APACHE INDIANS

The Apache ancestors were said to enter the area around 1100 B.C. and were once joined by the Navajo.  They lived on wild game, seed and fruit gathering, livestock, and some horticulture.  The men lived with and worked for their wives’ families.  The Apaches were known as the fierce fighters.  Today, they live on reservations totaling over 3 million acres in Arizona and New Mexico.  They also still continue to practice many of their tribal customs.  In 1990, there were 50,051 Apaches in the United States.  Cattle, timber, and tourism help provide income for them.
 

PUEBLO INDIANS

The Pueblo people are descendants of the Anasazi culture.  Their culture is the oldest north of Mexico.  Several of the two dozen surviving pueblos have retained pre-Spanish social systems and community organizations to a degree.  They are sedentary farmers.  The men are weavers and the women are potters.  The Pueblo tribes further developed farming, pottery, textiles, and a complex mythology and religion.  The men built a large underground chamber called kivas for secret ceremonies.  A modern kiva is a rectangular or circular shape with a pit fire in the center and a timbered roof.  An opening in the floor represent the entrance to the lower world and the place through which life emerged into this world.
 
 
ZUNI INDIANS

The Zuni population in 1990 lived mainly in western New Mexico.  The Zuni reservation was built in 1695, and is on the site of one of the seven original Zuni villages attacked in 1540 by Coronado.  They also were known for ceremonial dances of the traditional language still practiced today.
 

 

 

created on April 15, 1998

edited on April 22, 1998
by Pam Eck, IUPUI