Traditional Apache scout

The traditional Apache scouts were secret societies within various clans of the tribe. Only Lipan, Chiricahua and Mescalero Apaches had Scout societies. Their original purpose was to be the eyes and ears of the clan, protecting the people from enemies, as well as locating game and new locations to move camp.

It is important to distinguish between these scouts, and the so-called "apache scouts" hired by the U.S. Army during the Apache Wars.

Training

The scouts trained their own in an intense process that lasted over ten years. Young children within the clan would be closely observed from a young age by current scouts and elders. Those who showed promise in skills such as awareness, tracking and hunting, physical fitness, selflessness and more would be selected to undergo the training process.

Training included advanced camouflage techniques and methods of invisibility as well as observation. This led to their nicknames as "shadow people" or "ghosts". The scouts became masters of wilderness survival, excelling beyond the skills of the lay tribesmen. This was necessary, for they often had to travel away from the tribe or clan for extended periods of time with little more than a knife.

Aside from their prowess in the field of stalking and invisibility, was their tracking ability. They developed and taught upcoming scouts a highly complex system of tracking utilizing miniature topographic features within each footprint. These features could tell the tracker anything from the speed at which the animal was moving, to the direction the animal (or human) was looking at the time he or she left the track. Some tracking experts, such as Tom Brown, Jr. assert that scout trained trackers could know if the maker was hungry, pregnant, had to urinate, and to what degree of each.