Clans were not the same everywhere
The term “clan” is used in published writing about the Western Apache, and the best documented clan system among Apache peoples belongs to them. The Chiricahua and Mescalero are generally described by ethnographers as organizing kinship without clans in that sense, while the Jicarilla, Lipan and Plains Apache have their own distinct arrangements, and the sources vary in detail and in quality. This article therefore concentrates on the Western Apache, including groups such as the White Mountain, San Carlos, Cibecue and Tonto Apache, and flags where the picture changes.
It is based on published ethnographic work, mainly from the twentieth century. Its authors were outside observers, so their accounts are partial. The Western Apache nations are living communities with their own knowledge of clan relationships, and this article does not speak for them.
What a clan is
An anthropologist uses “clan” for a group of people who consider themselves related through descent from a common ancestor, even when they cannot trace each link. Among the Western Apache, clans are matrilineal: a child belongs to the clan of the mother, not the father. A person is also described in the literature as being “born for” the father’s clan, which gives every individual two clan connections, one primary and one through the father. Descriptions of this idea appear in both Western Apache and, in a related form, Navajo contexts, and the Apache and Navajo kinship connection reflects shared Southern Athabaskan roots, though the Navajo Nation is a separate nation.
Clans were typically named, and the names are often described as linked to places. Several clans were also grouped into larger clusters, sometimes called clan groups or phratries by anthropologists, whose members considered each other related in a looser way. Exact numbers of clans and how they were grouped are given differently by different sources, so this article does not give counts.
Clans and local groups
Western Apache life was organized at two overlapping levels. The first was the local group, a community living in a particular area and cooperating in farming, gathering and defense. The second was the clan, which cut across local groups. A single local group usually included members of several clans, and a clan’s members were spread through several local groups. The two systems worked together: the local group provided everyday cooperation, while the clan provided relationships reaching further afield. Western Apache local groups are a topic of their own, and their relationship with clans is one of the main reasons the social structure is called complex.
What clan membership did
Several functions are commonly reported:
- Marriage rules. People were expected to marry outside their own clan and generally outside linked clans. This spread marriage ties across communities.
- Hospitality and support. A person traveling or in difficulty could expect to be received by clan relatives even in an unfamiliar community. Clan membership was a kind of passport to help.
- Obligations in hard times. Clan relatives were expected to assist one another at times of need, including illness and bereavement.
- Identity. Introducing oneself by clan, as well as by family and place, was a way of locating a person in a web of relationships. Apache clan identity is a theme in how people have described themselves to one another and to outsiders.
The clan was not primarily a political body. Leadership among the Western Apache is generally described as resting on personal ability and respect within local groups, and clans did not have chiefs who ruled over members in the way the term “chief” might suggest. Questions of leadership are covered separately.
Clans and land
Some writing links clans to particular areas of the landscape, and place names often recorded stories connected to them. How strongly an individual clan was tied to specific territory is a matter on which sources differ, and the picture changed as families were moved, especially after the removal to San Carlos in the 1870s. For a view of how places teach, see the topic of Western Apache place-names.
Change and continuity
The reservation period disrupted clan life in many ways. Families were relocated, groups that had been separate were concentrated together, children were sent away to school, and population losses and loss of access to land affected how clans functioned. At the same time, the idea of clan relationship has remained meaningful for many Western Apache people. Some families still introduce themselves by clan and still observe the expectation of marrying outside it, while others place less emphasis on it. Experience differs by community and by family.
For this reason, the accurate summary is that clans are a documented and important part of Western Apache social structure, that they belong to a tradition that is alive but changing, and that they should not be projected onto other Apache nations. Anyone seeking authoritative information on clan relationships should turn to the tribal governments, cultural programs and language programs of the nations concerned, which are the proper stewards of this knowledge.