Chiricahua Apache

“ Chiricahuas, and, soon after, Nané, one of the most noted and influential of the Chiricahua chiefs, rode into camp with seventeen of his people. He has a strong face, marked with intelligence, courage, and good nature, but with an under stratum of cruelty and vindictiveness. He has received many wounds in his countless fights with the whites, and limps very perceptibly in one leg. He reported that Chiricahuas were coming in by every trail, and that all would go to the San Carlos as soon as they collected their families. ”

“ Camps had been changed frequently, for the Chiricahuas did not remain long in any one spot. He had not seen Red-head in several months. According to Nah-che the soldiers were getting more numerous, and were fighting all the Apaches—the Chiricahuas and the Tontos and the Yavapais or Apache-Mohaves and the Mogollons: all who would not settle down at peace like the White Mountains and the Warm Springs.
Part of the winter had been spent in Mexico, but just now the camp had been located again amidst the Chiricahua Mountains. Most of the warriors were out on a big raid, under Cochise and Geronimo. ”

“ He says that the Mexican priests at the feast of Tezcatlipoca wore "en las cabezas tiaras hechas de barillas." [719] The ghost dance headdress illustrated in this paper (Fig. 441) is known to the Chiricahua Apache as the "ich-te," a contraction from "chas-a-i-wit-te," according to Ramon, the old medicine-man from whom I obtained it. He explained all the symbolism connected with it. The round piece of tin in the center is the sun; the irregular arch underneath it is the rainbow. Stars and lightning are depicted on the side slats and under them; the parallelograms with serrated edges are clouds ”

“ Marion (St. Augustine, Fla.) , in 1887, when the Chiricahua Apache were confined there as prisoners; although the accompanying figure represents a ghost dance headdress seen among the Apache in the winter of 1885. A great many of the band had been suffering from sickness of one kind or another and twenty-three of the children had died; as a consequence, the medicine-men were having the Cha-ja-la, which is entered into only upon the most solemn occasions, such as the setting out of a war party, the appearance of an epidemic, or something else of like portent. ”

“ The nights were very cool, the days bright and warm. The Bávispe and its tributaries were a succession of deep tanks of glassy, pure water, in which all our people bathed on every opportunity. The scouts escorting the pack-trains gathered in another score of stray ponies and mules, and were encouraged by another note sent back by Crawford, saying that he had passed the site of a Chiricahua village of ninety-eight wickyups (huts) , that the enemy had a great drove of horses and cattle, and that the presence of Americans or Apache scouts in the country was yet undreamed of. ”

“ All were anxious for a fight which should bring this Chiricahua trouble to an end; we had an abundance of ammunition and a sufficiency of rations for a pursuit of several days and nights, the moon being at its full.
Shortly after dark Crawford and his command came into camp. They had “jumped” “Bonito’s” and “Chato’s” rancherías, killing nine and capturing five—two boys, two girls, and one young woman, the daughter of “Bonito,” without loss to our side. From the dead Chiricahuas had been taken four nickel-plated, breech-loading Winchester repeating rifles, and one Colt’s revolver, new model. ”

“ Everybody in Arizona knows that. You see it yourself, Cheemie. You read the talking papers. The talking papers of Mexico say that the Chiricahua from Arizona are sneaking down there and stealing cattle. That is true. Even Gatewood is getting afraid. He is losing Chiricahua all the time; they go somewhere and his counts are always different. I think he will move to Fort Apache. It is only twelve miles, and he will be safer.
“The Geronimo Chiricahua see that the San Carlos Apaches and the White Mountains are unhappy, with two fathers bossing them. So they trade their goods for whiskey and guns. ”

“ The worst members of the two races are brought into contact, and the usual results follow; trouble springs up, and it is not the bad who suffer, but the peaceably disposed on each side.
On the 5th day of May, 1871, Lieutenant Howard B. Cushing, Third Cavalry, with several civilians and three soldiers, was killed by the Chiricahua Apaches, under their famous chief “Cocheis,” at the Bear Springs, in the Whetstone Mountains, about thirty-five miles from Tucson and about the same distance to the east of old Camp Crittenden. ”

“ One small party of eleven (11) hostile Chiricahuas, during the period from November 15th, 1885, to the present date, has killed twenty-one (21) friendly Apaches living in peace upon the reservation, and no less than twenty-five (25) white men, women, and children. This bloody raid has been conducted through a country filled with regular troops, militia, and “rangers,”—and at a loss to the enemy, so far as can be shown, of only one man, whose head is now at Fort Apache. ”

“ The Chiricahuas are now on the San Carlos reservation, far removed from their stronghold, surrounded by all the available forces of the United States army and a thousand faithful Indian allies. The future of these Chiricahuas, who will henceforth disappear from the view of the world, can be fairly estimated by that of the other Apache Indians. Little over five years ago, the whole Apache race was at war with the whites; but six thousand of them were subdued by General Crook, and placed on the San Carlos reservation, since which time there have been few outbreaks, and these of short duration. ”

“ We marched back as rapidly as the condition of the stock and the strength of the women and children would permit. We found the country depopulated for a distance of one hundred miles from the Apache stronghold. The Chiricahuas insist that they have always lived in the Sierra Madre, and that even when the main body went on the reservation some remained behind in the mountains. Of those who now go out, there are a number who state that they have never been on the reservation. ”

“ These Indians asked permission to take a squad of their soldiers and guard Tribollet and his men to keep them from selling any more of the soul-destroying stuff to the Chiricahuas. A beautiful commentary upon the civilization of the white man! When we reached Cajon Bonito, the woods and grass were on fire; four or five Chiricahua mules, already saddled, were wandering about without riders. Pretty soon we came upon 'Geronimo,' 'Kuthli' and three other Chiricahua warriors riding on two mules, all drunk as lords. ”

“ From this mountain rendezvous they swept down upon the Mexicans and Indians of Sonora and Chihuahua, and on the Pueblo villages of the north, while in later years they terrorized the white settlers of the entire Southwest. To follow them was a fruitless task which often led to the destruction of the pursuers.
The primitive Apache was a true nomad, a wandering child of Nature, whose birthright was a craving for the warpath, with courage and endurance probably exceeded by no other people, and with cunning beyond reckoning. ”

“ In such sports, in such constant exercise, swimming, riding, running up and down the steepest and most slippery mountains, the Apache passes his boyish years. No wonder his bones are of iron, his sinews of wire, his muscles of India-rubber.
On May 27, 1883, the Chiricahuas had finished roasting enough mescal to last them to the San Carlos. One of the Apache scouts came running in very much excited. He told his story to the effect that, while hunting some distance to the north, he had discovered a large body of Mexican soldiers ”

“ Affairs went on in this unsatisfactory course from October, 1882, until March, 1883, everybody in Arizona expecting a return of the dreaded Chiricahuas, but no one knowing where the first attack should be made. The meagre military force allotted to the department was distributed so as to cover as many exposed points as possible, one body of 150 Apache scouts, under Captain Emmet Crawford, Third Cavalry, being assigned to the arduous duty of patrolling the Mexican boundary for a distance of two hundred miles, through a rugged country pierced with ravines and cañons. ”

“ Thirty-nine white people were killed in New Mexico and thirty four in Arizona, as established in official reports; in addition to these there were numbers of friendly Apaches killed by the renegades, notably in the raid made by the latter during the month of November, 1885, to the villages near Camp Apache, when they killed twelve of the friendlies and carried off six women and children captive. The White Mountain Apaches killed one of the hostile Chiricahuas and cut off his head. ”

“ Although the Copper Mine, or Mimbres Apaches, have signalized themselves by many of the boldest and most daring exploits, they are not physically comparable to the Mescalero, Jicarilla and Chiricahui branches of the same tribe. But what they lack in personal strength they make up in wiliness and endurance. No amount of cold, hunger or thirst seems to have any appreciable effect upon an Apache. Whatever his sufferings, no complaint or murmur is ever heard to escape his lips, and he is always ready to engage in any enterprise which promises a commensurate reward. ”

“ Soon afterward five of the leading warriors proceeded to Santa Fé, under an armed escort, to confer with the General, who exacted that they should submit to being placed upon the reservation of the Bosque Redondo. The answer of their chief spokesman, named Cadete by the Mexicans, but whose Apache appellation is Gian-nah-tah, or "Always Ready," is indicative of the nature and character of his tribe. Having listened to the General's final determination, he answered and said:
"You are stronger than we. We have fought you so long as we had rifles and powder; but your arms are better than ours. ”

“ The scouts in advance had picked up numbers of ponies, mules, burros, and cattle. This conversation was broken by the sudden arrival of an Apache runner, who had come six miles over the mountains in less than an hour. He reached us at 1.05, and handed General Crook a note, dated 12.15, stating that the advance-guard had run across the Chiricahuas this morning in a cañon, and had become much excited. Two Chiricahuas were fired at, two bucks and a squaw, by scouts, which action had alarmed the hostiles, and their camp was on the move. Crawford would [76] pursue with all possible rapidity. ”

“ It was the fiercest of all the Apache tribes, the Chiricahuas, that had hidden itself in the fastnesses of the Sierra Madre, two hundred miles south of the boundary line. Geronimo and Juh and Chato, and other chiefs of quite as bloody fame, were with him. To capture them would be very creditable success. To fail to do so would entail dire consequences, international complications perhaps, and of a certainty the scorn and abuse of all the wise men who sat in judgment afar off. ”

“ The four were youths, starting their careers with the prosaic duties of day herding and whiling away the hours with cigarettes and stories. Luis was quite a hero to the others, for he alone had participated in a real battle with Apaches. Chihuahua seemed a very dull and humdrum country after listening to the tales that Luis told of Apache raids and battles in wild Sonora. He told them of the Apache Devil and boasted that he was an old friend of the family.
Above the edge of a nearby arroyo unblinking eyes watched them. The eyes appraised the four cow ponies and sized up the grazing herd. ”

“ The Mexicans on the northern frontier are the very lowest and poorest of their countrymen. Living in hovels and sustaining themselves in some manner never yet determined or ascertained by any other people, almost wholly without arms or ammunition, and brought up from their earliest infancy to entertain the most abject dread and horror of the Apaches, they are forever after unable to divest them selves of the belief that an Apache warrior is not a man, but some terrible ogre against whom it is useless to contend, and who is only to be avoided by flight or appeased by unconditional submission. ”

“ They had taken us for Apaches, and fled in dismay to the presidio and protection of the military; but when they discovered that we were Americans, nothing could exceed their wonder at our hardihood and folly, as they termed it, in penetrating the country with so small a party. This fact will give the reader some idea of the abject terror with which the poor Mexicans on the frontiers of Sonora, Chihuahua and Durango regard the Apache Indians. ”

“ No civilized army can do that. It is one of the defects of civilized training that man develops new wants, awakens new necessities,—becomes, in a word, more and more a creature of luxury.
Take the Apache Indian under the glaring sun of Mexico. He quietly peels off all his clothing and enjoys the fervor of the day more than otherwise. He may not be a great military genius, but he is inured to all sorts of fatigue, and will be hilarious and jovial when the civilized man is about to die of thirst.
Prominent among these scouts was of course first of all “Peaches,” the captive guide. ”

“ You are war chief of all the Apaches, but you are too drunk to lead them in battle or to counsel them with wisdom. Therefore you shall listen to Shoz-Dijiji and do what he says. Only thus may we save our people from being wiped out by the soldiers of the pindah-lickoyee before chigo-na-ay has risen above the tree tops. ”