Apache Tribe of Oklahoma
The Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, known as Na-i-shan Dené meaning "Our People," is a distinct Plains Indian Nation that emerged from groups originally residing in the northern Great Plains. Unlike other Apache Nations in the Southwest, the Na-i-shan maintained political independence and a unique cultural identity, notably influenced by their historical alliances with the Kiowa and Comanche tribes. Their traditional lifestyle centered around buffalo hunting and horse trading, and they were organized into various societies that played significant roles in their social and ceremonial life.
Historically, the Na-i-shan Apache faced challenges with European settlement and disease, leading to a significant decrease in population by the early twentieth century. However, they have since experienced a resurgence, establishing a Tribal government and promoting their cultural heritage. Today, the tribe emphasizes the preservation of their traditions, including music, dance, and arts such as painting and beadwork. The Apache Tribe of Oklahoma continues to engage in community activities, including annual pow-wows, as they navigate contemporary society while honoring their rich cultural history.
Apache Tribe of Oklahoma
- CATEGORY: Tribe
- CULTURE AREA: Plains
- LANGUAGE GROUP: Apachean (Southern Athapaskan)
- PRIMARY LOCATION: Oklahoma
- POPULATION SIZE: 10,126 in United States (Fort Peck Indian Reservation and Off-Reservation Trust Land, MT; 2018-2022 American Community Survey); 1,305 living in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2022)
The Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, called Na-i-shan Dené, meaning “Our People,” sometimes misnamed Kiowa Apache, were a unique Apache-speaking Nation of Plains Indians distinct from the Apache Nation of the Southwest and politically independent of their Kiowa allies. There were a number of Apache groups on the Great Plains in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but the small Na-i-shan Apache Nation was the only one to survive as Plains Indians until the reservation period. Their traditions, which are supported by those of the Kiowa and other Nations, indicate northern origins for the Na-i-shan and long-term residence on the Great Plains.
History
It is difficult to identify the Na-i-shan in early documents because they were often known—both to other Indigenous peoples and to Europeans—by names that also meant “Apaches” generally. They are identifiable on the northern Great Plains by 1805. At that time, they were described as traders of horses to the farming Nations of the upper Missouri River. They are then recorded to have shifted their range gradually southward across the plains until they were settled on the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache (KCA) Reservation in present-day southwestern Oklahoma late in the nineteenth century. They seem to be the Apache del Norte, whose arrival in New Mexico with a group of Kiowa was recorded early in the nineteenth century, as well as the Plains Lipan peoples who reportedly arrived on the northern frontier of Texas at about the same time with allies from the Kiowa Tribe and Arapaho Tribe and were escorted farther south by Lipan emissaries.
The alliance and close association with the Kiowa Tribe are said to be ancient; in the summer, they joined in the Kiowa Tribal Sun Dance encampment. The two Nations made an alliance with the Comanche about the year 1800 during their movement southward. With the expansion of the frontier and the decimation of the buffalo, the Na-i-shan and their allies signed treaties with the United States. The last of these, the Treaty of Medicine Lodge in 1867, limited the apparently unsuspecting Kiowa, Comanche, and Na-i-shan Apache people to the reservation in present-day southwestern Oklahoma. That reservation was allotted in 160-acre tracts to individual members of the three Nations in 1901, over heated protest. Most of the rest of the reservation was then opened to settlement by European Americans.
Traditional Culture
The nineteenth-century Na-i-shan were a mounted buffalo-hunting people who lived in tipis and had Plains Indian medicine bundle, warrior, and medicine society complexes. The Nation has no traditions of a time before they lived on the northern Plains or of ever having practiced agriculture or making pottery or basketry. Their material culture was that of the Plains Indians; their economy depended upon the buffalo hunt and the trading of horses and mules taken in Mexico northward. They numbered about 350 and were unified by kinship, a common language and culture, reverence for their medicine bundles, and membership in their sodalities. Children of both sexes first joined the Rabbit Society, whose spirited dances were directed by a Tribal elder. The Blackfeet Society was composed of warriors, and it acted as the Tribal police. Older warriors could belong to the Klintidie, whose vows required them never to retreat from the enemy. Older women might belong to the Izouwe, a secret society of grandmothers. Other societies existed as well, but little has been recorded of them. The societies generally owned certain songs, dance motifs, and regalia and met periodically, particularly when the Nation gathered for ceremonies and socializing and the summer buffalo hunt.
Recent History and Contemporary Life
The occupation of the former KCA Reservation by a flood of non-Native homesteaders and speculators in 1901 took place when the Na-i-shan population had dwindled to its lowest point, about 150, primarily because of epidemic disease. Their twentieth-century history is one of rapid population growth, gradual adjustment to the changed circumstances of increased involvement in the affairs of American society, and determined efforts to preserve their cultural heritage.
In the 1970s, a Tribal government was formed to administer federal programs and otherwise benefit the Nation’s members. In the 1980s, the Nation’s official designation was changed from the misleading term “Kiowa Apache” to Apache Tribe of Oklahoma. The people generally refer to themselves as Plains Apache peoples or simply Apache. The Nation has an administrative complex, which it also uses for educational and social activities, in Anadarko, Oklahoma, as well as a nearby bingo facility and convenience store. Tribal pow-wows take place in June and August at their dance ground west of Fort Cobb, Oklahoma. In 1993, a formal committee of elders and a tribal research committee were organized to preserve their cultural heritage and facilitate relevant research. The Na-i-shan Apache are notable for their rich repertory of traditional music and dance. They often excel in painting, silverwork, and beadwork, as well as in other arts and crafts.
Bibliography
"The Apache Tribe of Oklahoma." apachetribe.org. Accessed 20 Nov. 2024.
"Apache Tribe of Oklahoma." Oklahoma Historical Society, www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=AP002. Accessed 20 Nov. 2024.
Beatty, John. “Kiowa-Apache Music and Dance.” In Occasional Publications in Anthropology. Museum of Anthropology Ethnology Series Paper 31. University of Northern Colorado, 1974.
Bittle, William E. “A Brief History of the Kiowa Apache.” University of Oklahoma Papers in Anthropology, vol. 12, no. 1, 1971, pp. 1-34.
McAllister, J. Gilbert. “Kiowa-Apache Social Organization.” Social Anthropology of North American Tribes, edited by Fred Eggan, enlarged ed., U of Chicago P, 1955.
Mooney, James. Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians. Bureau of American Ethnology Annual Report, 1895-1896, vol. 2, reprint, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979.