[Grimmy]

Just some old bits of stuff off the top of my head, so may not be accurate...

The word “Apache” was used as a general term to mean enemy by many of the non Apache tribes in the area.

Navajo were called “head crushers” because of their habit of executing prisoners by dropping large rocks on their heads.

I wouldn’t know where to start in studying up on actual histories of the indig tribes. There’s so much activism and revisionism slathered all over the subject.

The above concerning Navajo and Apache is from conversations with a Marine I served with that was raised as a Navajo “res indian”. No clue if it’s accurate or not... but I would guess, from having trained with that Marine and others from south west US tribes, that the Apachean were so successful because they really took the war fighting thing seriously. Very seriously.

[count-your-change]

I've often thought of how odd it is that some of the natives of South and Central America and Mexico were such great artisans in stone and as one goes further north the cultures become simpler.
The tribes of the Northwest apparently felt no impetus to clear forest and build great monuments if they even had the knowledge to do so.
It's as though the first to arrive were the most skilled and vigorous and the last to arrive were content just to survive or had little ability to do much else.
I saw a program on television wherein the host showed a picture of a fellow from Central Asia to an American Indian. The Indian was struck with the fact that the Asian could easily pass for a near relative except for their clothes.
Activism? Revisionism? You mean like, ‘All Native Indigenous Peoples Lived in Happy Harmony With Their Native Brothers and Nature’? Bring out Iron Eyes Cody!

[Redcitizen]

"Navajo were called “head crushers” because of their habit of executing prisoners by dropping large rocks on their heads." No one in my family ever said anything about any of us dropping rocks on people's heads. =) I think the word navajo was adapted from a Tiwa word meaning navahu˙, arroyo with cultivated fields. I can't speak for the Apaches, so there you go.