Mescalero

This article is about the Native American tribe. For other uses, see Mescalero (disambiguation).
Mescalero Apache

Mescalero Apache Tribal Administrative Offices and Community Center in Mescalero, New Mexico
Total population
3,156
Regions with significant populations
Languages
Mescalero, English, Spanish
Religion
Indigenous Religion, Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Western Apache, San Carlos Apache, White Mountain Apache, Navajo

Mescalero or Mescalero Apache is an Apache tribe of Southern Athabaskan Native Americans. The tribe is federally recognized as the Mescalero Apache Tribe of the Mescalero Apache Reservation in southcentral New Mexico. In the nineteenth century, the Mescalero opened their reservation to other Apache bands, such as the Mimbreno and the Chiricahua who had been imprisoned in Florida, and the Lipan Apache.

Reservation

Mescalero tipis.

Originally established on May 27, 1873,[1] by Executive Order of President Ulysses S. Grant, the reservation was first located near Fort Stanton. The present reservation was established in 1883. It has a land area of 1,862.463 km² (719.101 sq mi), almost entirely in Otero County. The 463,000 acre reservation lies on the eastern flank of the Sacramento Mountains and borders the Lincoln National Forest. A small unpopulated section is in Lincoln County just southwest of the city of Ruidoso. U.S. Route 70 is the major highway through the reservation.

Ranching and tourism are major sources of income for the tribe. The mountains and foothills are forested with pines; resource and commercial development is managed carefully by the Mescalero Apache Tribal Council. The Mescalero Apache developed a cultural center near the tribal headquarters on U.S. Route 70 in the reservation's largest community of Mescalero. On display, is important historical information and artifacts of the tribe. The tribe has another, larger museum on the western flank of the Sacramento Mountains in Dog Canyon, south of Alamogordo.

The tribe developed and owns the Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort and Casino ("IMG"). As part of the IMG operation, the tribe also owns and manages Ski Apache the southernmost major ski area in North America. In January 2012 Ski Apache celebrated its 50th anniversary.

The ski area is situated adjacent to the massive peak of Sierra Blanca a 12,003-foot (3,659 m) mountain.[2] It is the southernmost alpine peak in the Continental United States over 12,000 feet in elevation, and is part of the Rocky Mountains and the Sacramento Mountains. Using the EPA's Level III Ecoregion System, derived from Omernik, this mountain is included in the "Arizona/New Mexico Mountains" which is south of the "Southern Rocky Mountains" of northern New Mexico.[3] Sierra Blanca peak, located on the reservation, is sacred ground for the Mescalero Apache Tribe and requires a permit for access.

Tribal organization

The Mescalero Apache Tribe holds elections for the office of president every two years. The eight Tribal Council members also are elected for two years. Election for the Council is held every year, when one half of the members are up for reelection. The reservation had a population of 3,156 according to the 2000 census.

In 1959, the tribe elected Virginia Klinekole as its first woman president.[4] She later was elected to the Tribal Council, serving on it until 1986.[5] The tribe repeatedly re-elected Wendell Chino as president; he served a total of 43 years, until his death on November 4, 1998.

Soon after Chino's death, the late Sara Misquez was elected as president. Wendell's son, Mark Chino, also has been elected as president. On January 11, 2008 Carleton Naiche-Palmer was sworn in as the new president of the Mescalero Apache tribe.[6]

Culture and language

The Mescalero language is a Southern Athabaskan language which is a subfamily of the Athabaskan and Dené–Yeniseian families. Mescalero is part of the southwestern branch of this subfamily; it is very closely related to Chiricahua, and more distantly related to Western Apache. These are considered the three dialects of Apachean. Although Navajo is a related Southern Athabaskan language, its language and culture are considered distinct from those of the Apache.

The Mescalero Apache were primarily a nomadic mountain people although they went east on the arid plains to hunt the buffalo and south into the desert for gathering Mescal Agave from which they take their Spanish name. The Mescalero Apache along with the other Apache groups were living by hunting and gathering who went on raiding to supplement their existence by depredating initially other Indian tribes and then adding the Spanish, Mexicans and Americans.

Origin of name

The Mescalero's autonym, or name for themselves, is Shis-Inday ("People of the Mountain Forests") or Mashgalénde (“People close to the mountains”).[7] The Navajo, another Athabascan-speaking tribe, call the Mescalero Naashgalí Dineʼé[8] Like other Apache peoples they call themselves oft simply Inday / Indee ("The People"). Neighboring Apache bands called the Mescalero Nadahéndé ("People of the Mescal"), because the mescal agave (Agave parryi) was a staple food source for them. In times of need and hunger, they depended on and survived because of stored mescal. Therefore, they were called by the Spaniards since 1550 Mescaleros.

Other names sometimes used for the Mescalero Apache bands: Apaches de Cuartelejo, Apaches del Río Grande, Apachi, Faraones, Mezcaleros, Natage, Natahene, Querechos, Teyas, Tularosa Apaches, Vaqueros, being also Sierra Blanca Apaches, Sacramento Mountains Apaches, Guadalupe Mountains Apaches, Limpia Mountains Apaches according to their homelands in northern or southern Mescalero territory.

Tribal territory

Originally the different Mescalero bands and local groups ranged in an area between the Rio Grande in the west and the eastern and southern edge of the Llano Estacado and the southern Texas Panhandle in Texas in the east. From Santa Fe in the northwest and the Texas Panhandle in the northeast deep down to the Big Bend of Texas and the later Mexican provinces of Chihuahua and Coahuila to the south. The diverse landscape of this area is documented by the high mountains up to 4,000 meters with watered and sheltered valleys, surrounded by arid semi-deserts and deserts, deep canyons and open plains. The Mescalero Apache Reservation is located at geographical coordinates 33°10′42″N 105°36′44″W / 33.17833°N 105.61222°W / 33.17833; -105.61222.

Since each group Mescalero had the right to use the resources of deer and plants of the neighboring groups, the different Mescaleros felt at home in any area of their wide tribal territory. Because of this the Mescalero bands undertook huge distances for hunting, gathering, warring and raiding. They called their home Indeislun Nakah ("people, forming a group, when they are there", "place where people get together"). When many Mescalero bands were displaced by the enemy Comanche from the Southern Plains in northern and central Texas between 1700–1750, they took refuge in the mountains of New Mexico, western Texas, and Coahuila and Chihuahua in Mexico. Some southern Mescalero bands, together with Lipan, lived in the Bolsón de Mapimí, moving between the Nazas River, the Conchos River and the Rio Grande to the north. Also lives in parts of Ruidoso.

Bands

Mescalero painted boy, photo entitled Long Walk of the Navajo. The people were marched over 350-mile (560 km) during the winter of 1864 and incarcerated at Bosque Redondo, New Mexico with the Mescalero Apache.

The Natahéndé had had a considerable influence on the decision-making of some bands of the Western Lipan in the 18th century, especially on the Tindi Ndé, Tcha shka-ózhäye, Tú é diné Ndé and Tú sis Ndé. To fight their common enemy, the Comanche, and to protect the northeastern and eastern border of the Apacheria against the Comancheria, the Mescalero (Natahéndé and Guhlkahéndé) on the Plains joined forces with their Lipan kin (Cuelcahen Ndé, Te'l kóndahä, Ndáwe qóhä and Shá i`a Nde) to the east and south of them.

In August 1912, by an act of the U.S. Congress, the surviving members of the Chiricahua tribe were released from their prisoner of war status. They were given the choice to remain at Fort Sill or to relocate to the Mescalero reservation. One hundred and eighty-three elected to go to New Mexico, while seventy-eight remained in Oklahoma.[9] Their descendants still reside in both places.

Notable Mescalero

Historical chiefs and headmen

Gorgonia, Sierrablanca Mescalero medicine man

Other notable Mescalero

See also

Notes

  1. Banks, Phyllis (2002). "Bent and Mescalero — home of the Mescalero Apache". southernnewmexico.com. Archived from the original on 2006-11-15. Retrieved 2006-12-01.
  2. "National Geodetic Survey of Sierra Blanca"
  3. "Level III Ecoregions of the Continental United States" (PDF). BLM.gov. Retrieved 19 November 2015.
  4. "Miscellany, Feb. 9, 1959", Time Magazine, February 1959, accessed 1 August 2011
  5. "Obituary of Virginia Shanta Klinekole", LaGrone Funeral Chapel of Ruidoso Website, accessed 1 August 2011
  6. Stallings, Dianne (2008-01-17). "New Mescalero Apache tribal officers take oaths". Alamogordo Daily News.
  7. Languages of the World
  8. Navajo Clans
  9. Debo p.447-8
  10. James L. Haley: Apaches: A History and Culture Portrait, University of Oklahoma Press, ISBN 978-0-8061-2978-5
  11. Mescalero Apache History in the Southwest
  12. [J. P. Dunn: Massacres of the Mountains, Volume II: A History of the Indian Wars of the Far West: v. II, 2001, ISBN 978-1-58218-204-9]
  13. Chinati derives from the Apache word ch'íná'itíh, which means gate or mountain pass
  14. Luis López Elizondo and Franklin W. Daugherty, "Documentos de la genealogía y la vida de Alsate, Jefe de los Apaches de los Chisos", Relaciones XXIII(92) 2002, ISSN 0185-3929 (pdf) (Spanish)
  15. [Dan L. Thrapp: Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography, Volume 1: A-F, University of Nebraska Press (August 1, 1991), ISBN 978-0-8032-9418-9, p 18-19]
  16. Encyclopedia of World Biography: Wendell Chino

References

Bibliography

St. Joseph's Catholic Church, Mescalero, New Mexico ca. 1975 Mountain Spirit Dancers painted on altar

External links

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