Apache

I've recently been listening to Dan Carlin's awesome podcast about the Mongols called The Wrath of the Khans. It is very interesting how similar the Mongolian nomadic lifestyle was to that of the Apache people of North America at the time of the Spanish arrival in New Mexico. The Apache are part of the Athabaskan language family, which includes tribes from the Northwest Pacific Coast all the way up through Canada into Alaska. It is estimated that the Apache's ancestors left these areas and reached the Southwest between twelve and fifteen hundred A.D.

Like their long lost cousins in Mongolia, the Apache didn't build substantial homes or elaborate towns as did the Pueblo peoples they found here, instead preferring a nomadic lifestyle that was dependent on hunting and raiding. The Puebloans were more focused on agriculture and textile making, so the Apache tribes would trade buffalo meat and hides, and certain stones for toolmaking to the Puebloans in exchange for crops and cloth, though often these goods were acquired through raids. This is just like the relationship the Mongol tribes had with the Chinese, before Genghis came to power, with the tribesmen acquiring the goods of civilization sometimes by trade and others by force.

Apache Chief Geronimo (right) and his warriors in 1886.

However one huge difference in the development and habits of these distantly related peoples is obvious, there were no horses in North America until the arrival of the Spanish. The Mongols relied on their horses for hunting, warfare, communication, and food when times were hard. However the Apache made use of native animals in many similar ways. When the Spanish encountered them in the 1500's, various Apache groups were in different stages of a migration from the Great Plains, where they lived in easily movable tents made from the bison which they also relied upon for food. Mongol warriors would make small nicks in their horses so as to drink the animals blood to refresh themselves during a long ride, and known to eat raw meat. The Spanish reported the Apache followed similar practices with the bison and other game which they hunted. With the Spanish arrival, the Apache immediately took to horse, and quickly became legendary in their prowess as horsemen, just as the Mongols some 300 years before.