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"A fascinating account of Apache history and ethnography. All the narratives have been carefully chosen to illustrate important facets of the Apache experience. Moreover, they make very interesting reading....This is a major contribution to both Apache history and to the history of the Southwest....The book should appeal to a very wide audience. It also should be well received by the Native American community. Indeh is oral history at its best."---R. David Edmunds, Utah Historical Quarterly
| ISBN-13: | 9780806150079 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Oklahoma Press |
| Publication date: | 06/14/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 360 |
| File size: | 13 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
Eve Ball held bachelors and master's degree and an honorary doctorate from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Along-time resident of Ruidoso, on the edge of the Mescalero Apache reservation in southern New Mexico, she conducted her interviews and her research among the Apaches over three decades. Nora Henn and Lynda A. Sanchez, friends who help Ball prepare her manuscript, have since pursued Indian studies and the history of Lincoln County, New Mexico.
JUH'S STRONGHOLD
DAKLUGIE
They come!" exclaimed Daklegon. "Juh and Geronimo. See them, Little Brother?"
We lay prone on Daklegon's blanket at the top of the zigzag trail leading up to the flattopped mountain, our father's stronghold. From that dizzy height the trail winding from the timber along the river and across the plain to the foot of the mountain was barely discernible.
I had to admit that I could not see them.
Daklegon shifted his rifle and, as Apaches do, pointed with his nose. "They are leaving the trees to cross the plain. Look closely."
I could see nothing on the trail until suddenly a movement caught my eye. Tiny things, like a string of ants, were crawling toward us. Surely they were not horsemen !
"But they are," my brother assured me. "They are our father and his Nednhi."
I watched the long line wind across the open country to disappear at the foot of the mountain upon which we lay. There were more horsemen than our father had taken with him, and I asked Daklegon if Juh might be bringing captives.
Daklegon did not know. He thought Juh might have taken Mexican women and children as slaves, but he might also have rescued the women who had not returned after they had gone to the foothills to bake mescal.
"If he brings captives, won't the Mexican warriors come to fight us?"
"They've tried that," Daklegon explained. "Juh let them climb part way up the trail before signalling our braves to topple the stones alongside it down upon them. You've seen the bones and saddle irons at the foot of the trail. The Mexicans don't want any more of that zigzag trail. I doubt that they'll try it again."
Daklegon continued, "Our father and Geronimo must have taken captives; if so, I hope they got an ammunition train, for we are getting short of bullets." He glanced upward and said, "It is almost midday. The warriors won't get up here before late afternoon, but your mother asked me to let her know when I sighted them, for she wants to prepare a feast. Will you run and tell her?"
My two elder brothers and I each had different mothers. Delzhinne was with the warriors, and this was his fourth raid. Upon their return the braves would sit in council and determine whether or not his conduct merited his becoming one of them. Because our father was chief, he would require more of his own sons than of others. I longed for the time when I, too, could go on the warpath and serve a brave as his apprentice. How gladly would I cook his food, run his errands, care for his horse, and observe the rigid rules of the aspiring warrior!
I thought of these things as I ran toward the long line of tepees silhouetted against the blue-green of the forest. My father's tepees stood in the center, one for each of his wives, with a space between my father's tepees and those of the next warrior's. The others were grouped similarly to afford privacy. They faced the east, as do all Apache tepees.
When I reached Ishton, my tall, beautiful mother, she was standing in the opening to our tepee and her slave women were dressing her hair. My father called her Ishton; the name means The Woman. She was the first wife—not in order of marriage, but in order of being best loved. She was also dearly loved by her brother Geronimo.
Her slaves had gathered the roots of the amole, pounded them, made a fragrant suds, and washed her hair with it. Now they were combing her hair. One slave had a brush made of cactus fiber, which she drew from my mother's belt. Another slave, kneeling, took the brush and gently pulled it through my mother's hair until the brush was taken by a third, seated on the ground, who unsnarled the ends of my mother's hair, a foot or more of which lay on a hide.
Another group of slaves was working with Jacali's hair; Jacali, my sister, was standing nearby. I knew that when the women's hair was dry it would be braided, and the heavy ropes of hair would be tucked into their belts. Other women sometimes asked my mother what medicine she used to make her hair so long and luxuriant. She told them that she used only the amole as they did.
I stood before Ishton, respectfully awaiting her permission to speak. She smiled and asked if I was hungry. She knew well that small boys are always hungry.
"Daklegon sent me to tell you that my father comes."
"And the others?"
"There is a long line of them, many more than he took with him."
"That gives us time to prepare the feast. Give my thanks to your brother. Will you carry food and a jug of water to him?"
"I can. I'm a big boy now."
"Yes, six winters big," she said, and she smiled.
I trudged back to the observation point and Daklegon. As we ate he gave instructions. When the warriors neared the top and boys ran to line up on either side of the path in order to take the mounts of the returning men, I was to remember that I was the son of the chief and must use good manners. Instead of trying to force my way to the best position on the brink, I was to wait until the others were in line and then take the poorest position at the end.
"But I've done that three times," I protested, "and no warrior has so much as looked my way."
"This will be the fourth," said my brother, "and four is our sacred number. Perhaps this time someone may let you take his mount."
"Delzhinne, perhaps?"
"Maybe. If he is to become a warrior our mothers will prepare a feast for him tomorrow. Caring for his horse will be an honor."
I knew that Daklegon, too, had asked permission to go on this, his first, raid, but that our father had refused him. He had done it kindly and had reminded my brother that being left to protect the women and children in the absence of the warriors was a position of trust to them as well as to the old men who shared the responsibility. Daklegon had been disappointed but was too courteous to protest his chiefs decision, for Daklegon was an Apache, and, more important than that, a Nednhi. And the Nednhi, though the bravest and fiercest of all Apaches, were also the most courteous.
The raid was sent out in response to an attack by Mexicans on a group of our women and children who had gone out to gather and prepare mescal. The Mexicans had killed all the older boys and had taken the women and children captive.
Our father had sent Martine, his orderly, and Fun, half-brother to our uncle Geronomio, to the mescal pits to learn why our people had not returned. At the pits they had found our dead in their blankets, killed at night. (We believe that those who kill in darkness must walk in darkness through eternity in our Happy Place.)
Moreover, the Mexicans had scalped our people, something Apaches seldom did. (On rare occasions scalping was done by Apaches in retaliation and occasionally it was done to provide just one scalp for the victory dance; but the warrior who lifted the scalp had to undergo a four-day purification ceremony in isolation, thereby missing the celebration of the victory.)
The scouts had trailed the Mexicans to a village in a canyon where they had grovelled in the earth for the yellow iron sacred to Ussen. There the scouts found our people, with other slaves, imprisoned in a trap made of adobe. An armed guard paced back and forth in front of the prison night and day.
Concealed on a high cliff overlooking the village, Fun and Martine had spied upon the captors. A stream flowed close to the side of the cliff on which they lay. Across it stood the place of imprisonment, and near it a large two-story building. As a boy Martine had been captured and sold to a Mexican family near Casas Grandes, and he knew the ways of the Mexicans. He said that the two-story building was the lodge of the Medicine Man, and in it everyone except the guard assembled on the morning of each seventh day. He identified the building by the crossed sticks on the roof; in addition to the door facing them, Martine said there was probably a door in the rear. An irregular row of small adobe huts followed the river, and toward the upper end of the canyon stood another large, low building, probably a storehouse. Around the building was a corral that housed many mules and some horses. The building might be used to store supplies of various kinds, and it was undoubtedly there that the Mexicans kept the forbidden ore (gold) they took from Mother Earth. There they might also store the white iron (silver) not forbidden to us. Neither metal was of value for bullets as each was too soft, but when the Mexicans had accumulated a huge amount of either, they took it by pack mule to the City of Mules (Chihuahua) to exchange it for money and supplies.
Martine was reluctant to go into the sacred house of the Mexicans, so he decided to scout the storehouse and Fun the prison and church. They lay and watched captured Apache women and children with baskets strapped to their backs be driven with ox goads across the bridge and disappear into a tunnel in the side of the canyon. Some returned with loads which were carried to the storehouse, but many more dumped refuse into the river from the middle of the bridge. The scouts watched a woman fall, unresponsive to terrible blows; contemptuously a guard kicked her body into the stream.
When it began to get dark, the slaves were permitted to quit work. The guard arrogantly threw ears of corn to them. The Apache women disdained to pick them up, but the hungry children did and were ordered by their mothers to throw the corn down. All the women and children were herded into the prison, and the heavy door was locked. The guard resumed his monotonous pacing in front of the prison door.
"The women, first," said Martine. "They may know when the people will go to the church. It is usually there that they take refuge if attacked. If you could just get into that place."
"I think I can. If the roof is of mud, I can dig a hole in it and drop in."
They arranged to meet and agreed that one must then go report to Juh.
When all the fires had been extinguished and the village was asleep, each scout went silently about his mission. Fun crossed the bridge and slipped to the rear of the church. He found a second door but no other openings except a few long slits near the roof that were covered with skins. A tree afforded easy access to the roof. He dug through the adobe of the roof and, suspended by his arms, felt for footing. From a stack of wood, he reached the floor. As he crept around the wall, he found casks of water, stacks of blankets, food, and a great amount of ammunition.
Suddenly his hand encountered emptiness. Reaching below the surface of the floor he found a step. He descended stairs; at the foot was a door that would open toward him. With a stick of wood it could be braced against entry.
Noiselessly he pulled the door ajar. By tiny lights he could distinguish a figure in black kneeling before a man who had been tortured and nailed to large crossed sticks. The Mexican god! No Apache would have killed Ussen as the cruel Mexicans had killed their god. As the kneeling figure stirred, light fell on his head. He had been scalped! He stood, took a light, and disappeared through the opposite door.
Fun, too, left the church. In deep shadow he watched the guard, who walked only in front of the place. Fun slipped to the rear of the prison and felt for an opening. When his hand slipped into the slit he sought, he reached for the interior and found that the wall was almost as thick as the length of his arm.
How was he to attract the attention of one of the Apaches who were inside without alerting the guard? What if a child should cry or a woman scream? He took his headband and tied a pebble into one end of it. Holding it by the other end, he lowered it through the slit into the darkness and began swinging it gently back and forth. It was grasped and held by someone inside. A slight tug responded to his; something rustled, and he heard a low murmur.
"My sister, help will come. Soon. Juh will come. You must eat."
"We will eat," was the reply. "Tell him that at dawn on the fourth day from now everyone in the village will go to the lodge of the Medicine Man and close the door. All but the guard. That is the time to strike."
"It will be done."
Suddenly Fun became aware that the regular pacing of the guard had ceased. He dropped and lay flat against the wall. As the footsteps approached, he held his breath and pressed close. When the guard had circled the building and resumed his march, Fun stole away to join Martine.
Martine, too, had been successful. To his surprise, he found the storehouse unguarded. Inside he found large cowhide bags laden with ore. Water jugs and food had been prepared for a journey. Before the mule train bearing the ore and precious metals left for Chihuahua, Martine felt, he must get word to Juh. Fun agreed. Fun would stay at the village and keep watch, while Martine, who knew every foot of the terrain, made the trip back to the stronghold.
When all this was reported to my father, there was no time nor need for a war dance, for the warriors were already at fighting pitch and eager to start. Within minutes Juh, Geronimo, and the warriors had been on their way. Now they were returning.
"And now, Little Brother," said Daklegon, "it will be a long time before the warriors reach the top of this cliff. You may as well sleep until they come."
I was awakened by the impact of unshod hoofs on rock. My brother stood with rifle upraised as many boys scrambled frantically for choice positions. I, too, rushed to the brim and was in time to see my father, riding ahead of his men as a chief should, round a sharp point of the trail. Other boys had lined up on either side, leaving a space through which the warriors would ride. As before, the big boys had the best places. I took mine at the end of the line, farthest from the brink.
Suddenly a head bobbed into sight and Juh's powerful black stallion found footing and lunged to the top of the cliff. Above him my father's eagle plumes waved. His face was smeared with red clay, and he held himself proudly as he rode between the lines of outstretched arms. He ignored all until he reached me. Then he dismounted, smiled through closed lids, and laid the reins in my hand. He lifted me to his saddle and walked beside me past the tepees and to the little stream of water in the pines.
That was the proudest and happiest day of my life.
CHAPTER 2VENGEANCE OF JUH
DAKLUGIE
By firelight the Nednhi and their guests assembled before my father's tepees. Dressed in her gorgeous beaded buckskin robes, Ishton directed preparations for the feast. Her slaves spread skins and blankets in a semicircle for Juh and his men; the most famous of the visiting chiefs and warriors would be seated nearest my father, with those of lesser fame seated further away. The women and children would sit behind the warriors.
Cooking pots were placed around the big central fire of logs, and meat was laid to roast on small beds of coals. Women baked meal cakes made of sweet acorns and piled them on wooden slabs. Jugs of water and tiswin were in readiness for the feast.
The singers and drummers were to file in and take their places, and the warriors were to follow. But not until my mother signalled did Juh, in his best finery, lead the way. He stopped beside Ishton and motioned to Nana, a tall, slender old man, to take the place of honor at his left. Nana waited until Juh had seated himself before dropping beside him. On my father's right he placed Chihuahua, a young and handsome Chokonen Apache warrior. Geronimo came next; and beside Nana sat Kaytennae, a Chihenne Apache and segundo to Nana. Then came Fun and Perico, half-brothers to Geronimo. Others took their places according to rank and fighting reputation.
Not until his guests were seated did my father's warriors take their places at the ends of the huge semicircle. I paid little attention to them, for I was watching eagerly to see who would come last. To my delight it was Delzhinne. Though he modestly stayed several steps behind the rest, his pride in having become a warrior was obvious.
Juh raised his hand and there was silence. Not a sound was heard as he rolled a cigarette and smoked it. He used an oak leaf for a wrapper; I do not know whether he had real tobacco or not. When he lacked tobacco, he used dried shrub leaves. Some accounts tell that Apaches smoked a peace pipe; those who wrote such things knew little of Apaches, for they used no pipes. After my father had blown smoke in each of the four directions, he raised his arm and the women began serving the food. Roasted venison, mescal, sweet acorn meal cakes, and honey were provided.
Excerpted from Indeh by Eve Ball, Nora Henn, Lynda A. Sánchez. Copyright © 1980 Brigham Young University Press. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS.
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