Plains Apache

Last updated
Apache Tribe of Oklahoma
Vanessa Paukeigope Jennings.jpg
Vanessa Jennings, a Plains Apache-Kiowa-Gila River Pima artist and traditionalist
Total population
2,263
Regions with significant populations
Flag of the United States.svg United States ( Flag of Oklahoma.svg Oklahoma)
Languages
English, formerly Plains Apache language
Religion
traditional tribal religion, Native American Church, Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Apache peoples, Navajo people, and other Athabascans.

The Plains Apache are a small Southern Athabaskan group who live on the Southern Plains of North America, in close association with the linguistically unrelated Kiowa Tribe. Today, they are centered in Southwestern Oklahoma and Northern Texas and are federally recognized as the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma. [1]

Contents

Name

The Plains Apache are also known as the Kiowa Apache, Naʼisha, or Na i sha Tindé, meaning "thieves" as the old meaning. However, in more recent times the negative meaning (thief) is beginning to be replaced by just Na i sha. [2] They also used the term Kalth Tindé or γát dìndé meaning "cedar people" or Bá-ca-yé meaning "whetstone people". To their close allies, the much larger Kiowa tribe, who speak a completely unrelated language, they were known as Semat meaning "stealers." At major tribal events, the Kiowa Apache formed part of the Kiowa tribal "hoop" (ring of tipis). This may explain why the Kiowa named the Kiowa Apache Taugui meaning "sitting outside."[ citation needed ]

Government

Today the tribe is headquartered in Anadarko, Oklahoma. Their tribal jurisdictional area covers parts of Caddo, Comanche, Cotton, Greer, Jackson, Kiowa, Tillman and Harmon Counties in Oklahoma.

In 2011, the tribe had 2,263 total members, of whom 1,814 lived in-state. Tribal membership is based on 1/8 blood quantum [3] , meaning a person must be able to prove they have at least 1/8 Native American ancestry to be considered eligible for tribal enrollment.

As of 2024, the Tribe Chairman is Durell Cooper, supported by Vice Chairman Matt Tselee, Secretary/Treasurer Ruth Bert and committee members Donald Komardley and Dustin Cozard. [4] In addition to the Apache Business Committee outlined above, the tribe also operates the following tribal departments: [5]

Economic Development

The Apache Tribe of Oklahoma owns and operates the Apache Golden Eagle Casino in Apache, Oklahoma. [6] The Golden Eagle Casino was previously closed in 2013 due to a tribal dispute, along with the Silver Buffalo Casino in Anadarko, Oklahoma. [7] Only the Golden Eagle Casino reopened once the dispute was settled. The Casino is under the jurisdiction of the Apache Gaming Commission, headed by Gaming Commissioner Ryan Adudell. [8] There is also a smokeshop and a gas station on the reservation. [3] The tribe also issue their own tribal license plates through the Tax Commission. [9] [10] [11]

History

Essa-queta, Plains Apache chief Kiowa Apache Essa-queta.jpg
Essa-queta, Plains Apache chief
Kiowa-Apache Wohngebiet Kiowa-Apachen.png
Kiowa-Apache

In the early 18th century, the Plains Apache lived around the upper Missouri River and were closely connected to the Kiowa people. They were ethnically different and spoke a different language. Plains Apache entered this alliance with the Kiowa for mutual protection against hostile tribes.

It is recorded that many Kiowa Apache did not learn the Kiowa language, preferring to communicate with their allies using the sophisticated Plains Indian Sign Language, at which the Kiowa were past masters (having probably devised much of the system).

Even before contact with Europeans, their numbers were never large, and in 1780 their population was estimated at 400. [2]

The Kiowa Apache and Kiowa had migrated into the Southern Plains sometime around 1800. [1] By the Treaty of Medicine Lodge in 1867 the Kiowa and Kiowa Apache settled in Western Oklahoma and Kansas. They were forced to move south of the Washita River to the Red River and Western Oklahoma with the Comanche and the Kiowa. The reservation period lasted from 1868 to 1906. The transition from the free life of Plains people to a restricted life of the reservation was more difficult for some families than others. [12] The 1890 Census showed 1,598 Comanche at the Fort Sill reservation, which they shared with 1,140 Kiowa and 326 Kiowa Apache. [13]

Some groups of Plains Apache refused to settle on reservations and were involved in Kiowa and Comanche uprisings, most notably the First Battle of Adobe Walls which was the largest battle of the Indian Wars. It would be the last battle in which the Natives repelled the US Army in the Southern Plains.

In 1966, the tribe organized a business committee and regained federal recognition. [1]

Social organization

The Kiowa Apache social organization is split into numerous extended families (kustcrae), who camped together (for hunting, gathering) as local groups (gonka). The next level was the division or band, a grouping of a number of gonkas (who would come together, for mutual protection, especially in time of war).

In pre-reservation times there were at least four local groups or gonkas who frequently joined together for warring neighbouring tribes and settlements.

Dismal River culture

The Apache are linked to the Dismal River culture of the western Plains, [14] generally attributed to the Paloma and Cuartelejo Apaches. Jicarilla Apache pottery has also been found in some of the Dismal River complex sites. [15] Some of the people of the Dismal River culture joined the Kiowa Apache in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Due to pressure from the Comanche from the west and Pawnee and French from the east, the Kiowa and remaining people of Dismal River culture migrated south where they later joined the Lipan Apache and Jicarilla Apache nations. [15]

Language

Richard Aitson, poet and award-winning beadworker, is both Kiowa and Kiowa Apache Richard aitson kiowa.jpg
Richard Aitson, poet and award-winning beadworker, is both Kiowa and Kiowa Apache

The Kiowa Apache language is a member of the Southern Athabaskan language family, a division of the Na-Dene languages. The Plains Apache language, also referred to as Kiowa Apache, was the most divergent member of the subfamily. While three people spoke the language in 2006, [16] the last fluent speaker died in 2008.

Historical chiefs

Notable tribal members

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Everett, Dianna. "Apache Tribe of Oklahoma". The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Oklahoma Historical Society. Retrieved 20 January 2020.
  2. 1 2 Pritzker, 295
  3. 1 2 "Pocket Pictorial Directory 2011". digitalprairie.ok.gov. Retrieved 2024-02-13.
  4. "Apache Tribe Business Committee – Apache Tribe of Oklahoma". apachetribe.org. Retrieved 2024-02-13.
  5. "Tribal Departments – Apache Tribe of Oklahoma". apachetribe.org. Retrieved 2024-02-13.
  6. "Apache Gaming Commission – Apache Tribe of Oklahoma". apachetribe.org. Retrieved 2024-02-13.
  7. "Apache Tribe puts 100 people out of work with casino closures". Indianz. Retrieved 2024-02-13.
  8. "Apache Gaming Commission – Apache Tribe of Oklahoma". apachetribe.org. Retrieved 2024-02-13.
  9. "Pocket Pictorial." Archived 6 April 2010 at the Wayback Machine Oklahoma Indian Affairs Commission. 2010: 8. (retrieved 10 June 2010)
  10. "Senate Indian panel to discuss racial concerns." Enid News and Eagle. 5 May 2011 (retrieved 14 June 2011)
  11. "Oklahoma's Tribal Nations." Archived 28 March 2010 at the Wayback Machine Oklahoma Indian Affairs Commission. 2010 (retrieved 11 April 2010)
  12. Swift, Dick 1972
  13. Texas Beyond History - The Passing of the Indian Era
  14. Cassells, E. Steve. (1997). The Archeology of Colorado, Revised Edition. Boulder, Colorado: Johnson Books. pp. 236. ISBN   1-55566-193-9.
  15. 1 2 Gibbon, Guy E.; Ames, Kenneth M. (1998) Archaeology of Prehistoric Native America: An Encyclopedia. p. 213. ISBN   0-8153-0725-X.
  16. Anderton, Alice, PhD. "Status of Indian Languages in Oklahoma." Archived 17 September 2010 at the Wayback Machine Intertribal Wordpath Society. 2009 (retrieved 11 April 2010)
  17. "Famous Chiefs, Cabin #5". Archived from the original on 29 August 2012.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arapaho</span> Native American tribe

The Arapaho are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comanche</span> Plains Native North American tribe

The Comanche or Nʉmʉnʉʉ is a Native American tribe from the Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the federally recognized Comanche Nation, headquartered in Lawton, Oklahoma.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cheyenne</span> Native American Indian tribe from the Great Plains

The Cheyenne are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enrolled in the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma, and the Northern Cheyenne, who are enrolled in the Northern Cheyenne Tribe of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indian Territory</span> Land set aside for relocation of Native Americans, 1834-1907

Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States government for the relocation of Native Americans who held original Indian title to their land as a sovereign independent state. The concept of an Indian territory was an outcome of the U.S. federal government's 18th- and 19th-century policy of Indian removal. After the American Civil War (1861–1865), the policy of the U.S. government was one of assimilation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kiowa</span> Nation of American Indians of the Great Plains

Kiowa or CáuigúIPA:[kɔ́j-gʷú]) people are a Native American tribe and an Indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries, and eventually into the Southern Plains by the early 19th century. In 1867, the Kiowa were moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma.

The Apache are several Southern Athabaskan language–speaking peoples of the Southwest and the Southern Plains. They are linguistically related to the Navajo. They migrated from the Athabascan homelands in the north into the Southwest between 1000 and 1500 CE.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quanah Parker</span> Native American Indian leader, Comanche (c. 1845–1911)

Quanah Parker was a war leader of the Kwahadi ("Antelope") band of the Comanche Nation. He was likely born into the Nokoni ("Wanderers") band of Tabby-nocca and grew up among the Kwahadis, the son of Kwahadi Comanche chief Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker, an Anglo-American who had been abducted as an eight-year-old child and assimilated into the Nokoni tribe. Following the apprehension of several Kiowa chiefs in 1871, Quanah Parker emerged as a dominant figure in the Red River War, clashing repeatedly with Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie. With European-Americans hunting American bison, the Comanches' primary sustenance, into near extinction, Quanah Parker eventually surrendered and peaceably led the Kwahadi to the reservation at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medicine Lodge Treaty</span> 1867 resettlement agreement between the US government and southern Plains Indian tribes

The Medicine Lodge Treaty is the overall name for three treaties signed near Medicine Lodge, Kansas, between the Federal government of the United States and southern Plains Indian tribes in October 1867, intended to bring peace to the area by relocating the Native Americans to reservations in Indian Territory and away from European-American settlement. The treaty was negotiated after investigation by the Indian Peace Commission, which in its final report in 1868 concluded that the wars had been preventable. They determined that the United States government and its representatives, including the United States Congress, had contributed to the warfare on the Great Plains by failing to fulfill their legal obligations and to treat the Native Americans with honesty.

Lipan Apache are a band of Apache, a Southern Athabaskan Indigenous people, who have lived in the Southwest and Southern Plains for centuries. At the time of European and African contact, they lived in New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and northern Mexico. Historically, they were the easternmost band of Apache. Early adopters of horse culture and peyotism, the Lipan Apache hunted bison and farmed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wichita people</span> Confederation of Native Americans

The Wichita people, or Kitikiti'sh, are a confederation of Southern Plains Native American tribes. Historically they spoke the Wichita language and Kichai language, both Caddoan languages. They are indigenous to Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jicarilla Apache</span> Ethnic group of Native Americans

Jicarilla Apache, one of several loosely organized autonomous bands of the Eastern Apache, refers to the members of the Jicarilla Apache Nation currently living in New Mexico and speaking a Southern Athabaskan language. The term jicarilla comes from Mexican Spanish meaning "little basket", referring to the small sealed baskets they used as drinking vessels. To neighboring Apache bands, such as the Mescalero and Lipan, they were known as Kinya-Inde.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tonkawa</span> Indigenous people from Oklahoma

The Tonkawa are a Native American tribe who now live in Oklahoma. Their Tonkawa language, now extinct, is a linguistic isolate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comanche history</span> History of Native American tribe

Comanche history In the 18th and 19th centuries the Comanche became the dominant tribe on the southern Great Plains. The Comanche are often characterized as "Lords of the Plains." They presided over a large area called Comancheria which they shared with allied tribes, the Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache, Wichita, and after 1840 the southern Cheyenne and Arapaho. Comanche power and their substantial wealth depended on horses, trading, and raiding. Adroit diplomacy was also a factor in maintaining their dominance and fending off enemies for more than a century. They subsisted on the bison herds of the Plains which they hunted for food and skins.

The Texas–Indian wars were a series of conflicts between settlers in Texas and the Southern Plains Indians during the 19th-century. Conflict between the Plains Indians and the Spanish began before other European and Anglo-American settlers were encouraged—first by Spain and then by the newly Independent Mexican government—to colonize Texas in order to provide a protective-settlement buffer in Texas between the Plains Indians and the rest of Mexico. As a consequence, conflict between Anglo-American settlers and Plains Indians occurred during the Texas colonial period as part of Mexico. The conflicts continued after Texas secured its independence from Mexico in 1836 and did not end until 30 years after Texas became a state of the United States, when in 1875 the last free band of Plains Indians, the Comanches led by Quahadi warrior Quanah Parker, surrendered and moved to the Fort Sill reservation in Oklahoma.

Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 553 (1903), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case brought against the US government by the Kiowa chief Lone Wolf, who charged that Native American tribes under the Medicine Lodge Treaty had been defrauded of land by Congressional actions in violation of the treaty.

The Fort Sill Apache Tribe of Oklahoma is the federally recognized Native American tribe of Chiricahua Warm Springs Apache in Oklahoma.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oklahoma Tribal Statistical Area</span> Statistical entity

Oklahoma Tribal Statistical Area is a statistical entity identified and delineated by federally recognized American Indian tribes in Oklahoma as part of the U.S. Census Bureau's 2010 Census and ongoing American Community Survey. Many of these areas are also designated Tribal Jurisdictional Areas, areas within which tribes will provide government services and assert other forms of government authority. They differ from standard reservations, such as the Osage Nation of Oklahoma, in that allotment was broken up and as a consequence their residents are a mix of native and non-native people, with only tribal members subject to the tribal government. At least five of these areas, those of the so-called five civilized tribes of Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole, which cover 43% of the area of the state, are recognized as reservations by federal treaty, and thus not subject to state law or jurisdiction for tribal members.

The Dismal River culture refers to a set of cultural attributes first seen in the Dismal River area of Nebraska in the 1930s by archaeologists William Duncan Strong, Waldo Rudolph Wedel and A. T. Hill. Also known as Dismal River aspect and Dismal River complex, dated between 1650 and 1750 A.D., is different from other prehistoric Central Plains and Woodland traditions of the western Plains. The Dismal River people are believed to have spoken an Athabascan language and to have been part of the people later known to Europeans as the Apache.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of Colorado prehistory</span> Overview of and topical guide to the prehistory of Colorado

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the prehistoric people of Colorado, which covers the period of when Native Americans lived in Colorado prior to contact with the Domínguez–Escalante expedition in 1776. People's lifestyles included nomadic hunter-gathering, semi-permanent village dwelling, and residing in pueblos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apache Casino Hotel</span> Apache-owned casino and resort hotel in southwest Oklahoma

Apache Casino Hotel or Fort Sill Apache Casino is operated and owned by the Fort Sill Apache Tribe of Oklahoma. The casino and hotel is located within Comanche County bearing east of Interstate 44 in Lawton, Oklahoma. In January 1999, the Native American gaming establishment was introduced to Southwestern Oklahoma within the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Reservation lands. The Apache gaming enterprise originated as a membrane structure or tension fabric building housing Class II or Class III casino gaming and slot machines.

References

Bibliography