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Our Language: The Meaning of Our Apache Name "Lipan"
By Nancy McGown Minor Jan 10, 2009 (edited & updated by Hermelinda Walking Woman)
The name Lipan means “The Light Gray People.” It comes from the Lipan word for a light gray color (łépai)
and the word for The People or The Tribe (indeh or ndé). Yet the term is more than a tribal name; it embodies a code that honors the Lipan Apache ancestors, an Apachean people who undertook an ancient journey from the McKenzie Basin in Canada to their eventual homeland in Texas. The Lipans, and all Apaches, see the Earth as a circle suspended in space at the four points of the
compass. Each direction is represented by a color: North=White, West=Yellow, South=Blue, and East=Black.
When the ancient people, a portion who eventually became the Lipan Apaches, migrated from the north and then moved east into Texas, they were moving from the white of the north toward the black of the east. On a color palette, mixing a little black with white creates the color gray. This is why the Lipan Apaches are the Light Gray People- they are the easternmost of all the Apache tribes.
