Southwestern Native American Tribes
The southwest region of the modern United States is a dry climate with little rain. Still, long ago people settled into its deep canyons and dry deserts.
Indigenous tribes of the Southwest begin with the Hohokam and include Ancestral Puebloans, the Navajo, and Apache.
The Hohokam
One of the first groups we know about in the Southwest was the Hohokam culture, which had settlements near modern-day Phoenix, Arizona between 300-1500 CE.
The people may have come from Mesoamerica to the south or migrated from Ancestral Puebloan settlements to the north.
The Hohokam are recognized for their large-scale irrigation networks in the dry southwest. They redirected water by digging hundreds of miles of canals to bring water to their crops.
They grew cotton, tobacco, maize, beans, and squash, and harvested a vast variety of wild plants. Their creative agricultural strategies allowed them to grow large urban communities in an inhospitable desert.
The Ancestral Puebloans
To the north of the Hohokam were the Ancestral Puebloans. They had hundreds of communities and are famous for their dwellings built directly into cliff faces.
Cliff Palace in southwest Colorado is the largest cliff dwelling and is dated to about 1190-1260 CE.
Puebloans lived in a range of structures that included small family pit houses, larger adobe buildings to house clans, and grand pueblos. They had a complex network linking hundreds of communities and population centers across the southwest.
They were farmers of the traditional "Three Sisters" of corn, beans, and squash. The agave plant was also a vital food source and its fibers were used in making baskets and mats.
Pueblo means "village" in Spanish and was used it to refer to the people's style of dwelling. The culture is also sometimes referred to as Anasazi, meaning "ancient enemies", as they were called by Navajo.
The Hopi, Acoma, and Zuni tribes descended from the Puebloans.
The Navajo
The Navajo people referred to themselves as the Diné. The term Navajo comes from Spanish missionaries who encountered them.
Along with the Apache, the Navajo, migrated to the southwest from Canada and Alaska sometime around 1400 CE.
Initially, they were hunters and gatherers before learning farming techniques from the Pueblo people in the region. They then began farming corn, beans, and squash.
While they traded with the Puebloans, there was also ongoing conflicts throughout their history.
The Navajo lived in dome shaped wood and mud houses known as hogans. As they did with all things, the Navajo had male and female hogans, which were built differently but always with the door facing east to welcome the sun each morning.
Their religion was rich, with many deities. Rituals were used to restore harmony and balance, which was disrupted by death or violence.
The Apache
The Apache were distant cousins of the Navajo and included many different tribes.
They had no centralized tribal organization, however. Instead, bands were small, autonomous groups led by informal chiefs. Some bands might join together but the position of chief was always earned rather than passed down.
Most Apache tribes were nomadic and engaged in hunting and gathering. Many lived in homes known as wikiups, which were domes made of wood.
The Apache fought the invading Spanish and Mexican peoples for centuries. After gaining horses from the Spanish, they became skilled warriors and were known for their raiding parties.
Their famous leader Geronimo continued the fight against America's expansion into the southwest in the late 1800s.