The People Who Do Not Exist
They have no home, unlike the federally recognized tribes, they are not recognized by much of anybody. Texas has, not long ago. People call them Mexican, because many have adopted Spanish sounding names. Most of them speak Spanish, and a lot of them live on the Mexican border, and of course the two intermarry.
At one time their land ranged from the southern plains and into Mexico, along the eastern side of the Rio Grande. Now they have no land, and because of it, the “ndé” (The People) are scattered. It seemed that nobody loved the Lipan Band of the Apache. I did, because I was born and raised on land where they once hunted. As a kid I would find their discarded flint points (arrowheads) where the rains had washed through the arroyos, revealing them.
The idea for a story came to me some time back. I researched and found scholarly works that might have been helpful, but what I wanted was something more personal. It proved elusive. I played with it for a few days but couldn’t really find a direction that I thought it should be taken ― so I set it aside.
Sometime last summer I happened to see the familiar name of a small West Texas town on a weather report, and I got to thinking about my abandoned story. The town is Lipan, Texas, located around two hours northeast of where I was raised, and about the same distance west of where I now call home. The thought of finishing the story has been resting in the back of my mind since.
Then something happened. Oddly, it was because I was looking for a new novel to read. As I searched, one title interested me. I went online and looked for reviews. Both the book and the author had received high praise, with the book being rated as one of the top 100 SciFi-Fantasy books of all time. Impressed, I researched the author to see what else she had written ― and received a bit of a shock when I read her brief bio.
The title of the book is “Elatsoe”, and the author is Darcie Little Badger ― a member of the Lipan Band of the Apache Tribe. “Elatsoe” is her first novel. She has written two others along with more than 30 short fiction pieces, several poems, blogs, and she has drawn several comic books.
So, with my desire to write the story rekindled, I started researching again. What I have patched together is a disjointed tale that I hope will make sense. It is long, but I could find no way to shorten it that would leave a satisfactory tale.
Darcie’s is that personal story I wanted. In addition to all of her other writing, she penned an article, published in The Texas Observer, telling of a recent occurrence with her blood kin. I shall quote heavily from that article as I jump around, offering more from other resources.
I’ll start my story by quoting writer Dylan Baddour. “The Lipan Apache, historically based around Central Texas, are recognized by the state — but not by the federal government. They have no reservation and no unified representation. That means thousands of people with Lipan heritage [ … ] live scattered across a state that has historically labeled Native Americans as Mexican immigrants and taught school children that Texas’ tribal people were long gone.”
This is something I know to be true. The little town where I went to school in the 1950s was thoroughly entrenched in the historic racism endemic across the South. There were five elementary schools in that town ― three for the whites and one each for the Blacks and the Mexicans. Us white kids weren’t allowed to mix until middle school days ― giving time for our adult role models to thoroughly indoctrinate us with their racism.
There was an exception to the segregation ― one little Mexican kid who lived with his family on one of the white-owned ranches up northeast a ways, and no school bus would go over to the far west side of town where the Mexican school was located. So, Juan went to school with white kids like me.
He got picked on a lot, and when I befriended him, I got picked on too. I was a scrawny kid and had learned to fight because of it. They picked on us, but they didn’t push us around. Juan and I got along. He helped me learn some Spanish. In talking with him, I learned he wasn’t Mexican, even though he had the name Herrera. He was Jicarilla Apache, and his proper name wasn’t that Spanish name. He was Juan Little Dog, and he was the third generation of his family born on that ranch.
Baddour tells the story of Lucille Contreras, a Lipan woman who had lived among the Lakota Sioux in South Dakota for years. According to Baddour, “Contreras wanted to show that those myths were false, and that South Texas cultural staples, like the roasted cow heads consumed in barbacoa tamales, the heirloom metate her grandma used to grind corn for tortillas, and the colorful parties thrown for young women coming of age didn’t originate in Spain, but trace back to a time when buffalo roamed all across Texas by the millions.”
“There’s one thing for sure: The buffalo survived,” Contreras said. “And we as Indigenous people, especially Texas Indigenous, we also survived.”
The buffalo has not only survived ― they have thrived. Some readers may remember my story of the buffalo from a couple years back. From a small group (far too small to be called a herd) that in the mid-19th century aimlessly wandered into the Yellowstone, somehow evading the Sharps and the Henrys of the buffalo slaughterers, the buffalo found new life ― a life now aided by indigenous buffalo ranchers like Contreras’ son, a member of The Texas Tribal Buffalo Project (TTBP). Contreras was coming home to Texas to aid in the survival of the beast that had nourished her people for centuries.
“Since her people didn’t have a reservation to use as a cultural center, Contreras decided to buy land,” Baddour continues. “She acquired 77 acres near the tiny town of Waelder, gathered a small herd of bison, and started the nonprofit Texas Tribal Buffalo Project in March 2021, using a mixture of $580,000 in loans, grants, donations, and support from her Native American activist community.”
Contreras’ project is an example of what Baddour calls, “the steady re-emergence of the long-hidden Lipan Apache culture in Texas. Thirty years ago, there were no openly Lipan groups here, but several robust communities have since been formed by a generation of people who organized around common oral stories of South Texas Apache ancestry. All are dedicated to rediscovering and reclaiming their pre-colonial roots.”
Over the past few decades, the Lipan have made a bit of a comeback. There are two major groups that between them number in the thousands ― one estimate says 4,500. One group is located near the small town of Brackettville, about a half hour from Del Rio, and the other around the Rio Grande Valley town of McAllen. There are other, smaller groups as well, one of which calls the tiny border town of Presidio home.
Yet the Lipan still are not recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and therefore have no place that, as a tribe, could be called home. The Lipan were not alone in this. In 1950 there was only one federally recognized tribe in Texas, and their population was put at 285. By 1985, two more small reservations were recognized, but the total number of natives was put at just over 2,700 ― a fraction of the actual number. Census takers in 1980 and before were not allowed to ask about race or cultural heritage. They were told to make a judgement call, and most natives suddenly became Mexican or Hispanic. That would have been the entire Lipan Nation.
As Bernard Barcena, chairman of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas says, “Since Texas was part of Mexico, they decided all the Indians were Mexicans. They were looked at not as Indigenous people but as Mexican immigrants.”
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Now we give Darcie a turn. She begins her article by writing:
“About 750 years ago, an Elder died. I don’t know what killed her. In fact, I know very little about her life. But she must have been loved. Because she was laid to rest in a sacred place: an arroyo at the foot of the Chinati Mountains of Far West Texas.
“The Elder’s family probably believed that she’d be safe within the land. And for a very long time, she was.”
“Then, in 2020, I received a call from my mother, who shared a curious story. Xoxi Nayapiltzin, a supporter and member of the Indigenous community in South Texas, had recently visited Chaa Ranch as a guest of the owner, Pilar Pedersen. Well, that day, upon entering an arroyo, Xoxi noticed a broken metate on the ground. Indigenous women were — are — often laid to rest with their metate.
“Xoxi told Pilar, his dear friend, that there might be a burial site nearby. Yes, Pilar confirmed. In the 1980s, others had seen partially exposed bones in the arroyo. Centuries of erosion had unearthed the Elder. Unsure where the remains came from or whether there’d been foul play, they had contacted authorities for help. Subsequently, the Center for Big Bend Studies of Sul Ross State University took those bones for study. The university still had them.”
Here is where the failure of the federal government to recognize the Lipan as a unique tribe results in bitter irony. As Darci says, “Under a federal law called the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), Native bodies and burial artifacts held by public universities and other institutions are supposed to be returned to their rightful tribal nation. But that law only applies to federally recognized tribes.”
The elder, according to Darcie, was “effectively trapped within an academic mausoleum.”
Darcie was not the first to face an obstinate institution unwilling to release human remains. According to Ramon Vasquez, spokesperson for the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation, a group that has been fighting to get remains of their ancestors returned for decades, the Witte Museum at the University of Texas - San Antonio gathered the remains of 62 Native Americans, half of whom were from the traditional West Texas homelands of both the Apache and the Coahuiltecan, and displayed them in their facility. Some have been housed in a museum from as far back as the 1930s. Vasquez and others worked to have the remains released.
“When the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act law was updated in 2013,” writes reporter Jose Arredondo, “it created a pathway for aboriginal people, culturally or geographically, connected to accept the remains.”
In 2023, the Witte began the process to return 31 Coahuiltecan ancestral remains, so that they might be buried in West Texas where they died.
Coahuiltecan member Linda Ximenes says the reburying will “provide a more formal history.”
“[They'll go] back into a burial ground where they can rest, and then secondly it also acknowledges the fact we have cultural affiliation with this area,” Ximenes said.
The history of the Lipan is like that of the Coahuiltecan and all other aboriginal groups across the Americas. Every one of them can trace their ancestor’s steps back to those prehistoric explorers who crossed a frozen Arctic to arrive on the North American prairies.
A paper I once read claimed that in the so-called new world, North American indigenous DNA falls into three subsets, perhaps indicating three waves of migrants arriving centuries apart. For the moment that all falls into the realm of “needs further research.” The American Indians of the southern United States can be traced back no further than a few centuries, to about 1500 CE when Spanish explorers encountered them, and when artifacts and pictographs attributed to the Mescalero Apache can be dated. These were found in Central Texas, at what is now Hueco Tanks State Historic Area.
The Lipan are a splinter of the Mescalero. Francisco Vásquez de Coronado’s expedition found Lipan Apache living along the Canadian River in far north Texas in 1541. They were still there when Diego de Vargas passed the area in 1694.
In the first decade of 1600, Thanks to the Spanish, the Lipan became horseback, allowing them to become nomadic and giving them the capability to raid Spanish settlements. Later they would go to war with the Spanish. In 1680, when the indigenous Pueblo people of what is now New Mexico revolted against the Spanish, the Lipan allied with their cousins.
By 1700 the Lipan had moved south, settling along the border with Mexico. They had always been agricultural and continued growing crops in the fertile soils along the Rio Grande River. Corn, beans, pumpkin, and melons all grew well here. It is in these areas where the largest populations of Lipan still exist today. But as a tribe, they have no land. Colonialism has deprived a people of their heritage.
Darcie’s name in her language is Darcie Tawóctcete Altsese shezhii. In her piece for the Observer she offers us a little history of herself, saying, “on my mother’s side, I’m Lipan Apache, of the Little Breech Clout Band (or, as great-grandma called us, ‘Apaches de Poca Ropa’). My maternal line arrived on this continent before the woolly mammoths went extinct. Over the centuries, my ancestors traveled south, eventually settling in the region now known as the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. To us, home is kíłááhíí, the land of many houses. My great-great-grandma was born in Texas, my great-grandma was born in Texas, my grandma was born in Texas, my mom was born in Texas, and I, well, I was born in Minnesota.”
“In 1838, the ‘treaty of Peace and perpetual friendship between the Republic of Texas and the Lipan tribe of Indians’ supposedly cemented the amicable relationship between my people and Texas. Sam Houston once wrote, ‘We will be kind to the Lipans. Grass will not grow on the path between us.’ My ancestors traded with the settlers, guarded their new little cities, exchanged stories, and made human connections. We willingly shared our homeland with them. But, when Texas became a state in 1845, the federal government decided to take everything. Officials considered putting the Lipan on a reservation outside of Texas. However, these plans fell through because we refused to be relocated and, as a nomadic group, we were difficult to capture. We’d never stop resisting.”
It all came crashing down after the Civil War. Texas, like the rest of the Confederacy, was heavily in debt. To alleviate that burden, they sold all the “Indian” land to the highest bidder. The Lipan were not alone in this. All Texas tribes were in the same boat, and none wanted to be pushed onto tiny reservations and forced to rely on BIA rations. They resisted, causing the government to take fateful action.
“That’s why the federal government decided to exterminate the Lipan,” says Darcie. “In this country, there’d be no Bureau of Indian Affairs support for my people, no tribal land. For many decades, there’d be no safety, either.
“When my great-great-grandmother Lorenza was born in the 1870s, the United States and Mexico launched joint military campaigns against the Lipan. At the same time, through a law passed in 1874, the 44th U.S. Congress made it illegal for Indians — “filthy barbarians,” according to its statement — to exist freely within Texas. The congressional document declared, ‘[Indians] should be kept in the reserves, and not allowed to leave under any pretext.’ In other words, the United States’ war of extermination involved destruction through military violence and legal decree.
“But their law was not ours: The Lipan remained in Texas, where the bones of our ancestors, like the Elder, had been buried centuries ago, when our tribe was just beginning to differentiate itself culturally and linguistically from other Apache.”
Mocking our federal government, Darcie continues, saying “In spite of our survival, the federal government does not officially acknowledge the Lipan Apache Tribe. Of course, institutions such as the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service will sometimes correspond with my tribal nation, but our sovereignty is ignored by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and we are not served by laws or programs that apply to federally recognized Indigenous nations. This is why NAGPRA neglects the Lipan Apache. We cannot use federal law to reclaim our historic artifacts or the bones of our elders.
“In addition, until recently, we had no tribal land. Even after we were made “unlawful,” my people lived in clusters throughout Texas in our Indigenous communities known as rancherías. And while rancherías allowed us to survive, we were often one disaster or unpaid bill away from displacement. We just had to struggle. We still do. In the eyes of the government, we are breathing ghosts.
“There’s a traditional Lipan burial ground in Presidio [Texas] called el Cementerio del Barrio de los Lipanes. The majority of graves are adorned with simple cairns of local rocks or are unmarked, in accordance with our traditions. Although it was declared a State Antiquities Landmark in 2014, many stones had been moved and taken, and people used the burial ground as a garbage dump. Our sacred land had fallen into disarray, and we were powerless to protect it.
“Even Indigenous bodies weren’t safe. That’s when mom told me about the Elder’s remains, how her bones were somewhere in storage. Reality wore me down, made me a pessimist. But fortunately, others didn’t give up. In 2021, my mother called and said, “You know el cementerio? … Presidio County is transferring it back to our tribe.”
According to the story, as told by Annie Rosenthal, of Marfa, Texas Public Radio, “For years, descendants of the people buried in El Cementerio del Barrio de los Lipanes had one modest goal.
“The small cemetery in Presidio dates back centuries — at least to the 1790s, when the Spanish established a peace settlement for a band of Lipan Apache people in the area. As the city grew up around it, the burial ground became part of a Lipan neighborhood, or barrio, which gave the site its name. But in recent decades, parts of the mound were paved over, and it was all but abandoned.”
“There were four-wheeler tracks all through the cemetery, there was trash and broken bottles from some late night happy hour,” remembers Christina Hernandez, who’s been visiting her relatives there since she was a kid. “We really thought that we could just fence the property to keep it safe.”
“Three years ago,” Rosenthal continues, “Hernandez and other descendants found supporters for that effort in the Big Bend Conservation Alliance — and the local government. In November 2021, the city and county of Presidio made the historic decision to give the land to the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas, saying tribal members would be its ‘best custodians.’”
“This good news came as a shock, writes Darcie. “It would mark the first time that any government in Texas ever returned land to the Lipan. Determined advocates — including descendants of those buried in el Cementerio and our chairman Bernard Barcena and vice-chairman Robert Soto — had fought for the burial ground.”
“In May,” Darcie continues, “my mother, my brother, and I drove to Presidio to attend the burial ground’s blessing ceremony. It was nightfall when we reached the city. Up ahead, the lights of Ojinaga [the Mexican city across the Rio] were as bright as a bioluminescent sea. But Presidio itself was such a small place, I couldn’t see much until sunrise, when my family went to the burial ground.
“A small group of people were already waiting, ranging in age from children to elders. Some wore traditional regalia. Others, like my brother, wore casual clothes. We were all there for one reason: to protect our sacred land. A drum circle played, the burial ground was blessed in our traditional way, and then I was asked to speak. As I stood before my community, I noticed a stack of rocks at the edge of el cementerio. Residents of Presidio had returned the sacred stones, it seemed, wanting to make things right. “We are resilient as these stones,” I said. Then the work began.
“We picked up the litter, the cans, the wrappers, then returned the stones to the graves. Kids carried pebbles. My brother, who worked at a Target warehouse, carried a boulder. By the end of the day, the burial ground was clean, respected. There was still work to do, but I was confident that it would get done. The sacred land would be protected. That’s when hope sparked within me. Maybe the Lipan would be alright someday. “
Yet I knew there was still a long way to go,” Darcie laments. “We might have land for our ancestors, but what about the living? And how could we help our ancestors who’d been unearthed and taken away? Some volunteers in our tribe are working on federal recognition, but that will be a long and complicated process. Once again, I felt powerless. But my mother had hope. Shortly after the blessing ceremony, my mother called again. She asked, ‘You know those 700-year-old remains from Presidio? … She’s our distant relative.’”
“Surprised, I asked her to repeat herself.”
“During the course of their archeological study, researchers had tested the Elder’s mitochondrial DNA. MtDNA, which is passed down the maternal line and has a relatively low rate of change, can demonstrate descent from an ancient person. So my great-great-grandma gave her mitochondrial DNA to my great-grandma, who gave it to my grandma, who gave it to my mother, who gave it to me.”
“After Xoxi learned of the Elder’s remains, he contacted our tribe because he knew that both the Little Breech Clout Band and the Tall Grass Band of Lipan were historically present in and around Presidio. Our culture, stories, documentation, and sacred history affirm this. It’s therefore possible, Xoxi thought, that one or more living Lipan tribe members might be the lineal descendants of the Elder. “
“The Lipan did not have the right to reclaim her under NAGPRA. But, fortunately, there was another possibility for repatriation: The ranch owner, we learned, had never signed over the rights to the Elder’s remains. Private landowners in Texas own the artifacts and even ancient bodies found on their property. Pilar wanted the Elder to be honored and reburied by family, so she asked the university to return the remains, and the search for the Elder’s descendants began.”
“Several Lipan people provided their DNA for comparison. My mother was a match. Somewhere back in time, the Elder had been family.”
“Tragically, Pilar passed away before the DNA match was found. However, Pilar’s surviving family carried on her legacy. When they learned that the Elder’s closest living relatives had been found, they gave their blessing for a transfer, and she was repatriated (or should it be rematriated?) to us in the hope that she’d be protected.”
“And she was. The Elder was the first person to be reburied in el Cementerio del Barrio de los Lipanes. On May 18, after sunrise, several women in the Elder’s maternal line, including my mother and I, walked the remains onto the sacred land. There, the Elder was blessed, and everyone present helped enfold her within the earth. We all marked her resting place with sacred stones.”
“I imagine this Elder’s life alongside the arroyo, where water flows in the desert and prickly pears grow in fountains of green paddles and red fruit. She existed centuries before the Lipan Apache formed a cohesive group. But I feel a connection to her. After all, she nourished her family with a metate. Like my great-great-grandmother. Great-grandmother. Grandmother. Mother. Me.
“Someday, I will be buried among my people. Will I take my metate with me? Will it stay by my side?”
This is how Darcie closes her story. Her words sting. We have so callously taken so much from the First Peoples, beginning in 1492 and continuing today. We deny their history. We deny the evil committed by our ancestors. We deny their very existence. Our education system was designed to cause us to forget the sins of our ancestors. We need the Darcie’s of the world to overcome the disinformation. Reading her story brings some of our sins into the light.
For me at least, while the small bit of justice the Lipan have experienced brings an equally small bit of satisfaction, it leaves me craving more.