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Among the least nomadic tribes were the Mandan, who moved to what is now North Dakota from the Ohio Valley in the 14th century. They were very much a settled in agricultural civilization by the time Lewis and Clark rediscovered them in 1804. The French explorer LaVerandre had wintered with them nearly a century earlier.

Then, of course, there were the Pueblo, whose villages had lasted centuries before the nomadic Apache and Navajo begin to raid them.

We have a Navajo friend who tells us the division of the Navajo and Apache are basically a white man's invention. The only real difference is that the Navajo accepted white man's invitation to settle down and go into sheep ranching a half century or so before their Apache cousins accepted a comparable offer.

The plot gets even thicker than that. According to the legend of the Navajo and Apache, their ancestors were forced into the nomadic lifestyle by a cruel and barbarous civilization from the south which enslaved them and used them in human sacrifice. Thus, they escaped across the great desert and moved north.

Accordingly, many of them do not look kindly on the Mexican invasion of our southwest. They see it as a centuries old conflict of a centuries old conflict of the Aztec oppressors who ruined their own homeland now invading the land which they helped tame.

Interesting...and makes sense.

Thanks-

I read this book awhile back....Real informative read.

http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Summer-Moon-Comanches-Powerful/dp/1416591060