page_title: Chiricahua
section_title: Bands
hierarchical_section_title: Chiricahua / Bands
context_page_description: Chiricahua is one of the socio-culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Tsokanende, Ndendahe, Tchihende, Sehende, Lipan, Salinero, Plains and Western Apache. Native Americans, based in the Southern Plains and Southwest United States. Culturally related to other Apache peoples, Chiricahua historically shared a common area, language, customs, and intertwined family relations. At the time of European contact, they had a territory of 15 million acres in Southwestern New Mexico and Southeastern Arizona in the United States and in Northern Sonora and Chihuahua in Mexico.
  Today Chiricahua are enrolled in two federally recognized tribes in the United States: the Fort Sill Apache Tribe, located near Apache, Oklahoma with a small reservation outside Deming, New Mexico, and the Mescalero Apache Tribe of the Mescalero Reservation near Ruidoso, New Mexico. The San Carlos Apache Tribe, Arizona does have Chiricahua Apache people there also.
context_section_description: In the Chiricahua culture, the "band" as a unit was much more important than the 
  American or European concept of "tribe". The Chiricahua had no name for themselves (autonym) as a people. The name Chiricahua is most likely the Spanish rendering of the Opata word Chihuicahui or Chiguicagui ('mountain of the wild turkey') for the Chiricahua Mountains, later corrupted into Chiricahui/Chiricahua. The Chiricahua tribal territory encompassed today's SE Arizona, SW New Mexico, NE Sonora and NW Chihuahua. The Chiricahua range extended to the east as far as the Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico and to the west as far as the San Pedro River Valley in Arizona, north of Magdalena just below present day Hwy I-40 corridor in New Mexico and with the town Ciudad Madera (276 km northwest of the state capital, Chihuahua, and 536 km southwest of Ciudad Juárez (formerly known as Paso del Norte) on the Mexico–United States border), as their southernmost range.
  According to Morris E. Opler (1941), the Chiricahuas consisted of three bands:
  Chíhéne or Chííhénee’ 'Red Paint People' (also known as the Eastern Chiricahua, Warm Springs Apache, Gileños, Ojo Caliente Apache, Coppermine Apache, Copper Mine, Mimbreños, Mimbres, Mogollones, Tcihende),
  Ch'úk'ánéń or Ch'uuk'anén (also known as the Central Chiricahua, Ch'ók'ánéń, Cochise Apache, Chiricahua proper, Chiricaguis, Tcokanene), or the Sunrise People;
  Ndé'indaaí or Nédnaa'í 'Enemy People' known as the Southern Chiricahua, Chiricahua proper, Pinery Apache, Ne'na'i), or "those ahead at the end".
  Schroeder (1947) lists five bands:
  Mogollon
  Copper Mine
  Mimbres
  Warm Spring
  Chiricahua proper
  The Chiricahua-Warm Springs Fort Sill Apache tribe in Oklahoma say they have four bands in Fort Sill: (some of the Arizona Apaches did not return to San Carlos or Fort Apache, White Mountain Apache warrior Eyelash is buried in Fort Sill cememtry, Southern Tonto Apache Chief/Scout Hosay is buried in Fort Apache cememtery, Hosay has family in Fort Sill and San Carlos today)
  Chíhéne (recte Tchi-he-nde, more correctly known as the Warm Springs and Coppermine Mimbreño bands, Chinde),
  Chukunen (recte Tsoka-ne-nde, also known as the Chiricahua band, Chokonende),
  Bidánku (recte Bedonkohe Ndendahe, also known as Bidanku, Bronco),
  Ndéndai (recte Nednhi Ndendahe, also known as Ndénai, Nednai).
  Today they use the word Chidikáágu (derived from the Spanish word Chiricahua) to refer to the Chiricahua in general, and the word Indé, to refer to the Apache in general.
  Other sources list these and additional bands (only the Chokonen and Chihuicahui local groups of the Chokonen band were considered by Chiricahua tribal members to be the real Chiricahua people):
  Chokonen, Chukunende or Tsokanende (also known as Ch’ók’ánéń, Tsoka-ne-nde, Tcokanene, Chu-ku-nde, Chukunen, Ch’úk’ánéń, Ch’uuk’anén – ‘Ridge of the Mountainside People’, proper or Central Chiricahua)
  Chokonen local group (lived west of Safford, Arizona, along the upper reaches of the Gila River, along the San Francisco River in the north to the Mogollon Mountains in New Mexico in the east and the San Simon Valley to the southwest, northeastern local group – headed by Chief Chihuahua (Kla-esh) and his segundo (war chief) and brother Ulzana)
  Chihuicahui group (lived in SE Arizona in the Huachuca Mountains ("Wa-CHOO-ka" Mountains; Apache name meaning "thunder mountain") west of the San Pedro River, in the northwest along a line of today's Benson, Johnson, Willcox, and north along the San Simon River to east of SW New Mexico, controlled the southern Pinaleño, Winchester, Dos Cabezas, Chiricahua, Dragoon and Mule Mountains, also known as Huachuca Mountains Apache or by the Apache name Shaiahene, southwestern local group – headed by Cochise and after him by his sons, therefore known as Cochise Apache)
  Cai-a-he-ne local group (′Sun Goes Down People, i.e. People of the West′, were the westernmost of all Chihuicahui, western local group)
  Tse-ga-ta-hen-de local group (′Rock Pocket People′, lived in the Chiricahua Mountains)
  Dzil-dun-as-le-n local group (′Rocks at Foot of Grass-Expanse′, l
caption: Bonito, Chiricahua chief
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