CHIRICAHUA

one of the Apache Indian tribes of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Originally a nomadic people, they faced severe pressures in the second half of the 19th century from white migrants and an expansionist U.S. government and were forced onto reservations and other restricted sites, first on the Arizona-New Mexico border, then in Florida and Alabama, and finally in Oklahoma and south-central New Mexico. (See also Apache.) Originally numbering perhaps 2,500 persons, the Chiricahua had about 600 full-blooded descendants in the late 20th century. The original Chiricahua were divided into three to five bands, which were in turn divided into local groups of 10 to 30 extended families occupying individual territories. The band, with its chief, was the only cohesive group, and no central tribal organization existed. (Such leaders as Cochise and Geronimo , famous for their bloody resistance to white domination, were local Chiricahua chiefs.) Each group depended upon hunting deer and other animals and gathering wild plant foods. Settlements-really encampments-were frequently shifted. Modern Chiricahua live in mixed communities of Apache and engage in farming or urbanized labour.