11/20/2023
The Hidden Apaches: Apache Women
(Photograph by Edward S. Curtis, Apache Women, ca 1903 Courtesy National Archives)
Previous posts discussed some possibilities for how the hidden Apaches disappeared in the Sierra Madre of Mexico. This post continues a series of historical stories about the remnant Apaches from the Geronimo wars hidden in the Sierra Madre of Mexico, some say to this day. How they seemed to disappear in the 1930s is the subject of much speculation. One idea is that they camped with or were assimilated by Mexican tribes even though at the turn of the last century, they were blood enemies. Three of these tribes were the Mountain Pima, the Rarámuri, also known as Tarahumara, and the Tohono O’odham also known as the Papago in the early Spanish records. There is evidence to show that there were connections between the Apaches on the San Carlos Reservation with those hidden in Mexico.
This post considers the role of women among the hidden Apaches. Most of the reports of encounters with Apaches in the Sierra Madre involved women in the early decades of the twentieth century. How were the women able to survive into the twentieth century and the men not? A brief review of the history and culture as it relates to Apache women in the Sierra Madre provides background for an answer. Some information in this discussion provides some of the historical background for the novels Knight’s Odyssey, The Last Warrior, The Odyssey of Geronimo, and a novel to be published in March 2022, The Iliad of Geronimo, A Song of Blood and Fire. Some of the information discussed here is also covered in Apacheria, True Stories of Apache Culture, 1860-1920. The web page, wmichaelfarmer.com provides summaries of the published work.
In 1883 the Chiricahua Apaches in the Sierra Madre agreed to return to San Carlos Reservation after General Crook with his scouts had found them. Crook promised that when they returned they would have their own land on a reservation thus separating them from their western Apache enemies, and their agents would no longer be stealing their rations. Although the Chiricahua leaders had agreed to come in, their people had scattered in every direction to hide from the Blue Coats and the Apache scouts. Even smoke signals from their leaders telling them to come in were not acknowledged because the people thought the scouts were sending smoke trying to trick and wipe them out. Crook was fast running out of food and had to get back to San Carlos or the people with him would go hungry. He allowed the leaders Naiche, Geronimo, Chato, Kaytennae, and Chihuahua to stay out and gather their people before returning to San Carlos while the rest were escorted back to the reservation. Crook made his way out of the Sierra Madre with 325 Chiricahuas which included 52 men and boys old enough to bear arms and 273 women and children. The number of women and children was over five times that of the men and boys old enough to bear arms. By the time the leaders had come in with their people in early 1884, and had chosen to settle at Turkey Creek, there were 521 Chiricahuas including 127 men and boys capable of bearing arms which made the ratio of women to men a little over 4 to 1.
A year later when Geronimo led the Fort Apache Reservation break in May 1885, there were 35 men, eight boys old enough to bear arms, and 101 women and children, or about three women and children for every man. When the Apaches surrendered to General Crook in late March 1886, there were about 2.5 women and children for each man. The breakaway Geronimo-Naiche band that refused to surrender in March, surrendered in late August/early September in 1886. the number of men relative to women and children was about one man for one woman, this after the band had been on the run raiding and making war for five months and had not lost a single warrior killed or capture. Although life on the run was hard, the women and children were able to keep up with their men, and for the men, it was essential that they did. Apache culture was structured so that the men lived poorly without their women, and the same applied to women without their men. At least in the beginning of the twentieth century there were likely two to three times as many women hiding in the Sierra Madre as men.
Apache women were highly valued by their bands. Boys became expert hunters, providers of supplies from raids, and warriors who fought to the death to protect the band. Warriors left their mother’s family when they married and became the workhorses of the girl’s family for hunting and provisions and for providing family revenge in times of war or disputes. This made girls as valuable to the future of a family as boys. From the day Apache girls were freed from their tsach (cradleboard) until they neared the expected time of their menarche, Apache girls were physically conditioned and trained with weapons much like boys. Girls were encouraged to develop their physical strength, learn how to spring on to unsaddled horses, become proficient in archery and rock slinging skills, learn to hunt and stalk game, and learn different ways to escape enemies. Many girls rivaled the fastest boys in foot races and girls and young women were expected to guard the camp and fight off attackers when the men were gone. As they drew near their maturity, they no longer played with boys, but sent their time learning the skills needed to provide for, maintain, and oversee their families.
Even though older girls no longer played with boys, that doesn’t mean some weren’t valued as warriors. Lozen, the sister of the great Apache chief, Victorio, was an unmarried warrior and di-yen (medicine woman) unknown to history until Eve Ball revealed her in 1970 with the publication of In the Days of Victorio. The narrator of In the Days of Victorio, James Kaywaykla, nephew of Lozen, first told Eve Ball about her. Eve was able to confirm his account with other Apaches she interviewed for her oral history records some of which appear in her classic book, Indeh. According to Sherry Robinson in Apache Voices, a book also based on Eve Ball’s files, Lozen was born in the 1840’s, probably in the Warm Springs area of southwestern New Mexico, and was about twenty years younger than Victorio. Her name meant “little sister”.
Kaywaykla told Eve Ball, “Much has been written of the low regard in which Indian women were held. Among my people that was not true. Instead they were respected, protected, and cherished.” Lozen could outrun men and ride like the wind. She was handy with bow and rifle, but the men didn’t resent her. “They were frankly proud of her and her ability. Above all they respected her integrity.” It’s likely that Lozen rode with Nana in the fall of 1881 on his raid to avenge the death of Victorio. In six weeks, Nana’s raid covered over a 1,000 miles, killed up to fifty people, and captured 200 horses and mules while being pursued by more than a thousand soldiers and four hundred civilians.
One of Lozen’s supernatural gifts of Power as a di-yen, was her ability to determine the location of the enemy. She would stand with outstretched arms, palms up, and pray. While turning slowly, her hands would tingle and the palms would change color when they pointed toward the enemy. The closer the enemy came, the more vivid the feeling.
Lozen and Dahteste, another female fighter, were friends who spent three years fighting the White Eyes with Geronimo. According to Charlie Smith, a Mescalero abducted with his mother and two other women by Geronimo’s men, Dahteste was a very good shot and fearless. Both Lozen and Dahteste were often used as Geronimo’s messengers. This suggests that among the hidden Apaches in the Sierra Madre were women warriors of Power (supernatural power) who knew and understood long range weapons, and could apply Apache fighting strategy.
To its detriment, the Army ignored Apache fighting women because soldiers held “squaws” in low regard. John C. Cremony, an Army Captain at Bosque Redondo chided his fellow officers as early as 1868 for failing to recognize Apache women for their fighting ability and numbers. “Many of the women . . . ride like centaurs and handle their rifles with deadly skill. . . In the estimate made, no account is taken of fighting women, who are numerous, well-trained, and desperate, often exhibiting more real courage than the men.”
The evidence above suggests: 1) there were many more women and children taken to the Sierra Madre and may have stayed than men who returned, 2) in their childhood, women were trained to take care of themselves and to fight when needed, and 3) among the women there were some as capable of fighting and raiding as men. The fact that there were children with the Apache women who were hiding in the Sierra Madre suggests that a new generation who knew little about past antagonisms with the tribes around them except what their mothers told them. These children as adults might well have been more likely to intermarry with other tribes when their mothers would not.
When Geronimo and Naiche surrendered to General Miles at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona, September 4, 1886, two men (Atelnietze and Nat-cul-baye), three women, a teenaged boy, and a child disappeared back into Mexico. These Apaches often have been assumed to be the start of the those found in northern Mexico at the turn of the twentieth century. There are other potential sources for the hidden Apaches.
Next week: The Hidden Apaches: How many?
Most of the information here comes from Geronimo by Angie Debo, Indeh by Eve Ball, Nora Henn and Lynda Sánchez, From Cochise to Geronimo, The Chiricahua Apaches 1874-1886, by Edwin R. Sweeney, The Apache Diaries by Grenville Goodwin and Neil Goodwin; The Apache Indians, In search of the Missing Tribe by Helge Ingstad; Western Apache Raiding and Warfare by Grenville Goodwin; and, “Has the Apache Kid’s Daughter Been Found?” by Lynda A. Sánchez, True West Magazine, 20 July 2016.
