Background on Apache groups

In pre-historic times, the Athapaskan-speaking ancestors of the Lipan Apaches migrated from the forests of western Canada into the southern Great Plains. There was a split of Athapaskan-speaking people into what we call now Western Apache and Eastern Apache groups.¹ The predecessors of the Western Apaches (Mescalero, Chiricahua, Cibucu, White Mountain) and the Navajo crossed the Rio Grande River into the southwestern US. The Apache settled in the Four Corners area of Arizona and New Mexico and areas abandoned by the Pueblos because of drought around 1300. The Navajos followed and pushed the Apaches farther south. The Eastern Apache (Kiowa Apache, Jicarillas and Lipan)remained further east in Texas and eventually west into New Mexico until historical times.