JICARILLA APACHE

North American Indian tribe of the Eastern Apache group (see Apache). In the late 20th century about 2,300 Jicarilla Apache lived on or near the Jicarilla federal reservation in north-central New Mexico. The early Jicarilla were one of several loosely organized, autonomous bands of Apache living in the Southwest. Their ancient lands included parts of present-day Colorado, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. The Jicarilla lived in wickiups (portable dwellings made of reeds or grass applied to an elliptical frame) and spoke an Eastern Apachean language. Their name, a Mexican Spanish word meaning little basket, came from the small sealed baskets they used as drinking vessels. In 1716 the Jicarilla were driven from their lands by the Comanche. They settled in what is now northeastern New Mexico, where they learned to supplement their traditional occupations of hunting and raiding with farming. Their relatively extensive farming practice required a more settled existence, and the Jicarilla engaged in warfare less frequently than did other Eastern Apache. They continued, however, to suffer the depredations of the Comanche: fighting in 1724 left most of the Jicarilla men dead and many women and children taken prisoner. The surviving Jicarilla later tried to avoid warfare with white settlers. They engaged in some hostilities, however, after the early 1850s. They were subdued by the U.S. Army in 1880, and in 1887 they were settled on land reserved for them in New Mexico. Modern Jicarilla tribal organization is governed by an elected president and council, and tribal income is derived primarily from mineral leases.