalero in the late 18th century in pursuit of a policy to settle them along the Rio Grande near presentday Belen, New Mexico, which had some success. Six US forts were established in their territory between and In between and Mescaleros were interned with Navajos at Bosque Redondo.
A reservation was established in around Ft Stanton in their own domain of south-central New Mexico, where they have lived ever since. The Jicarilla had limited contacts with the Spanish, although a few joined the Taos Indians during the Pueblo Revolt of Always under pressure from the Comanche and Ute, in they combined with a force of Spanish, Pueblos and Utes to defeat the Comanche.
After hostilities against the Americans, also involving Utes, flared up along the Santa Fe Trail and south to the Pecos valley. In —74 their reservation was established in NW New Mexico between the upper San Juan and Chama rivers, but did not become a permanent home until — Apache scouts posing with a white or mixed-race scout. The central standing figure wears a feathered war cap, extensive white face paint, and a fringed and beaded buckskin shirt, and holds a lance.
The others have Springfield rifles and wear the more usual combination of Apache breechclout and boot-moccasins with Euro-American shirts, vests and trousers; their headbands are probably red, and the two at the left have two streaks of dark face paint across their cheeks.
The earliest site of a Navajo dwelling hogan dated by the tree-ring method indicates that they were living in north-central New Mexico by In the Navajo were first reported by Spanish colonists living in the upper Chama River region, on open grassland northwest of the Pueblo town of Santa Clara.
In a Spanish mission was established among them, but little is known of them for the next 50 years. In , when Lt Gatewood was shot by Mexican irregulars while leading White Mountain scouts, it was Yellow Coyote who reportedly killed the man responsible. From a peaceful people practicing gathering, some agriculture derived from the Pueblos and hunting, the acquisition of horses allowed them the mobility to expand their domain westwards, and to raid Spanish settlements and Indian Pueblos to obtain food, horses, and women.
The adoption of sheep and goats played an important role; now less dependent upon crops, they could move up into plateau country where agriculture was impossible and even game was scarce.
By the Ute, Jicarilla, and even the Comanche had apparently cut off the Navajo from the Chama gateway to the Rio Grande and the relatively rich Spanish and Pueblo towns. They took little part in the Pueblo Revolt of ; during the reconquest by Vargas in the Navajo advised the Hopi not to receive him, marking the first recorded contact between the Navajo and Hopi. During —25 they moved south to the Jemez River gateway, making attacks on Jemez Pueblo. Between and the Spanish again made a number of attempts to missionize the Navajo.
From their strongholds in the latter, Navajos maintained their hostility towards the Spanish, but military expeditions finally reduced them to submission. The Mexican-American War of —48 marked the first American military action against the Navajo; over the following 15 years posts were established in their territory and numerous operations were mounted.
Carson marched into Canyon de Chelly in , forcing the Indians to surrender. Eventually 8, Navajos — perhaps a majority of the tribe at that time — were forced to travel, many on foot, to desolate territory at Bosque Redondo Ft Sumner , New Mexico, where they remained imprisoned for four years. When the promised sheep and goats were delivered by the government, the Navajo people fanned out across the reservation that was established in and extended in , and Stretching roughly between the San Juan River in the north and the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers in the west and south, and well into New Mexico in the east, this ultimately became by far the largest Indian reservation in the United States though it also encircles the Hopi Reservation.
In this isolated and precarious environment, the Navajo developed an economic system based on community agriculture, raising livestock, weaving blankets and later rugs, and silversmithing. In more recent times waged and off-reservation seasonal work has increased. In the Navajo numbered about 10,, but increased rapidly; the BIA reported 44, in , but , in , making the Navajo the largest of the enrolled Indian peoples. Navajo material culture Until quite recently many Navajo lived in various types of hogan dwellings.
Later hogans were square, rectangular, or multi-sided. For these, a 2ft-deep trench is required around the perimeter; vertical logs form corner posts spanned by horizontal beams supporting a cribbed roof, the structure is chinked with mud, and the roof is covered with earth. Multi-sided hogans use braced log rafters and ties to support a sod roof. The art of weaving cotton and later wool on vertical looms was probably learnt from the Pueblo Indians. They also added an indigo blue dye from Mexico to their own vegetable dyes.
By this time commercial yarns such as Saxony were introduced, and by the s the American Germantown yarn, made in Pennsylvania. The mids are known as the Classic Period for blankets and serapes ponchos with a slit for the head. After aniline dyes became available, and blankets became coarser, with repeated patterns. From around the influence of white traders prompted a switch from weaving blankets to rugs, and the use of new yarns, colours and designs. With families living in increased concentration around trading posts, about 12 major regional styles of rugs gradually evolved across the Navajo Reservation; famous ones include Ganado, Teec Nos Pos, and Two Grey Hills.
Fine rugs are still produced, and much sought-after. Navajo silverworking began soon after their imprisonment at Ft Sumner, when they began to copy Mexican techniques to produce their first bracelets and earrings. The early pieces were simply hammered out of silver coins, but casting was practiced by , with sparse decoration by the use of iron chisels; stamping-dies were adopted in the s. After about increasing quantities of silverwork were commissioned by tourists. Most early Navajo silverwork lacked turquoise stones, and had a massive quality.
In this photo of c. Note his silver necklaces, terminating in a deep, almost-circular crescent naja of Spanish influence; and also the richly woven Navajo blankets and rugs.
An apparently hexagonal Navajo hogan, photographed in about Around vertical corner-posts set in the ground the horizontal timbers are joined by notching and interlocking at the ends, and then caulked to fill the chinks; the roof has been covered with packed mud.
Their myths claim that the Navajo emerged from the underworld into a land bounded by mountains, such as Mt Taylor and the San Franciscos. Changing Woman or her sister married the Sun and gave birth to Twin War Gods Born-of-Water and Monster-Slayer , who eliminated most of the evil monsters troubling the Navajo, but failed to remove ill-health. Lesser ones are the Yeis Holy People represented by thunder, lightning, and wind; lesser still are the ancestral spirits of animals, plants, and geographical locations.
The Navajo believe the world and its people should be maintained in physical and psychological harmony. When this is disturbed by ghosts Chindi , witches, or people breaking religious taboos, then appropriate curing rites must be undertaken. These long, complicated ceremonies last up to nine days, including prayers, sweats, dances, and sand-painting rituals, called Sings Chants or Ways , of which there are over The term was inherited by the Anglo-Americans who in assumed control of presentday New Mexico which then also included much of Arizona.
The Pueblo culture, and perhaps some of the people, probably descended from the Anasazi Culture. A period of drought in about AD forced some of this population to relocate south to the Rio Grande Valley.
Pueblo subsistence was largely based upon agriculture, with some hunting. Rituals were conducted to control the weather, ripen crops, and ensure hunting success. Originally the wool yarn was hand-spun from the mixed-breed Churro sheep introduced by the Spanish; later Merino and Rambouillet sheep were acquired. From the s commercial yarns were introduced, and from about white traders encouraged a change from weaving blankets to rugs, with new designs, for sale to tourists.
Note that this circular hogan has dry-stone walls. Excluding the Hopi and Zuni, the Pueblos were confined to the vicinity of the Rio Grande Valley, each village being politically autonomous. From that time the Pueblos have generally been at peace with the whites except for a confrontation at Taos Pueblo in — see below. Four linguistic families are represented amongst the Pueblos. Hopi is a branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family; Zuni is an isolated language; Keresan is an independent family in two branches; the fourth, Tanoan, is almost as divergent, but distantly related to the Uto-Aztecan.
Navajo woman holding a baby in a characteristic cradleboard with sunshade, c. Navajos usually use turquoise stones only as an embellishment for their silverwork, in contrast to their heavy decorative use by the Zunis. Hopi silverwork is a relatively recent craft, and reproduces old pottery designs. The Pueblo Revolt, From to the Pueblo Indians lived in uneasy co-existence with the colonizers, though Spanish oppression often provoked violent outbreaks. The Spanish clergy denounced native religious practices, and in a number of Indian religious leaders were hanged and many others flogged in an Inquisition-style purge.
Among the surviving sufferers was a spiritual leader named Pope from San Juan Pueblo, who instigated an underground movement that linked many villages together in gradual resistance to the invaders. Images from Navajo mythology — here, Yei figures — are pictured in finely-ground sand, minerals, and vegetable materials such as corn and pollen.
The patient sits within the painting, obtaining power from the deities invoked, and the evil that caused the illness is absorbed by the sand. The sand-paintings must be created and destroyed between the sunrise and sunset of a single day, under the direction of a medicine man. Before the disease can be treated, however, patients must be put in harmony with the universe; psychosomatic medicine is still used today in conjunction with conventional medicine, with documented success.
Although Christian converts from Tesuque Pueblo had warned Governor Oterim, warriors armed with clubs, lances, and bows killed priests and settlers in their churches and haciendas. Of perhaps 2, Spanish colonists, more than 1, refugees straggled into Santa Fe.
Led by Luis Tupatu from Picuris Pueblo, warriors approached the town to negotiate, forcing the Spanish defenders to leave on August 20, and that night the masked Kachinas see below performed their dances in the town plaza.
Vargas led a strong force north the following year; the Picuris chief Tupato committed suicide, and of the Indians who surrendered 70 were hanged and taken as slaves. In the Spanish stormed Jemez Pueblo, killing more than 80 and enslaving women and children.
A last revolt against the Spanish took place in It dates from some time between c. AD and , in the Developmental and Great Pueblo periods.
It was abandoned partly due to climate change, the people probably joining or forming some of the later Rio Grande Pueblos. AD — 1: Western Anasazi woman, c. Following a minor incident in the Spanish under Onate exacted a terrible revenge, killing more than people. Only about 30 people now live in the Pueblo itself, the great majority inhabiting two communities on the lower ground. Photo courtesy Barry Corbett Spanish power did not extend far beyond the immediate Rio Grande Valley, and a new governor ushered in a period of tolerance and co-existence to break the cycle of revolt and repression.
Many Mexicans feared that their land titles would not be recognized by the new US territorial administration under Governor Charles Bent. In January a force of rebels broke into the house in which Bent was staying, and killed him and other American officials and civilians; next day they laid siege to a mill in Arroyo Hondo, and killed more Americans at Mora.
Colonel Sterling Price, with US Dragoons and a number of volunteers, attacked Taos Pueblo, where the rebels took refuge in the thick-walled adobe church.
The Americans gave assurances that the Indian titles to their Pueblos, granted by the former Mexican authorities, would be honored, and no further hostilities took place between the United States and the Pueblo peoples. Santa Clara pottery left is usually polished red or black, sometimes with carved decoration. San Ildefonso large pot at right formerly used black and orange designs on a creamcolored ground, as here, but a polished black ware has since been made famous by the work of Maria and Julian Martinez.
Acoma, Laguna and Isleta made closely related painted wares with elaborate multi-colored geometric designs on a white background, including bird forms at Acoma. Zia pottery used black, red, orange and yellow, and in Santo Domingo and Cochiti rich black designs on a cream slip were popular.
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