A family of peoples under one outside name
The most basic correction about Apache peoples is that “the Apache” were never a single tribe with one government, one territory or one way of life. The word Apache was applied by outsiders to a number of related peoples who spoke related languages and lived across a wide area of the Southwest and southern Plains. Each had its own name for itself, its own leaders and its own history. Their relatedness is real, which is why they are grouped, but relatedness is not the same as unity.
An analogy sometimes used is the relation among European nations that speak related languages: they share roots, but nobody would call them a single tribe. The comparison is imperfect, as all are, but it points in the right direction.
The main groups
Scholars usually describe the Apache peoples under two broad headings, with the caution that these are modern conveniences and not historical political units.
Western Apache is the name given to several groups in what is now central and eastern Arizona. They include the White Mountain, San Carlos, Cibecue, and Tonto peoples, among others, and they are traditionally described as organized in local groups tied together by clans traced through the mother. The Western Apache clans are an important part of how relationships were arranged.
Chiricahua is a name for a set of related groups in southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico and northern Mexico. Sources commonly name several divisions, including the Chihenne (Warm Springs), the Chokonen, the Nednhi and the Bedonkohe. The Chiricahua are the group most associated with Cochise, Mangas Coloradas, Victorio and Geronimo.
Mescalero peoples lived in the mountains and plains of south-central and southern New Mexico and into Texas and Chihuahua.
Jicarilla peoples lived in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, with strong connections to both the Plains and the Pueblo world.
Lipan peoples lived across southern Texas and parts of northern Mexico.
Plains Apache, called Kiowa Apache in older sources, are a small nation historically allied with the Kiowa on the southern Plains and now based in Oklahoma. Their separate history is one reason older sources can be confusing.
Sources sometimes group these differently, and some boundaries between groups are blurred, so readers will see variations in the lists. Where books disagree, it is worth noting the disagreement and not assuming one list is the whole truth.
Differences in language, land and life
The languages are related, belonging to the Southern Athabaskan family, but they are not the same. Dialect differences between groups can be significant, and an Apache language learned in one community may not be easily understood in another. How much speakers understand across groups varies and is a question for linguists and the communities themselves.
Landscapes shaped lifeways. Western Apache families farmed along streams and gathered wild foods in mountains and canyons. Chiricahua groups ranged widely through mountain country and desert and relied heavily on gathering and hunting. Plains-oriented groups hunted bison and lived in tipis, while Southwestern groups commonly built brush-covered homes. Customs, ceremonies and leadership patterns varied as well, and generalizations made about all Apache are usually only true of a few.
Not interchangeable in history
Different groups encountered Spanish, Mexican and American authorities in different ways and at different times. The Chiricahua were taken as prisoners of war in 1886, a fate the Western Apache communities did not share in the same form, even though some Western Apache men served as scouts for the army. The Mescalero were held for a time at Bosque Redondo in eastern New Mexico, and the Jicarilla fought a long process to secure a reservation. These experiences were distinct, and treating them as one story erases it.
Even within these groups, divisions mattered. Some Chiricahua leaders pursued peace while others resisted, and some Apache communities took a very different course from their neighbors. Apache cooperation in wartime and inter-Apache cooperation today are real subjects, but they happen between independent parties, not within one tribe.
The nations of today
Today the pattern is visible in the political map. The San Carlos Apache Tribe and the White Mountain Apache Tribe in Arizona, the Tonto Apache Tribe, the Yavapai-Apache Nation (shared with the Yavapai, who are a separate people), the Mescalero Apache Tribe and the Jicarilla Apache Nation in New Mexico, and the Fort Sill Apache Tribe and the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma are separate governments. Lipan Apache descendants in Texas and elsewhere have their own communities and status questions. This diversity is part of why the question of how many Apache nations exist depends on what one counts, and why a list of Apache tribes is better read as a guide than as a final answer.
The Navajo Nation, whose language is a close relative of the Apache languages, is a separate nation and is not generally considered Apache, although the two are often discussed together by scholars as Apachean peoples.
Why the myth matters
Treating the Apache as one tribe has practical effects. It leads writers to attribute one group’s customs to another, to quote a Western Apache saying as though it spoke for the Mescalero, and to expect a single spokesperson for all Apache people. It also feeds stereotypes, because a single image of “the Apache” is easier to caricature than the variety of real peoples.
The more useful habit is to ask which group a statement is about, to use that group’s name where the evidence supports it, and to check each nation’s own official sources for how it describes itself. When a source says “the Apache,” it is usually worth asking whether it means all of them, or just one.