In the days of Victorio: recollections of a Warm Spring Apache PDF
Preview In the days of Victorio: recollections of a Warm Spring Apache
IN THE DAYS OF VICTORia Jeeeolleetions ola Warm Springs Apaelte IN THE DAYS OF VICTORIO EVE BALL (failles Kallwalllda, Narrator The University of Arizona Press Tucson About the Author . . . EVE BALL has lived in the Ruidoso highlands of New Mexico, close to the Mescalero Reservation. Geography made her neighbor to the Apaches; sympathy and liking made her their friend; sensitivity to their part in the historic Southwestern drama made her their historian—able to see experience through their eyes, just as she used the lens of a pioneer Lincoln County woman to view and relate the saga of Ma’am Jones of the Pecos (UA Press, 1969). She also edited and annotated the colorful Lily Klasner autobiography My Girlhood Among Outlaws (UA Press, 1972). About the Narrator . . . JAMES KAYWAYKLA lived longer to recount Apache history than any of his fellow tribesmen. In his latter years, he often stayed in the author’s home to unwind more continuously the thread of narrative. On the warpath in the 1880s with his chieftain elders, shipped with his people to Florida in 1886, Kaywaykla later was a member of a committee that selected Mescalero as the home of the Chiricahuas and the Warm Springs. Eleventh printing 2008 The University of Arizona Press © 1970 The Arizona Board of Regents All rights reserved www.uapress.arizona.edu Printed in Canada on acid-free, archival-quality paper containing 100% post-consumer waste and processed chlorine free. ISBN 978-0-8165-0401-5 LC No. 73-101103 &lIlflllS Foreword, Father Albert Braun vii Author's Preface ix A Word From the Narrator xiii Flight 3 Refuge 11 The Mescalero Reservation 25 The Ceremonials 35 History From Our Angle 45 Witchcraft 54 The Warpath 61 The Hunted 71 Ambush 75 Wanderings 79 Tres Castillos 88 The Survivors 100 My Uncles 107 Lozen 115 Sonora 121 Casas Grandes 129 Loco 136 Fort Apache 146 Turkey Creek 154 Kaytennae 162 VI CONTENTS The Return of the Women 168 The Outbreak 175 Surrender 181 General Miles 190 Florida 195 Notes to the Text 205 Bibliography 211 Index 219 ILLUSTRATIONS James Kaywaykla, the Narrator Frontispiece The Mescalero Apache Agency 24 Carrizo Gallarito 34 Ceremonial Dress of Apache Maidens 36 Apache Baby in tsach 65 Elders of the Warm Spring Tribe 84 Siki Toklanni 95 Naiche, Son of Cochise 124 Chief Loco 137 Geronimo with Companions 140 Chato of the Chiricahua 149 Dahteste, a Woman Warrior 151 Geronimo's Camp, Sierra Madre 182 Apache Scouts 186 Nana, Chief of the Warm Springs 188 The Train to Florida 196 Geronimo, a Legend 198 James Kaywaykla at Carlisle 201 MAPS Land of the Warm Springs Apache 2 Tres Castillos: Site of the Massacre and Routes of Escape 97 Juh's Stronghold in Mexico 122 'lurcw(Jrd We owe a debt of gratitude to Eve Ball for her history of the Warm Springs Apaches, as recalled by sons and daughters of the leaders of those Indians and narrated by James Kaywaykla. Eve's story is proof that she was kind and sympathetic and patient with the people who gave her the Indian version of occurrences pertain ing to their tribe. An Indian does not tell every white man he meets the stories of his people. And for good reason. I remember hearing my mother say: "If she keeps on nagging her old man she'll drive him to drink." At that time it was a puzzle. But now, years later, I know what she meant. That's what happened to our good Indians. White men - often a bunch of bums - abused the Indians and robbed them. Is it surprising they were frustrated and took to the bottle? Not all Americans have been honest enough to try to understand this. Much has been written by the white man about the Apache: accounts have been written as military reports by young officers ambitious for promotion; reports have been compiled by Indian agents; by contemporary newspapers whose owners depended upon advertising paid for by merchants who lived by selling supplies to the reservations; by pioneers who entered country occupied and claimed by the Apaches, especially following the Civil War. Some of those stories were written by men who wanted to take over Apache country, but because of heroic resistance on the part of the [VII] VIII FOREWORD Apache were not immediately able to realize their objective. Seeking the support of public opinion, these intruders often pictured the Apache not only as warlike, but cruel and vicious - a people who should be driven from the mountains of the Southwest. At best, the truths in these portrayals were only partial. At worst, they were no truths at all. The Indians have a philosophy of life in many ways better than what we have. How, for instance, can we compare our value of suffering with that of the Apaches? In the old days they trained their children to suffer because they knew suffering would come into every life. But that philosophy was not evaluated, nor was its existence even recognized in most of the white man's writing about the Apaches. It is in the interest of historical accuracy to correct some of these erroneous or equivocal impressions by countering much that has been written. Eve Ball gives the Apaches' account of their his tory from 1878 to 1886. After the generation who related these events to Eve, the generation to follow can know little at first hand of the history of its people. In 1916 I was assigned as a missionary of the Order of Franciscan Monks to the Mescalero Apaches. Three years before I arrived there, the Chiricahua Apaches, as well as some of the Warm Springs and the Nednhis, were brought to Mescalero Reservation to join the tribe and exercise equal rights with the Mescaleros. Night after night for many years I sat about their fires at their homes and listened to their stories. I heard from their own lips accounts given by descendants of Mangas Coloradas, Cochise, Victorio, Juh, Nana, Chihuahua, Naiche, Geronimo, Perico, Roman Grande, Big Mouth, Magoosh, Natzili, Gregorio, Sans Peur, Shanta Boy and many other Apaches - Chiricahua and Mescalero, Lipan and Jicarillo. In the main their stories were the same as those told to Eve Ball by James Kaywaykla and other informants. Historians should welcome this opportunity to seek the truth on the side of the Apaches. Therein is the great value of Eve Ball's book, that she has presented the version of events most meaningful to the Apaches themselves. FATHER ALBERT BRAUN,O. F. M. Alltltpr's Prc/occ Fourteen years before I wrote the first word, I thought I was ready to begin writing about the Apaches. I had read the best source books and made the customary notes. History seemed to be a com pilation of excerpts from various sources - good sources - joined together like beads on a string. Though the Mescalero Apaches came to my home town, the village of Ruidoso, New Mexico, to trade, nobody seemed to know much about them. The women trudged for miles with babies on their backs, and nobody asked them to ride. I was told that each Indian on the Mescalero Apache Reser vation received a check each month from the government. People believed this to be true, but I wanted to know. (It was not true.) I found it very difficult to penetrate the wall of reserve behind which the Apaches kept themselves. I met Ramona Chihuahua Daklugie, wife of Asa Daklugie, and through her sought an inter view with her husband. It was four years before he decided to talk to me. He was very influential among his people, and induced sev eral of them to talk to me also. When James Kaywaykla made his annual July visit to Mesca lero for the Ceremonials for the Maidens, my Apache friends [IX]
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