By Ruben Leyva

During the 2023-2024 academic year, I was fortunate to assist Navajo/Diné scholar Tiffany Lee, PhD, with the Indigenous Immersion Language Study. Indigenous-language immersion (ILI) schooling promotes language revitalization, academic and holistic well-being, and cultural identity as a form of sustainable self-determination. This experience inspired me to conduct historical research in linguistic and cultural studies and archaeology as part of my ethnohistory. I now seek to uncover the meaning and historical context behind ancestral Gila Apache names recorded in colonial archives—an act of cultural recovery grounded in ethnohistorical and linguistic research.

On July 22, 1777, Spanish military leader Hugo de O'Conor reported the self-identifiers for three groups of Gila Apache in his dispatch to Spanish Commandant General Teodoro de Croix. O'Conor wrote, "Los Apaches que consternan las Provincias de Sonora y Nueva Vizcaya son conocido por los nombres Chiricagui, Gileños, Mimbreno… Los tres primeros en lengua Apache se llaman Sigilandé, Setozende, Chiquende,…" Let's examine Sigilandé and its possible meaning.

Upon reviewing Sigilandé through an Apache lens, the name resembles a more familiar expression. The initial syllables, Si-gi, may reflect the Apache word Tseyi' (pronounced "Tseh-yee," /tsè.jìː/), which means "within the rocks." This could potentially correlate with Antonio Cordero's 1796 word for Chiricahua, "Segatajen-ne" (Tsé't'ah Ndee). In this case, Tse't'ah carries a similar meaning of "among the rocks."

As explained to me by a White Mountain Apache elder, tribal names recorded with endings like -nde or -ndeh should be properly written as two words, with Ndee (or Nnee, depending on the dialect) standing independently to signify "The People." This was true for Chiricahua speakers as well. The name Ndee belongs to a rich tradition of Apache self-naming, where terms were often situational, geographic, and spiritual. Tseyi' Ndee does not replace a tribal name, but it offers a window into our historical relationship with the canyon homelands we guarded, grieved, and never truly left.

Unfamiliar with Apache phonology, Spanish scribes approximated the sounds as best they could, leaving us fragments from which we now piece together ancestral truths. Sounds resembling a soft, voiced fricative—like the 'ghee' in Gila (today pronounced Hee-la)—were approximated by Spanish scribes using letters such as g, h, j, or x, substituting them with the unfamiliar Apache sound /ɣ/, a voiced velar fricative found in many Athabaskan dialects, but not present in Spanish. In this case, the inclusion of 'la' may have functioned as a phonetic filler or Spanish linguistic adaptation, not a meaningful element in the original word. These transcription choices reflect how Indigenous names were reshaped through colonial misunderstanding. Yet, we can move closer to our ancestral names' original intent and sound through careful linguistic and cultural study. Understanding these colonial distortions provides critical context for tracing how Apache and Navajo groups maintained both distinct and interconnected identities across the Southwest.

Their tribal movements brought the Navajo into sustained contact with southern Apache groups, particularly those whose homelands overlapped and bordered Navajo territory. Albert H. Schroeder's 1963 article *Navajo and Apache Relationships West of the Rio Grande* documents these intertribal connections, noting shared raiding routes, alliances, and occasional hostilities. Linguist Harry Hoijer determined that the linguistic divergence between the Chiricahua Apache and the Navajo languages occurred approximately 149 years before his research, suggesting a relatively recent separation in Athabaskan terms.

Among the southern groups, the Chiricahua's Mogollon band—historically referred to in Spanish records as Gileños—and the White Mountain Apache maintained territories immediately south of Navajo lands. These groups shared not only mutual geographic boundaries but also overlapping lifeways, trade patterns, and dialectal similarities. Place-names like Tseyi' (meaning "within the rocks"), common to both Navajo (Diné) and Southern Apache speech, reflect this long-standing cultural and linguistic relationship. Such terms are more than geographic—they are echoes of movement, alliance, and collective memory embedded in the land.
This shared linguistic heritage affirms the idea that names such as Tseyi' hold sacred significance rooted in Indigenous worldviews, and are not merely colonial labels. As Navajo/Diné elder Don Mose explained in the Oki Language Project's audio and video archive, "Like many tribes throughout the United States, they were just given names by people who they were in contact with. That is how most got their name. But, every tribe at one time had their own sacred name." His words resonate with our understanding of Tseyi' Ndee as not just a descriptive term, but a deeper ancestral name—one remembered, reasserted, and lived.

The Gila Apache, known in Spanish sources as Apaches de Xila/Gila or Gileños, occupied a vast mountainous terrain that stretched from the Mogollon and Black Ranges to the Burro and Pinos Altos Mountains—landscapes rich in oak groves, springs, and deep canyons. These canyons were physical refuges and spiritual and cultural homelands, where names, songs, and identities took shape. The term Tseyi' Ndee, while not commonly used in modern tribal designations, may reflect an older sense of geographic belonging—people whose existence was defined by their presence in and around canyoned lands. Just as the Navajo preserved Tseyi' as a sacred place-name, so too did the Gila Apache memory preserve these terms through oral tradition, kinship stories, and the enduring presence of ancestral sites. The Spanish chroniclers, unfamiliar with the nuances of Athabaskan languages, captured fragments of these identities—names like Sigilandé (Tseyi' Ndee) —which now reemerge through careful linguistic and cultural reconstruction.
In their 2015 work, *Moquis and Kastiilam: Hopis, Spaniards, and the Trauma of History, 1540–1696*, researchers Sheridan, Koyiyumptewa, Daughters, and others state on page 466, "These are not the modern Gila Mountains northwest of Safford, Arizona. Mendinueta (the Spanish Governor of New Mexico, 1767-1777) may be referring to either the Blue Range or the Mogollon Mountains now located in the Gila Wilderness."

Similarly, authors John Kessell and Rick Hendricks' book *By Force of Arms: The Journals of Don Diego de Vargas 1691-1693* cites Jerry L. Williams and Paul E. McAllister's (1979) *New Mexico Maps* as a reference. Kessell and Hendricks, two of the most successful translators of Spanish expedition writings, note on page 110, "The name Gila usually refers to the Gila River rising in the mountains of southwestern New Mexico. Here, the name is used to designate the mountainous area near the river, which includes the Mogollon, Burros, Pinos Altos, and Black Ranges." While the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona are popularly associated with the Chiricahua Apache, the historic descriptions of the vast area that they inhabited make it clear that their range included southwestern New Mexico and northern Mexico.

While O'Conor identified the Sigilandé as the Chiricagui, he identified other related groups with specific names. O'Conor identified the "Setozendé" as Gileños. Meanwhile, the "Mimbrenos," whom O'Conor reported as "Chiquende" (possibly Chih'ee Ndee), inhabited the Black Range. Following the trend set by the Mexican government, the U.S. military classified these canyon people as Gila Apache and eventually as Chiricahua Apache. In 1886, most of these Apaches, identified as Chiricahuas, were imprisoned and relocated to Florida, Alabama, and Oklahoma.

Among the descendants of the Gila Apache, it is known that some families avoided the removal by remaining in the homeland, some of them on permanent reservations of other non-Chiricahua Apache groups. Others faded into the milieu of southwestern New Mexico's communities, appearing to be Hispanic. Yet, the third group went into the wilds of the Sierra Madre of Mexico and became known as the Bronco ('wild') Apaches. My great-grandfather, Elías, led one of these Bronco groups.

In 1913, the Chiricahua prisoners of war were freed from captivity. Some chose to remain in Oklahoma, while most were allowed to return to New Mexico, albeit not to the Gila Ranges. Two-thirds of the Chiricahua relocated east of the Rio Grande to the Mescalero Apache Reservation. After their release, some families returned to the Gila, but not permanently or as a community. Names like Tseyi' are still alive in the memory of those who remained. These names have been spoken, chanted, and invoked across generations. They encompass not just sounds but also prayers, identities, and responsibilities. As Gila Apache descendants, we bear this memory's honor and burden. My intent is not to rename, but rather reclaim Tseyi' Ndee, not merely to be recognized by outsiders but to honor the land and our ancestors' way of life.

Some oral traditions and linguistic interpretations have reclaimed other terms like Chih'laa (Chee' + lahh). Chi'laa is possibly a contraction of a literal translation. When placed together, Chih ('red paint') and alááhdi (great distance), we get a term used to express the range or land of the Chih Ndee (Red Paint People). Chi'laa is generally used for specific lifeways, mountain ranges, and spiritual practices of those who self-identified as Chih Ndee (Chiquende/Mimbreno/Warm Springs in historical documents).

The term "Tseyi' Ndee" refers to an ancestral identity tied to place and memory. It is not intended to replace or rename any formally recognized tribal group but to honor historical and linguistic evidence of how Apache ancestors once identified themselves.

Based on the Chiricagui's identification as Sigilandé, the Mogollon group's identification as Gileños, and missionary records of Apaches de Xila in the Black Range, I suggest that Tseyi' Ndee was likely the way the larger group identified in 1777. Old language holds power, and through research, it can be reclaimed as a form of sustainable self-determination. As a conscious act of self-definition, we, Gila Apache, identify with those areas of Arizona and New Mexico from which we were removed.

In the spirit of survival, renewal, and sovereignty, Tseyi' Ndee—In the Canyon People—offers a name that reflects the ancestral lifeways of the Sigilandé, Gileño, and Xila/Gila. Through memory, research, and reverent self-definition, we reclaim the voice of our homelands.