THE APACHE
HISTORICAL SKETCH
The Indian and his history present innumerable problems to the student. Facts seemingly contradict facts, well-founded theories contradict other theories as well founded. Linguistically the Apache belong to the great Athapascan family, which, according to the consensus of opinion, had its origin in the far North, where many tribes of the family still live. Based on the creation legends of the Navaho and on known historical events, the advent of the southern branch of this linguistic group—the Navaho and the Apache tribes—has been fixed in the general region in which they now have their home, at about the time of the discovery of America. Contrary to this conclusion, however, the legend of their genesis gives no hint of an origin in other than their historical habitat. The history and the legendary lore of the Indian are passed down from generation to generation, so that it would seem hardly credible that all trace of this migration from a distant region should have become lost within a period of somewhat more than four hundred years.
Again, judging by the similarity in language, the Apache and the Navaho in prehistoric times were as nearly a single group as the present bands of Apache are; and, likewise, there is sufficient similarity in the underlying principles of their mythology to argue a common tribal origin. The names as well as the functions of several of the mythic characters are identical in both tribes, as, for example, the war gods Nayé̆nĕzganĭ and Tobadzĭschí̆nĭ. These miracle-performing twins in each case are the sons of a woman (who occupies an almost identical position in both Navaho and Apache mythology) and the sun and water respectively. Pollen also is deified by each—as Hádĭntĭn Boy among the Apache and Tádĭtĭn Boy among the Navaho. If, therefore, we may concede that the Navaho and the Apache were originally[pg 004] one tribe, as their language certainly indicates, we have many arguments in favor of the theory of long residence in the South-west of this branch of the Athapascan family, for the striking differences in the details of their myths would seem to indicate that the tribal separation was not a recent one, and that the mythology of the two tribes became changed in the course of its natural development along different lines or through accretion of other peoples since the original segregation. The Apache story of their creation portrays human beings in their present form, while in the Navaho genesis myth occurs the remarkable story, unquestionably aboriginal, of the evolution of the lower animals through successive underworlds until the present world is reached, then as spirit people miraculously creating human life.
The beautiful genesis myth of the Apache is complete; it does not reflect an incipient primitive culture, but one developed by age. The mythology and ceremonial of the Navaho exhibit unquestioned signs of being composite in origin. Their ceremonials are perhaps the most elaborate of any Indians except the Pueblos; indeed the very life of this people so teems with ceremony as almost to pass comprehension. The Navaho ritual probably reached its highest phase about the beginning of the nineteenth century. It would seem impossible for a religion so highly developed as this to have attained such a stage within a comparatively short time.
Before the early years of the seventeenth century the Spanish chroniclers give us nothing definite regarding the Apache of what is now Arizona and New Mexico, but there are numerous accounts of their aggressiveness from this time onward.
Ténokai - Apache