Chiricahua Indians

Chiricahua ( CHIRR-i-KAH-wə) is a band of Apache Native Americans. Based in the Southern Plains and Southwestern United States, the Chiricahua historically shared a common area, language, customs, and intertwined family relations with their fellow Apaches. At the time of European contact, they had a territory of 15 million acres (61,000 km2) in Southwestern New Mexico and Southeastern Arizona in the United States and in Northern Sonora and Chihuahua in Mexico. Today Chiricahua live in Northern Mexico and in the United States where they are primarily enrolled in three federally recognized tribes: the Fort Sill Apache Tribe, located near Apache, Oklahoma, with a small reservation outside Deming, New Mexico; the Mescalero Apache Tribe of the Mescalero Reservation near Ruidoso, New Mexico; and the San Carlos Apache Tribe in southeastern Arizona.