Related, but not the same people
The Navajo and the Apache are often mentioned together, and the connection is real. Their languages come from a common ancestor, and their histories overlapped in places. But the Navajo Nation is a separate nation. It has its own government, its own territory, its own language, its own name and its own history. A short and accurate way to say it is that Navajo and Apache are closely related Southern Athabaskan peoples who are not one tribe.
Linguists use the term Apachean for the Southern Athabaskan languages, a set that includes Navajo and the Apache languages. Some scholars also use “Apachean” for the peoples who speak them, and this is where confusion begins: the word can suggest a single nation when it refers to a family of related ones. This article uses it only as a language label.
What they share
The shared roots show up in several ways.
- Language. Navajo and the Apache languages belong to the Southern Athabaskan language family, and they share complex verbs, many core words and the sound features typical of Athabaskan languages. They are not mutually intelligible in conversation, and the degree of difference is usually compared to that between related European languages, not to that between dialects.
- Self-names. The Navajo word Diné and the Apache forms such as Ndee and Nde come from the same old word for “the people”, so the spelling differences are partly historical and partly a matter of sound.
- Some ideas of kinship and clan. Navajo and Western Apache clans are traditionally traced through the mother’s line, and scholars often compare Apache and Navajo kinship for that reason. Practices among other Apache groups differ, so general statements need care.
- Origins debated in scholarship. The standard scholarly view is that Athabaskan speakers moved south from the north, with the timing disputed, and the ancestors of the Navajo and Apache were part of that process. The nations’ own traditions of emergence and origin are a separate source.
Where the paths diverge
The nations became distinct over several centuries, in different landscapes and under different pressures.
Homelands. The Navajo homeland, which they call Diné Bikéyah, centers on the Colorado Plateau in what is now northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico and southeastern Utah. The Apache nations lived to the south and east, across mountains, deserts and the southern Plains. The Navajo Nation reservation is generally described as the largest in the United States by area, extending across three states.
Livelihoods. Historical accounts describe the Navajo as increasingly farming and, after Spanish contact, herding sheep and goats, and as weaving, borrowing ideas and techniques from Pueblo neighbors. Apache nations also farmed in some places and traded widely, but the mix of hunting, gathering, farming and trade varied among the Apache peoples and from that of the Navajo. In both cases the story is one of adaptation, and generalizations should be made carefully.
Relations with neighbors. Both had contact with Pueblo peoples, Spanish and Mexican colonists and later the United States. The Navajo are known for the Pueblo influences on their arts and agriculture; for Apache and Pueblo contact, the pattern differed by group and period. The Spanish sometimes used a name that grouped Navajo with the Apache, which is one source of the old habit of treating them as one. The English word “Navajo” is generally thought to reach us through Spanish from a Tewa word, though sources differ.
Language use. Navajo has long been among the most widely spoken Native languages in the United States, and it has a standard writing system and a large literature compared with most Native languages. The Apache languages are spoken by far fewer people in total and are each spoken in smaller communities. Speaker numbers for Apache languages change over time and are not given here; they are part of why Apache language speaker numbers draw concern.
Shared hardship, separate stories
Both peoples suffered from nineteenth-century military campaigns and forced removal, and some events involved both. One example is Bosque Redondo, on the Pecos River in eastern New Mexico, where thousands of Navajo people were held after the 1864 Long Walk and where the Mescalero Apache were also confined. The Mescalero at Bosque Redondo and the Navajo there experienced the same place under very hard conditions, and both left. A treaty in 1868 allowed the Navajo to return to a part of their homeland, and the Mescalero left Bosque Redondo earlier, in 1865. These are the general dates, and the details of each nation’s experience are part of its own history.
Other histories diverged. The Chiricahua were held as prisoners of war from 1886 until 1913, an experience not shared by the Navajo. The Navajo Nation’s return to a core of its homeland in 1868 is a different story from the repeated relocations of the Western Apache and the consolidation of several groups on reservations. Each nation’s history of land loss, schooling and government policy needs to be read separately.
Separate nations today
Today the Navajo Nation and the Apache nations are separate federally recognized governments. The Navajo Nation has its own council and president and a large land base. The Apache communities include, among others, the White Mountain Apache Tribe, the San Carlos Apache Tribe, the Mescalero Apache Tribe, the Jicarilla Apache Nation and the Fort Sill Apache Tribe, as well as the Tonto Apache Tribe and the Yavapai-Apache Nation, each with its own government. Understanding this is part of understanding Apache tribal sovereignty, which belongs to each nation individually, not to a pan-Apache or pan-Athabaskan body.
For current governance, services and language programs, the nations’ own websites are the reliable sources.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Saying “the Navajo are Apache” or “the Apache are Navajo.” The accurate statement is that they are related by language and distinct as nations.
- Attributing Navajo customs, such as the hogan, to Apache groups, or the reverse.
- Treating ceremonies as interchangeable. Navajo and Apache ceremonies are different, and sacred knowledge is not always shared publicly.
- Using “Apache” for the Navajo because early Spanish records sometimes did.
Respecting the difference is simply a matter of accuracy, and it is how the nations describe themselves.