Natages

Natages is the name Spanish records gave to Apache bands of south-central New Mexico, in the dry mountain country around Sierra Blanca and the Capitan range. In the eighteenth century Natagés was sometimes used interchangeably with Mescalero, the Spanish name for the Apache who lived on the mescal agave, which they kept in store to survive lean seasons. These people called themselves the People of the Mountain Forests, and they moved between high pine slopes, grassy basins and the valleys of the Pecos and the Rio Grande to hunt, gather and trade.

A Spanish map of 1729 gave the Natagee name to the Pecos near its junction with the Rio Grande, and a military map of 1773 placed Natajes and Mescaleros west of the Pecos. Horse trading went on beside hunting and some cultivation. Negotiation and exchange coexisted with raiding and warfare, and alliances shifted as bands followed their own interests.