Description
Lipan Apache are a band of Apache, a Southern Athabaskan Indigenous people, who have lived in the Southwest and Southern Plains for centuries. At the time of European and African contact, they lived in New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and northern Mexico. Historically, they were the easternmost band of Apache. Early adopters of horse culture and peyotism, the Lipan Apache hunted bison and farmed. Many Lipan Apache descendants today are enrolled members of the Mescalero Apache Tribe in New Mexico. Other Lipan descendants are enrolled with the Tonkawa Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma and Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, also known as the Kiowa Apache or Plains Apache. Other Lipan Apache descendants live primarily in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arizona, and northern Mexico.
Language
Lipan is an Eastern Southern Athabaskan language spoken by the Lipan Apache
Culture
There was a northern and a southern Lipan division, both loosely organized into bands of extended family groups. They hunted bison and excelled at horsemanship and archery. The Apaches were nomadic and lived almost completely off the buffalo. They dressed in buffalo skins and lived in tents made of tanned and greased hides, which they loaded onto dogs when they moved with the herds. They were among the first Indians, after the Pueblos, to learn to ride horses. In 1936 the Mescaleros Apaches approved a new constitution that made the Lipan full members of the Mescalero tribe. After residing in Texas for more than 200 years the Lipan no longer possessed a discernible presence in what was their homeland. In 1999 they began a process to obtain federal recognition as a tribe.