Editing Jicarilla Apache (section)

===Early history===
The Jicarilla Apaches are one of the [[Athabaskan languages|Athabaskan linguistic]] groups that migrated out of [[Canada]] by 1525 CE, possibly several hundred or more years earlier.<ref>Carlisle, pp. 3, 45-46.</ref> They eventually settled on what they considered their land, bounded by four sacred rivers in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado–the [[Rio Grande]], [[Pecos River]], [[Arkansas River]], and [[Canadian River]]–and containing sacred mountain peaks and ranges. The Jicarilla also ranged out into the plains of northwestern [[Texas]] and the western portions of [[Oklahoma]] and [[Kansas]].<ref>Carlisle, pages 4-5.</ref><ref name=VelardeTiller28>Velarde Tiller, 28.</ref> By the 1600s, they inhabited the Chama Valley in present-day New Mexico and the western part of present-day Oklahoma. Before contact with the Spanish, the Apache people lived in relative peace.<ref name=Pritzker12>Pritzker, 12.</ref>

The Jicarilla people of the 1600s were seminomadic, engaging in seasonal [[agriculture]] they learned from the [[Puebloan peoples|Pueblo people]] and Spaniards of New Spain, along the rivers within their territory.<ref name=Pritzker14/><ref name="Greenwald97">Greenwald, 97.</ref>

The [[Apache people|Apache]] have historical connections to the [[Dismal River culture]] of the western Plains.<ref name=Cassells-236>Cassells, pp. 236.</ref> This culture is often associated with the Paloma and Quartelejo (also known as Cuartelejo) Apaches. Jicarilla Apache pottery has also been found at several Dismal River complex sites.<ref name=Gibbon213>Gibbon, p. 213.</ref> Over time, some of the people from the Dismal River culture joined the [[Plains Apache|Kiowa Apache]] in the [[Black Hills]] of present-day [[South Dakota]]. Due to pressure from the west by the Comanche and from the east by the [[Pawnee people|Pawnee]] and [[French people|French]], the Kiowa and the remaining people of Dismal River culture migrated south, where they eventually joined the [[Lipan Apache people|Lipan Apache]] and Jicarilla Apache nations.<ref name=Gibbon213/>

By the 1800s, the Jicarilla were planting a variety of crops along the rivers, especially along the upper Arkansas River and its tributaries, sometimes using irrigation to aid in growing squash, beans, pumpkins, melons, peas, wheat, and corn. They found farming in the mountains safer than on the open plains. They primarily hunted buffalo into the 17th century, and, thereafter, hunted antelope, deer, mountain sheep, elk, and buffalo. Jicarilla women gathered berries, agave, honey, onions, potatoes, nuts, and seeds from the wild.<ref name=Pritzker14/><ref name="Greenwald97"/>