APACHES AND NAVAJOS
Little is known concerning the origin of these two related groups, who differ markedly from the Pueblo Indians in language and cultural traits. Their closest ties are with other Athapaskan-speaking tribes in northwestern Canada, and available evidence indicates that they are comparative newcomers to the Southwest. A correlation between the abandonment of sections of the Pueblo region and pressures exerted by ancestral Apaches and Navajos has been suggested, but definite proof of this is still lacking. Raids against the eastern pueblos of the Galisteo Basin are reported to have occurred in 1525. Coronado’s expedition encountered nomadic hunters in the plains east of Pecos in 1541, observing that they followed the movements of herds of bison or buffalo on whom they were highly dependent for food and shelter, lived in portable tents of tanned buffalo hides supported by a framework of poles, and used dogs as beasts of burden. Trade contacts with the Rio Grande pueblos included exchange of hide “cloaks” for corn grown by the Pueblo Indians.
Related groups in western and northwestern New Mexico are even more poorly known, as there was still less contact between them and the Spanish explorers. Evidently some agriculture was practiced as a supplement to a subsistence based largely on hunting and gathering, a pattern of livelihood reminiscent of that of the pre-Puebloan Cochise people.
The succeeding years of Spanish and American colonization of New Mexico were to be highly influenced by the Apaches and Navajos, and also by another group of Plains Indians, the Comanches. The events of this period, however, are discussed in a separate article.