Native American Culture

Native American Cultures.

Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the American Southwest. These indigenouspeoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan (Apachean) language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan speakers of Alaska and western Canada. The modern term Apacheexcludes the related Navajo people. However, the Navajo and the other Apache groups are clearly related through culture and language, and thus are considered Apachean. Apachean peoples formerly ranged overeastern Arizona, northwestern Mexico, New Mexico, Texas and the southern Great Plains.
The word Apache entered English via Spanish, but the ultimate origin is uncertain. Most Apacheans may not liketo be called Apache and rather call themselves by the term from their language (e.g. Inde"Apache, person" in Mescalero).
Social organization

All Apachean peoples lived in extended family units(or family clusters) who usually lived close together, with each nuclear family in separate dwellings. An extended family generally consisted of a husband and wife, their unmarried children, their marrieddaughters, their married daughters' husbands, and their married daughters' children. Thus, the extended family is connected through a lineage of women that live together (that is, matrilocalresidence), into which men may enter upon marriage (leaving behind his parents' family). When a daughter was married, a new dwelling was built nearby for her and her husband. Among the Navajo, residencerights are ultimately derived from a head mother. Although the Western Apache usually practiced matrilocal residence, sometimes the eldest son chose to bring his wife to live with his parents aftermarriage. All tribes practiced sororate and levirate marriages.
All Apachean men practiced varying degrees of "avoidance" of his wife's close relatives, a practice often most strictly observed by...