The Lipan Apache, whose name is derived from the Lipan Apache word łépai (meaning light gray), are a band of Southern Athabaskan Apache. Our peoples have lived within the southwest and southern plains for centuries, with evidence of our ancestors stretching across New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and Northern Mexico.
Fun Fact: We are among the many tribes that is considered a 'horse nation.'
"We are as resilient as these stones."
Darcie Little Badger
(Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas)
Our Lipan ancestors hunted a variety of animals and gathered a great variety of plant foods. Their primary source of meat was the bison, which we hunted twice a year in hunts which were called carneadas by the Spanish. The Lipan word for bison is iyanéé, but we also called them buhala, which was similar to the Spanish word buffalo. The bison hunt was a time of great rejoicing and celebration for our people, as it was also a time of reunion between bands, marriages, and more.
In plants, we gathered a wide variety of cactus species, yucca, mescal, tule, palm and mesquite in order to supplement the meat in our diet. Flavoring and seasoning was provided by the nearby mountain chilies and wild onions. Honey and wild plums were also gathered.
In 1845, however, Texas became a part of the United States. The Lipan, who still lived resiliantly within its borders, were believed to be a blockage of progress within the state's endeavors. The US wanted to Lipan to move in order to make more room for the rapidly growing settler population.
The Lipan, up until that point, had survived. But smallpox, attacks by other American Indians and non-Indians, and continuous war, caused many deaths. Food shortages brought hardships to the tribe. By 1880, the tribe had scattered with small groups living along the south Rio Grande River on both sides of the border. A few went to live with tribes in New Mexico and Oklahoma, and the U.S government forced some of those onto reservations; however, the majority of the surviving Lipan Apache Tribe remained free. Lipans found outside their assigned areas were called 'outlaws,' and Lipan people of all ages were marked for extermination. The once-fierce hunters became the hunted.
We fought to survive as a tribe for more than two hundred years. Facing opposition and peril from quite literally all directions, many Lipans moved from Texas to Mexico and back again. Sometimes we dressed in non-Native clothes to blend in with the Tejanos and Mexicans. Through the struggle to survive, elders reminded Lipan children to never forget their roots, even as they pretended to be different people in attempts to survive. Many of those who were not able to escape or go into hiding were taken into slavery on plantations or in mines, or were taken to the nearby Indian Missions schools.
Today, the Lipan Apache Tribe continues to be a sovereign Native American tribe in the State of Texas with a governing body, the Tribal Council, tasked with promoting the general welfare and justice for the Lipan Apache people; acquiring resources for the benefit of its people; protecting the Tribe’s Native American heritage including their traditions, ceremonies, language, and sacred history; preserving, securing, and exercising all the inherent sovereign rights and powers of a Native American tribe; and continuing relations with the United States of America and the State of Texas. We presently reside McAllen, Texas, in close proximity to our sacred site, Cementerio del Barrio de los Lipanes, in Presidio, Texas.
If you'd like to learn more about Lipan history, culture, tradition, and more, you can begin with some of the sources below:
- The Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas
The official website of the Lipan Apache Tribe. Navigate under 'history' to find historical information.
- The Light Gray People: An Ethno-History of the Lipan Apaches of Texas and Northern Mexico
A comprehensive ethnography by tribal member Nancy McGown Minor, organized in four in situ observations on Lipan belief and practices.
- Lipan Apache Culture in Historical Perspective
20-page journal by anthropologist Morris Opler, known for his work documenting the Lipan that lived on the Mescalero Apache Reservation in the 1930s.
Image from 1884 collection of Lipan Apache words in Fort Griffin, Texas.
Due to the historical circumstances of our people that involved extended hiding that persisted over generations, loss of documents and artifacts, and colonization as a whole, our language has teetered close to an extinction.
During the Texan wars, which attempted an extermination of the Indians within the Texas border, the Lipans suffered greatly. Most Lipan fled to Mexico, into the Santa Rosa mountains. However, 19 survivors were taken to Chihuahua in 1903, and subsequently were moved to the United States in 1905 and placed at Mescalero in New Mexico. In 1912, there were 25 Lipan in New Mexico, as well as one or two Lipan with the 54 Tonkawa at Oakland Reservation, Oklahoma, as well as a few with the Kiowa Apache.
More than two hundred years later, we are a thriving people. Our tribe has in its present day around three thousand members. However, of those thousands of members, not one is a fully fluent native speaker of the language.