lifestyle and are now supported by their oil and gas, casino gaming, forestry, ranching, and tourism industries on the reservation. The Jicarilla continue to be known for their pottery, basketry, and beadwork. History Early history The Jicarilla Apaches are one of the Athabaskan linguistic groups that migrated out of Canada, by 1525 CE, and possibly several hundred or more years earlier, and lived in 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 containing sacred mountain peaks and ranges and ranged out into the plains of northwestern Texas and the western portions of Oklahoma and Kansas. They were found to be in the Chama Valley, New Mexico, and points east by the 1600s. Prior to that time, and the arrival of the Spanish, the Jicarilla lived a relatively peaceful existence. In the 1600s, the Jicarillas were seminomadic, practicing seasonal agriculture that they learned from the Pueblo people and Spaniards of New Spain along the rivers that flow through their territory. The Apache are linked to the Dismal River culture of the western Plains, generally attributed to the Paloma and Quartelejo (also Cuartelejo) Apaches. Jicarilla Apache pottery has also been found in some of the Dismal River complex sites. Some of the people of the Dismal River culture joined the Kiowa Apache in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Due to pressure from the Comanche from the west and Pawnee and French from the east, the Kiowa and remaining people of Dismal River culture migrated south, where they later joined the Lipan Apache and Jicarilla Apache nations. By the 1800s, they were planting along the rivers, especially along the upper Arkansas River and its tributaries, a variety of crops, 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. From the wild, women gathered berries, agave, honey, onions, potatoes, nuts, and seeds. Sacred land and creation story From the Jicarilla creation story, the land bounded by the four sacred rivers was provided to them by the Creator, with select places for communicating with the Creator and spirits, sacred rivers and mountains to be respected and conserved, and very