The Apache-Mohave call themselves _Apátĭĕh_, which means, simply, "people." The Walapai, another Yuman tribe farther north, whose dialect resembles that of the Apache-Mohave more closely than do the dialects of the Mohave and the Yuma, also call themselves _Apátĭĕh_. Although the pronunciation of this word is indicated more nearly correctly by this spelling than by "Apache," only a trained ear can distinguish the difference in sound when the average Yuman Indian utters it. Etymologically it comes from _apá_, "man," and the plural suffix -_tĭĕh_.
The mountain fastness of the Apache in Arizona permitted easiest approach from the south and the west for all who wished to seek peace or revenge. The Apache-Mohave, living as Apache in close affiliation, were on the western border of this stronghold, whence they made raids upon several other Yuman groups, north, west, and south, in company with the Apache. They were also the first to be attacked by enemies waging offensive warfare, hence any name by which they designated themselves might readily have been transmitted to the whole Apache group. Early Spanish missionaries alluded to the Apache-Mohave as true Apache. Contradistinguished from the Apache proper, the Apache-Mohave are called Yavapai and Yavapĕh by their congeners of the Colorado river, a term that has been employed by early writers, misled through the close association of the Apache-Mohave with the Apache, to designate also the latter people. It is further evident that the term Apache came to be applied to this great division of the Athapascan family indirectly, as its component tribes are not known by that name in any of the Indian languages of the Southwest, and there is no evidence of its being of other than Indian origin.
_From Copyright Photograph 1903 by E.S. Curtis_
Since known to history, the many bands of Apache have occupied the mountains and plains of southern Arizona and New Mexico, northern Sonora and Chihuahua, and western Texas—an area greater than that of the states of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, and West Virginia. They were always known as "wild" Indians, and indeed their early warfare with all neighboring tribes, as well as their recent persistent hostility toward our Government, which precipitated a "war of extermination," bear out the appropriateness of the designation. An admission of fear of anything is hard to elicit from the weakest of Indian tribes, but all who lived within raiding distance of the Apache, save the Navaho, their Athapascan cousins, freely admit that for generations before their subjugation the Apache were constantly held in mortal terror.