Geronimo
Page 14
White ortheography of Apache names is still primitive and must be regarded as only approximate. Angie Debo in Geronimo: The Man, His Time, His Place gives Nah-das-te for Geronimo’s sister, here rendered as Nah-da-ste and Nah-de-ste. (FT)
12 There is considerable dispute as to the practice of agriculture among the Chiricahua in pre-white times. They were nomadic but did settle for periods of time in a particular locale. And they could easily have learned planting and harvesting from the Mexicans. (FT)
13 The Apaches did not smoke the peace pipe, unless it was proposed by some other Indians. They had no large pipes; in fact, they usually smoked cigarettes made by rolling the tobacco in wrappers of oak leaves. (SMB)
14 The only foundation for the statement, frequently made, that Geronimo was a medicine man. (SMB)
But numerous other accounts suggest that Geronimo was a “medicine man” and that his powers of divination and healing made him feared and perhaps even disliked by not a few of his own people. I have called him a war shaman in my Introduction. (FT)
15 A symbol of the white rock used by the eagle in slaying the nameless monster—see Chapter 1. (SMB)
16 The Apaches recognized no duties to any man outside their tribe. It was no sin to kill enemies or to rob them. However, if they accepted any favor from a stranger, or allowed him to share their comforts in any way, he became (by adoption) related to the tribe and they must recognize their duty to him. (SMB)
17 This is not idiosyncratic on Geronimo’s part, but a cultural taboo. Reptiles were not acceptable food nor were other creatures which were believed to eat them. (FT)
18 There is probably an error here, either in translation or transmission: the Chiricahuas had a taboo against eating bear meat. (FT)
19 Maco was chief of the Nedni Apaches. His son (Geronimo’s father) had married a Bedonkohe Apache (Geronimo’s mother) and joined her tribe, thereby losmg his right to rule by heredity. By this it will be seen Geronimo could not become chief by hereditary right, although his grandfather was a chieftain. It is also shown that Geronimo’s father could not be chief, hence the accession of Mangus-Colorado. (SMB)
Most authorities believe Barrett was incorrect in identifying Maco or Mahko as a Nedni; he apparently was a Bedonkohe. (FT)
20 The Apaches will not keep any of the property of a deceased relative. Their unwritten tribal laws forbid it, because they think that otherwise the children or other relatives of one who had much property might be glad when their father or relatives died. (SMB)
It should also be noted that such practices manifest the profound Chiricahua fear of ghosts. (FT)
21 Beads were obtained from the Mexicans. The Apaches also got money from the Mexicans, but deemed it of no value, and either gave it to their children to play with or threw it away. (SMB)
22 Most of these dates should be taken as approximations, but this should not lead the reader (as it has led many) to assume that all details are highly fictionalized because the Chiricahuas kept no written records. A nonliterate people of necessity develops habits of mind which give rise to incredible feats of memory such as those mentioned in so many of the early missionary accounts of American Indians. The whole history and customs of a tribe exist only in memory, and this is therefore a highly prized mental attribute. (FT)
23 Such an incident was typical of Chiricahua-Mexican relations: when one party acted in peace the other acted in treachery. Here we have illustrated the classic Mexican ploy of trading while preparing a surprise attack. Often the male Chiricahuas were beguiled by drink and then either executed or enslaved for use in northern Mexico or on the chicle plantations in the Yucatán. (FT)
24 The Chiricahuas considered emotional demonstrativeness unbecoming since anything deeply felt could be translated into actions. (FT)
25 According to custom he should not have kept the property of his deceased relatives, but he was not compelled to destroy his own tepee or the playthings of his children. (SMB)
26 Strips of buckskin about two inches wide fastened around the head. (SMB)
27 At this time the Mexican Government offered a reward in gold for Apache scalps—one hundred dollars for warrior’s scalp, fifty dollars for squaw’s scalp, and twenty-five dollars for child’s scalp. (SMB)
28 It was by such feats of battle that Geronimo rose to leadership. Such individual exploits became part of a man’s “record” within the tribe, and he was careful to confine himself to fact in his periodic recital of them; otherwise he might be contradicted and ridiculed by other witnesses. (FT)
29 From the moment the command for war is given with the Apaches everything assumes a religious guise. The manner of camping, cooking, etc., are exactly prescribed. Every object appertaining to war is called by its sacred name; as if, for instance, in English, one should say not horse, but war-horse or charger; not arrow, but missile of death. The Indian is not called by his ordinary name, but by a sacred name to which is subjoined “brave” or “chief” as the case may be. Geronimo’s Indian name was Go khlä yeh, but the Mexicans at this battle called him Geronimo, a name he has borne ever since both among the Indians and white men. (SMB)
Such specialization within the culture (a vocabulary of almost one hundred war-related terms has been collected) tells us much about the old Chiricahua way and its major emphasis. (FT)
30 Geronimo had married again. (SMB)
Years later a Chiricahua who apparently had read Geronimo’s autobiography used this detail to “prove” that it was really Barrett who wrote the book since no Chiricahua would have remarried so soon after the death of his wife unless he married a relative or sister of hers—which Geronimo did not. But no mention is made here of how much time elapsed between the death of the first wife and the marriage to the second. (FT)
31 They had never eaten bacon and did not learn to do so for a long time. Even now they will not eat bacon or pork if they can get other meat. Geronimo positively refuses to eat bacon or pork. (SMB)
This is because the Chiricahuas believed that the wild hogs they knew (peccary) ate reptiles; thus all hogs did so and were taboo. (FT)
32 The interpreter Asa, son of Whoa, remembers a little captive Mexican girl who used to play with the Apache children, but was finally exchanged.
One of Geroninio’s wives and her child were killed at this time, and thence-forth until he became a prisoner of war he had two wives. He might have had as many wives as he wished, but he says that he was so busy fighting Mexicans that he could not support more than two. (SMB)
33 Mescal is a fiery liquor produced in Mexico from several species of Agave. (SMB)
34 Most sources agree that Geronimo liked his liquor as well as did any of his tribesmen. (FT)
35 Gulf of California. (SMB)
36 Either Geronimo is in error here about the date of this raid (or Barrett, if it is he who worked out the chronology), or the leader of this raid was Mangus, son of Mangas-Coloradas; the father had been cruelly tortured and then murdered by the whites in 1863. (FT)
37 It is impossible to get Geronimo to understand that these troops served the general government instead of any particular town. He still thinks each town independent and each city a separate tribe. He cannot understand the relation of cities to the general government. (SMB)
38 These are references to a break from the reservation in 1881; the bulk of the hostiles returned in May 1883; Geronimo and his group returned to San Carlos in late February or early March 1884. (FT)
39 An exceedingly oblique reference to the May 1885 break from the San Carlos Reservation-a break that was the result of an elaborate plan of Geronimo’s and that I explain briefly in my Introduction. (FT)
40 Geronimo has a fair knowledge of the Spanish language. (SMB)
41 This was the final surrender of Geronimo and the Chiricahuas, August 1886. (FT)
42 As a tribe they would fight under their tribal chief, Mangus-Colorado. If several tribes had been called out, the war chief, Geronimo, would have commanded. (SMB)
43 Regarding this attack, Mr. L. C. Hughes, editor of The Star, Tucson, Arizona, to whom I was referred by General Miles, writes as follows:
“It appears that Cochise and his tribe had been on the warpath for some time and he with a number of subordinate chiefs was brought into the military camp at Bowie under the promise that a treaty of peace was to be held, when they were taken into a large tent where handcuffs were put upon them. Cochise, seeing this, cut his way through the tent and fled to the mountains; and in less than six hours had surrounded the camp with from three to five hundred warriors; but the soldiers refused to make fight.” (SMB)
Barrett’s note corrects Geronimo’s mistake as to the principals involved in this incident, but it is doubtful if the Apaches returned with three to five hundred warriors. (FT)
44 This sweeping statement is more general than we are willing to concede, yet it may be more nearly true than our own accounts. (SMB)
45 Geronimo here describes the Cochise wars extending throughout the 1860s and ending at the beginning of the ’70s through the efforts of Thomas Jeffords and General O. O. Howard, both men who earned the trust of Cochise. (FT)
46 Geronimo often calls his horses to him in Fort Sill Reservation. He gives only one shrill note and they run to him at full speed. (SMB)
47 Regarding the killing of Mangus-Colorado, L. C. Hughes of the Tucson, Ariz., Star, writes as follows: “It was early in the year ‘63, when General West and his troops were camped near Membras, that he sent Jack Swilling, a scout, to bring in Mangus, who had been on the warpath ever since the time of the incident with Cochise at Bowie. The old chief was always for peace, and gladly accepted the proffer; when he appeared at the camp General West ordered him put into the guard-house, in which there was only a small opening in the rear and but one small window. As the old chief entered he said: ‘This is nry end. I shall never again hunt over the mountains and through the valleys of my people.’ He felt that he was to be assassinated. The guards were given orders to shoot him if he attempted to escape. He lay down and tried to sleep, but during the night, someone threw a large stone which struck him in the breast. He sprang up and in his delirium the guards thought he was attempting escape and several of them shot him; this was the end of Mangus.
“His head was severed from his body by a surgeon, and the brain taken out and weighed. The head measured larger than that of Daniel Webster, and the brain was of corresponding weight. The skull was sent to Washington, and is now on exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution.” (SMB)
A reasonably accurate summary of this affair except that the murder appears to have taken place in the open around a campfire and to have been preceded by extended torture of the prisoner. (FT)
48 General O. O. Howard was not in command, but had been sent by President Grant, in 1872, to make peace with the Apache Indians. The general wrote me from Burlington, Vt., under date of June 12, 1906, that he remembered the treaty, and that he also remembered with much satisfaction subsequently meeting Geronimo. (SMB)
49 John P. Clum. For an account of his career as Apache agent, see a book by that title written by his son, Woodworth Clum. (FT)
50 They do not receive full rations now, as they did then. (SMB)
51 Apparently a reference to the killing of one Rogers and his cook Spence in April 1876, by a band of outlaw Apaches under Skinya. The trouble between the Apaches that resulted from this incident played a part in the decision of Geronimo and others to leave the reservation in June of the same year. (FT)
52 This is Geronimo’s laconic description of his break from the Fort Bowie Reservation in June 1876. In addition to the intratribal conflicts already alluded to, the Chiricahuas were disturbed by the new orders from Washington that all the Apaches were to be concentrated on the San Carlos Reservation. They had understood that the Fort Bowie home would be theirs forever, and both Victorio and Geronimo refused to go to San Carlos with the others. It should be noted that for the next year Geronimo and Victorio used Hot Springs as a raiding base. (FT)
53 The chronology is faulty: the break described here took place at the end of September 1881. Geronimo’s description of the motivating circumstances, however, sheds new and valuable light on actions assumed to represent simple lawlessness. The Chiricahuas were alarmed by the presence of a large number of troops at San Carlos and by reports (perhaps deliberately circulated by civilians who stood to gain by the flight of the Indians) that they were to be tried for activities in past wars. (FT)
54 A highly condensed account of the Apache campaign, 1881-May 1883. For further details see my Introduction and for a firsthand account see Britton Davis, The Truth about Geronimo. (FT)
55 The break of May 17, 1885, which Geronimo engineered and for which he was almost executed by Naiche and Chihuahua when they discovered how he had tricked them. (FT)
56 Geronimo’s whole family, excepting his eldest son, a warrior, were captured. (SMB)
57 Geronimo’s account of the conference at Canon de los Embudos, March 25, 27, 1886. The relevant sections of the stenographer’s report of this conference are reproduced in Davis, The Truth about Ceronimo. (FT)
58 Geronimo’s exact words, for which the Editor disclaims any responsibility. (SMB)
59 The figures on the party that bolted into the hills vary. The two most frequently used are: twenty warriors, fourteen women, and two boys; or, nineteen warriors, thirteen women, and six children. (FT)
60 As a result of Geronimo’s escape, General Crook resigned and was replaced by General Nelson A. Miles. (FT)
61 Captain Lawton reports officially the same engagement (see page 173), but makes no mention of the recapture (by the Apaches) of the horses. (SMB)
62 Geronimo here describes his initial contact with Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood, Lawton’s advance scout, on August 25, 1886, near Fronteras. The ragged band was finished, militarily speaking, and Geronimo was suffering from the effects of a three-day drunk. He sued for peace on the terms originally offered by Crook in March (immediate reunion with families, a two-year imprisonment in the East, and then return to the reservation), but was refused and was apparently told that return to the reservation was up to Washington. What happened thereafter is a matter much in dispute, as the material collected by Barrett in the Appendix indicates. The clearest reconstruction I can make from the available evidence is that Geronimo refused Gatewood’s surrender proposition and determined to fight it out to the last man; then he changed his mind on the condition that the hostiles would be speedily reunited with their families. This condition was apparently agreed to several days later by General Miles, but it was not fulfilled. (FT)
63 September 4, 1886. (FT)
64 For terms of treaty see Appendix. (SMB)
65 The criticisms of General Miles in the foregoing chapter are from Geronimo, not from the Editor. (SMB)
66 Geronimo narrowly escaped civilian trial at San Antonio for murder. The outcome of such a trial at that time and place would have been a foregone conclusion. His deportation to Florida was thus somewhat in the nature of an “escape.” (FT)
67 The Chiricahuas were finally transported back to the West in August 1894 —not to their old homelands but to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. (FT)
68 According to Opler (An Apache Life-Way) these two incidents are one and the same. (FT)
69 In Faulk’s The Geronimo Campaign there is an episode that illustrates the racist way in which Wratton treated Indians in general and Geronimo in particular. (FT)
70 The Indians are not allowed to sell the cattle themselves. When cattle are ready for market they are sold by the officer in charge, part of the money paid to the Indians who owned them and part of it placed in a general (Apache) fu
nd. The supplies, farming implements, etc., for the Apaches are paid for from this fund. (SMB)
71 The criticism of Lieutenant Purington is from Geronimo. The Editor disclaims any responsibility for it, as in all cases where individuals are criticized by the old warrior. (SMB)
72 Geronimo helps make hay and care for the cattle, but does not receive orders from the Superintendent of the Indians. (SMB)
73 This is in keeping with the Chiricahuas’ fear of all things connected with death. Some Chiricahuas claimed that they learned scalping from the Mexicans, and certainly the Mexicans did scalp Apache dead. It has also been claimed that the Apaches scalped only Mexicans. (FT)
74 Apache warriors do not go “courting” as our youths do. The associations in the villages afford ample opportunity for acquaintance, and the arranging for marriages is considered a business transaction, but the courtesy of consulting the maiden, although not essential, is considered very polite. (SMB)