Mescaleros (Spanish: `mescal
people,' from their custom of eating mescal). An Apache tribe which formed
a part of the Faraones and Vaqueros of different periods of the Spanish
history of the southwest. Their principal range was between the Rio Grande
and the Pecos in New Mexico, but it extended also into the Staked plains
and southward into Coahuila, Mexico.
They were never regarded as so warlike as the
Apache of Arizona, otherwise they were generally similar. Mooney (field
notes, B. A. E., 1897) records the following divisions:
Nataina
Tuetinini
Tsihlinainde
Guhlkainde
Tahuunde
These bands intermarry, and each had its chief and
suhchief. The Guhlkainde are apparently identical with the "Cuelcajenne"
of Orozco y Berra and others, who classed them as a division of the
Llaneros; the "Natages" are probably the same as the Nataina rather than
the Lipan or the Kiowa Apache, while the Tsihlinainde seem to be
identifiable with the "Chilpaines." In addition Orozco y Berra gives the
Lipillanes as a Llanero division.
The Mescaleros are now on a reservation of 474,240
acres in southern New Mexico, set apart for them in 7873. Population 460
in 1905, including about a score of Lipan, q. v.
