Native American Daily Wisdom, 1942 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80302 (2024)

28/12/2023

Black Bear making speech. Blackfeet. ca. 1906. Montana. Photo by N.A. Forsyth. Source - Montana Historical Society.

28/12/2023

Northern Shoshone family members on the Fort Hall Reservation in Pocatello, Idaho - 1901
*In back: James Edmo (Northern Shoshone), the younger brother to Jack Edmo.
*In front L-R: Estella Edmo (Northern Shoshone/Bannock) with her father, Jack Edmo (Northern Shoshone) and her brother, Eugene Edmo (Northern Shoshone/Bannock).
{Note: Jack Edmo was born in 1863, the son of Chief Arimo & Pishe'. In 1885, Jack Edmo married the Bannock woman known as Lizzie Randall. Jack Edmo died in 1929.

27/12/2023

EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY. The Northern Cheyenne woman was holding a walking stick and wearing an ornate scarf, late 1920s or so. Her eyes had seen thousands of campfires.
The photo was labeled as the grandmother of John Kills, and I will update text if I learn a more precise identification. The portrait was by historian, medical doctor, and lawyer Thomas B. Marquis, who lived on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Eastern Montana for some years. Marquis positioned his camera at face level, indicating respect and empathy for his subject.

27/12/2023

"I am a red man. If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans, in my heart he put other and different desires. Each man is good in his sight. It is not necessary for Eagles to be Crows."
- Sitting Bull
—
Sources: photograph taken by David F. Berry, circa 1883 / Wikimedia Commons

26/12/2023

Red Blanket. Cheyenne man. 1880-1900. Photo by Burtlett & Scott. Source - Denver Public Library.

26/12/2023

From the Battle of Little Big Horn
“I had sung the war song, I had smelt power smoke, my heart was bad--I was like one who has no mind. I rushed in and took their flag; my pony fell dead as I took it. I cut the thong that bound me; I jumped up and brained the sword flag man with my war club, and ran back to our line with the flag. I was mad, I got a fresh pony and rushed back shooting, cutting and slashing. This pony was shot and I got another. This time I saw Little Hair (Tom Custer)--I remembered my vow, I was crazy; I feared nothing. I knew nothing would hurt me for I had my white weasel tail on. I didn't know how many I killed trying to get at him. He knew me. I laughed at him and yelled at him. I saw his mouth move but there was so much noise I couldn't hear his voice. He was afraid. When I got near enough I shot him with my revolver. My gun was gone. I didn't know where. I got back on my pony and rode off. I was satisfied and sick of fighting."
Itoηagaju (Rain-in-the-Face) Lakota , 1835-1905

25/12/2023

Crow Chief Plenty Coups. Early 1900s. Richard Throssel Collection, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

25/12/2023

Little Wolf — 1818-1904
Along with Dull Knife, Little Wolf was a war leader of the Northern Cheyenne. He gained his reputation for military prowess during his battles against the Commanche and Kiowa. By 1851 Little Wolf had ceased warring against the invading whites in exchange for an Indian agency and annuities. Although the agency was never established and annuities came rarely Little Wolf continued to counsel peace with the one notable exception of participating in a retaliatory raid on Army troops to avenge the massacre of Black Kettle’s Cheyenne at Sand Creek in 1865.
In 1868 Little Wolf signed the Fort Laramie Treaty that required the United States to vacate forts along the Bozeman Trail. Although Little Wolf’s followers were not among the Cheyenne with Crazy Horse at Little Bighorn, they were caught up in the retaliatory attacks by U.S. troops. Little Wolf’s warriors came to the aid of Dull Knife when the U.S. Army destroyed his village. Little Wolf was shot seven times, but survived.
In the winter of 1876-77 the starving Cheyenne bands surrendered to General Nelson Miles and were promised a reservation in their native lands. Not surprisingly, once the surrender had been concluded, Miles did not keep his promise and the Cheyenne, led by Little Wolf and Dull Knife, were sent to a reservation in Indian Territory (Oklahoma).
By the summer of 1878 half of the Cheyenne were dead in Oklahoma and Little Wolf and Dull Knife pleaded to be allowed to return to their homeland. Indian Agent John Miles refused. When ten young Cheyenne left the reservation Miles demanded hostages until troops could round up the runaways threatening that rations would be withheld until the Cheyenne chiefs complied. In a famous quote Little Wolf replied, “Last night I saw children eating grass because they had no food. Will you take the grass from them?”
The Cheyenne fled the reservation while repelling repeated attacks by U.S. troops. In Nebraska, Little Wolf and Dull Knife split up. Dull Knife rode to Red Cloud Agency to surrender. Little Wolf and his band headed to the Nebraska Sand Hills to hide. In March of 1879 Little Wolf finally surrendered to General Nelson Miles at Fort Keough. Little Wolf’s band of Cheyenne were allowed to stay on the Northern Plains near their home this time.
In 1880, Little Wolf killed another Cheyenne and lost his standing as a chief. He became a scout for the army and spent the rest of his years on the reservation until his death in 1904.

24/12/2023

American Horse (L) Red Cloud (R), Lakota Chiefs

24/12/2023

May All Native American Peoples Be Respected and Honored...
always in All Ways! Amen

23/12/2023

Native American mother and child. Possibly Spokane. 1902. Source - New York Public Library

23/12/2023

Geraldine Keams (born August 19, 1951 in Flagstaff, Arizona) is an Navajo actress. She is best known for her work in numerous television series. Keams made her film debut playing Little Moonlight in Clint Eastwood's western, The Outlaw Josey Wales in 1976.

In addition to her film work, Keams gives live performances and workshops. She is a resident artist at the Los Angeles Music Center. Keam currently resides in Pasadena, California.

22/12/2023

Quassyah (Eagle Tail Feather) was a well-known Comanche and a member of the Noyuka or Wanderers band of Comanches. He was much respected and was seen to be of a calm nature. Quassyah was a part of the Agency police in the 1890's and was elected to a KCA Business Committee position in 1916. He vividly remembered going to Washington D.C. with a delegation of Comanches, Kiowas, and Apaches in 1921. They arrived to do business on behalf of their tribal people.
Quassyah visited the White House and talked to President Warren G. Harding. He shared that the President shook hands with all of the delegation and talked with them in the White House. Quassyah said that he had even worn his war bonnet to the event.
Incredible photograph of the Comanche elder Quassyah, circa 1891.

22/12/2023

NATIVE AMERICANS – THE FIRST OWNERS OF AMERICA
Native Americans, or the indigenous peoples of the Americas, are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America and their descendants. Those who live within the boundaries of the present-day United States are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, bands and ethnic groups, many of which survive as intact, sovereign nations.
Most authorities agree that the first evidence of people inhabiting North America indicates that they migrated here from Eurasia over 13,000 years ago, most likely crossing along the Bering Land Bridge, which was in existence during the Ice Age. However, some historians believe that people had migrated into the Americas much earlier, up to 40,000 years ago. These early Paleo-Indians spread throughout the Americas, diversifying into many hundreds of culturally distinct nations and tribes.
Application of the term “Indian” originated with Christopher Columbus, who, in his search for Asia, thought that he had arrived in the East Indies. However, there is considerable evidence in support of successful explorations which led to Norse settlement of Greenland, the L’Anse aux Meadows settlement in Newfoundland, and potentially others some 500 years prior to Columbus landing in the Bahamas. From the Native American aspect, many tribes’ oral histories indicate they have been living here since their genesis, as described by a wide range of creation myths.
By the time European adventurers arrived in the 15th century, scholars estimate that more than 50 million people were already living in the Americas. Of these, some 10 million lived in the region that would later become the United States. As time passed, these migrants and their descendants pushed south and east, adapting as they went. With these new arrivals came centuries of conflict and adjustment between Old and New World societies. Today, Native Americans account for about 1.5 percent of the United States population, many of whom continue to take pride in their ancestral traditions — still practicing the music, art, and ceremonies that took place many years ago.

21/12/2023

In their world, the Comanches were very sociable and capable of fine humor. They were also inclined to be good-natured in their lives but the Comanches were especially generous.
The Texas state legislator and Indian agent Robert Simpson Neighbors had been seen as a principled and honorable protector of native rights given by treaty. In the 1840's, he visited with Comanches in their homelands and spent time to understand them. In 1847, he became a special Indian agent with a federal appointment and participated in several councils with Comanches. Neighbors observed that Comanches had a high-spirited way about them and seemed to approach life with passion. In 1853, the Indian agent Robert Neighbors also penned the following about the generosity of the Comanche people:
"From the liberality with which they dispose of their effects" on ceremonial occasions, "it would induce the belief that they acquire property merely for the purpose of giving it to others."
Unique hand colored cabinet photograph. It is entitled "Two Comanche Women, Fort Sill, Oklahoma Territory, circa 1890. By George A. Addison, Fort Sill photographer.

21/12/2023

What an amazing and beautiful 74 year old photo! This Innuit girl descending into her home, an ice igloo ...

This powerful image transcends time, and continues to go viral over 70 years later.

Helen Konek is 91 years old now. But she was 17 when photographer Richard Harrington asked to take images of her family near Arviat, Nunavut. This one is in the massive igloo her father Pipqanaaq built.

20/12/2023

“In the Lakota tradition, a person who is grieving is considered most waken, most holy.

There's a sense that when someone is struck by the sudden lightning of loss, he or she stands on the threshold of the spirit world. The prayers of those who grieve are considered especially strong, and it is proper to ask them for their help.

You might recall what it's like to be with someone who has grieved deeply. The person has no layer of protection, nothing left to defend. The mystery is looking out through that person's eyes. For the time being, he or she has accepted the reality of loss and has stopped clinging to the past or grasping at the future. In the groundless openness of sorrow, there is a wholeness of presence and a deep natural wisdom.”

Tara Brach

20/12/2023

She is Half Navajo from the Navajo Nation of the Hon´agha´ahnii Clan and half Sans Arch Lakota Sioux of the Cheyenne River Tribe….made history as The First fulltime college student (Male or Female) to ever come out of the state of Kansas and win a National Intercollegiate Championship title and Belt!..Not Kansas University, not Kansas state university, or Wichita state university but from lil ol’ Haskell Indian Nations University!!!!!!…She fight out of the Haskell Boxing Club in Lawrence, KS

19/12/2023

This is a picture of Standing Holy, who is listed as Sitting Bull's daughter. It brings to mind the traditional Oceti Ŝakowiŋ style of parenting. The first time that Sitting Bull traveled and observed non-Native people spanking their children, he was shocked.
There was never a need to continually scold a child, belittle them, or strike them. They cuddled their children from birth to about seven because they believed crying wasn't good for children.
Often, if a child did not stop crying, some grandmothers would cry along with them to help them get over whatever had made them sad.
At an early age, they begin to take on the responsibility of their clothing and bedding. Our people traveled with the buffalo and had to be mobile. By the age of 10, most of our children knew how to take care of the materials needed for travel.
Love, teaching, structure, and community raised our children.
Colonization tells us that physical discipline helps shape our children and turn our boys into men. Yet, without ever being spanked, we produced the greatest warriors that ever walked this land.
Our lifeways and ceremonies through the different stages of life were more valuable than anything colonization offered.

19/12/2023

Medicine Cloud (Mahpiya Wakan), Oglala Lakota, by Frank A. Rinehart, at Pine Ridge, S.D., 1899

19/12/2023

Keanu Reeves was abandoned by his father at 3 years old and grew up with 3 different stepfathers. He is dyslexic. His dream of becoming a hockey player was shattered by a serious accident. His daughter died at birth. His wife died in a car accident. His best friend, River Phoenix, died of an overdose. His sister has leukemia.
And with everything that has happened, Keanu Reeves never misses an opportunity to help people in need. When he was filming the movie "The Lake House," he overheard the conversation of two costume assistants; One cried because he would lose his house if he did not pay $20,000 and on the same day Keanu deposited the necessary amount in the woman's bank account; He also donated stratospheric sums to hospitals.
In 2010, on his birthday, Keanu walked into a bakery and bought a brioche with a single candle, ate it in front of the bakery, and offered coffee to people who stopped to talk to him.
After winning astronomical sums for the Matrix trilogy, the actor donated more than $50 million to the staff who handled the costumes and special effects - the true heroes of the trilogy, as he called them.
He also gave a Harley-Davidson to each of the stunt doubles. A total expense of several million dollars. And for many successful films, he has even given up 90% of his salary to allow the production to hire other stars.
In 1997 some paparazzi found him walking one morning in the company of a homeless man in Los Angeles, listening to him and sharing his life for a few hours.
Most stars when they make a charitable gesture they declare it to all the media. He has never claimed to be doing charity, he simply does it as a matter of moral principles and not to look better in the eyes of others.
This man could buy everything, and instead every day he gets up and chooses one thing that cannot be bought: To be a good person.
Keanu Reeves’ father is of Native Hawaiian descent
❤️I think you will be proud to wear this T-shirt.
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18/12/2023

Half of all U.S. states, 25 to be exact, carry Native American names. Today we will be taking a look at the 25 states and the meanings of their names. They will be listed in alphabetical order.
1. Alabama: Named after the Alabama, or Alibamu tribe, a Muskogean-speaking tribe. Sources are split between the meanings 'clearers of the thicket' or 'herb gatherers'.
2. Alaska: Named after the Aleut word "alaxsxaq", which means "the mainland"
3. Arizona: Named after the O'odham word "alĭ ṣonak", meaning "small spring"
4. Connecticut: Named after the Mohican word "quonehtacut", meaning "place of long tidal river"
5. Hawaii: Is an original word in the Hawaiian language meaning "homeland"
6. Illinois: Named after the Illinois word "illiniwek", meaning "men"
7. Iowa: Named after the Ioway tribe, whose name means "gray snow"
8. Kansas: Named after the Kansa tribe, whose name means "south wind people"
9. Kentucky: Origins are unclear, it may have been named after the Iroquoian word "Kentake", meaning "on the meadow"
10. Massachusetts: Named after the Algonquin word "Massadchu-es-et," meaning "great-hill-small-place,”
11. Michigan: From the Chippewa word "Michigama", meaning "large lake"
12. Minnesota: Named after the Dakota Indian word “Minisota” meaning “white water.”
13. Mississippi: Named after the river which was named by the Choctaw, meaning “Great water” or “Father of Waters.”
14. Missouri: Named after the Missouri tribe whose name means "those who have dugout canoes"

18/12/2023

In New Spain of the latter 1600's, the Utes had the ability to capture and maintain horses. Their horses allowed for movement and hunting over much greater distances.
Around the same time, other Numic speaking people historically known as Comanches soon moved onto the landscape of the Great Plains.
The Comanches (Nummuhnuh) and their Ute kinfolk quickly began a strong relationship as fellow tribesmen. The Spanish authorities noted the ever-growing power of the Utes and their Comanche allies. It was also noticed that the raiders from the North had extreme confidence in their abilities to raid communities. The Comanches and the Utes battled for control of the land and soon expanded their territory.
In the early 1700's, the brethren tribes fought for excellent raiding and trading sites along the Rio Grande River. As both the Apache and Navajo were driven out, they sought help and protection from the Spanish. Over time, the Comanches had come to control the rich grasslands of the Southern Plains and the powerful Utes towered over northwestern New Mexico.
In the 1740's, traders in Navajo country observed that Navajos had to "live on the top of the mesas in little houses of stone. And that the reason for their living in those mountains is because the Yutas and Comanches make war upon them."
Impressive historical picture of the known Yamparika Comanche Chief Howea (Gap in the Woods) by William S. Soule, Fort Sill, circa 1872. Howea is shown wearing a shirt and a patterned vest. Courtesy of the Wilbur S. Nye Collection.

18/12/2023

Native Tribes of North America Mapped
The ancestors of living Native Americans arrived in North America about 15 thousand years ago. As a result, a wide diversity of communities, societies, and cultures finally developed on the continent over the millennia.
The population figure for Indigenous peoples in the Americas before the 1492 voyage of Christopher Columbus was 70 million or more.
About 562 tribes inhabited the contiguous U.S. territory. Ten largest North American Indian tribes: Arikara, Cherokee, Iroquois, Pawnee, Sioux, Apache, Eskimo, Comanche, Choctaw, Cree, Ojibwa, Mohawk, Cheyenne, Navajo, Seminole, Hope, Shoshone, Mohican, Shawnee, Mi’kmaq, Paiute, Wampanoag, Ho-Chunk, Chumash, Haida.
Below is the tribal map of Pre-European North America.
The old map below gives a Native American perspective by placing the tribes in full flower ~ the “Glory Days.” It is pre-contact from across the eastern sea or, at least, before that contact seriously affected change. Stretching over 400 years, the time of contact was quite different from tribe to tribe. For instance, the “Glory Days” of the Maya and Aztec came to an end very long before the interior tribes of other areas, with some still resisting almost until the 20th Century.
At one time, numbering in the millions, the native peoples spoke close to 4,000 languages.
The Americas’ European conquest, which began in 1492, ended in a sharp drop in the Native American population through epidemics, hostilities, ethnic cleansing, and slavery.
When the United States was founded, established Native American tribes were viewed as semi-independent nations, as they commonly lived in communities separate from white immigrants
❤️Native Tribes of North America Mapped
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17/12/2023

Kill Bear (Mato Wicakte). Oglala Lakota. 1898. Photo by Frank A. Rinehart. Omaha, Nebraska.

17/12/2023

𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐞𝐟 𝐃𝐚𝐧 𝐆𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞 ❤
Chief Dan George was actually a chief of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation in British Columbia, Canada from 1951 to 1963. Also an author and poet, George achieved his first acting job at the age of 60, appearing in the Canadian TV show, Caribou Country. But George’s acting career didn’t peak until 1970 when he starred in Little Big Man, a role for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Another great role for George was the part of Lone Watie in The Outlaw Josie Wales (1976), often considered one of the best American Westerns. And George’s performance in this American classic could be considered Oscar-worthy as well. George also appeared on TV shows such as Kung Fu. During George’s writing career, he was credited with fostering understanding between non-native and Native Americans, particularly with the release of his book, My Heart Soars

16/12/2023

Members of the Cayuse, Umatilla, Nez Pez, and Walla Walla Tribes are joined by Native American Indians from around the Pacific Northwest in the Pendelton Roundup..

16/12/2023

SIOUX BABY. Sure, your baby picture was cute, but you did not get to wear a porcupine hair and feather roach and sit upon a racoon hide. Frank Bennett Fiske was best known for his portraits of Sioux taken at his Fort Yates (North Dakota) studio on the Standing Rock Reservation. In 1900 at age 17, Fiske had taken over the studio previously operated by S. T. Fansler.
= = =
The source file was a low-res scan of an undated real photo postcard at the North Dakota State Historical Society. The card was printed on DOPS brand paper, common on cards mailed during 1925—42. However, the photo may have been taken decades earlier.

15/12/2023

Geronimo’s Relationship with Naiche
(Geronimo and Naiche Resting by the Train Carrying Their Band East 1886. Photograph courtesy National Archives)

This post, part of a series about the Chiricahua and Geronimo prisoner of war years and events leading up to them summarizes what happened to the Chiricahua Apaches after Geronimo surrendered to General Miles, September 4, 1886, under terms that were false. The full story of Geronimo’s years as a prisoner of war can found in the 2019 book: Geronimo, Prisoner of Lies, Twenty-Three Years as a Prisoner of War by W. Michael Farmer. A novel, The Odyssey of Geronimo is a novel of Geronimo’s years in captivity told through his eyes that puts meat and sinew on the bones of the documented and Apache oral history told in Prisoner of Lies. The Odyssey of Geronimo will be released in mid-May 2020 by Five Star.

Cochise had two sons: Taza and Naiche. Cochise groomed Taza, the elder son, to assume the leadership of the Chokonen Chiricahuas even though being the chief of the tribe was not normally inherited. Cochise died in 1874 and Taza became chief of the Chokonens on the reservation his father had agreed to with General (One Arm) Howard in 1872 providing Tom Jeffords was his agent. Most of the tribe thought Taza would be a wise and good chief. However, about twelve warriors led by Skinya and his brother Poinsenay believed the older more experienced warrior Skinya should be chief and established their own camp in the mountains away from where most of the band lived. The argument over who should be chief came to a head on 4 June 1876 when there was a gunfight between Taza’s and Skinya’s groups. During the fight, Naiche shot Skinya in the head and killed him, Taza wounded Poinsenay, and six others were killed. That ended the disagreement over who should be chief.

The same day as the gunfight, John Clum, agent at San Carlos, appeared with cavalry backup to talk Taza and Naiche into leaving Cochise’s reservation and moving their people to San Carlos. The move was part of Washington bureaucracy’s poorly conceived policy of reservation consolidation. Taza and Naiche, remembering their father’s dying wish to avoid fighting with the White Eyes if at all possible, agree to move their people to San Carlos. Tom Jeffords told Clum that Geronimo, Juh, and Nolgee had a band living on another part of the reservation and were included in General Howard’s original agreement with Cochise. Geronimo and Juh met with Clum four days later and said they would move too, but they had to go back and get their people. Clum agreed but sent a couple of his scouts to shadow them back to their village. The scouts returned to tell Clum that Geronimo and the others had taken their families and disappeared across the border. It was the first time Geronimo had broken out of a reservation.

Clum was so full of himself for all his successful reservations consolidations that he decided to take at trip back east in September of 1876 to show off twenty of the Apaches then at San Carlos including chiefs Taza and Eskiminzin. (Clum actually wanted an excuse to travel back east to marry a lady in Ohio to whom he was engaged and he put on the Indian show as a way to pay travel expenses). The tour ended in Washington and had been a big success. However, while in Washington, Taza caught pneumonia and died. (Some Apaches believed Clum poisoned Taza, but that was clearly not the case. In fact, Clum gave Taza such a grand funeral he had to borrow money for train tickets to get back to the reservation).

The Chiricahuas decided that Naiche, then nineteen years old, and who liked women, fighting, drinking, and Indian dancing should be chief. He was too young to be a leader and even in his mature years, as a fine warrior, he lacked the temperament to exercise authority. In 1877 Clum captured Geronimo (the only time Geronimo didn’t voluntarily surrender) at Victorio’s Warm Springs Apache camp on the Ojo Caliente reservation in New Mexico. While there, Clum, following orders from Washington, talked Victorio into bringing his people to San Carlos, again as part of the consolidation policy. Returning to San Carlos with Victorio and Geronimo and five to seven (depending on who you believe) of his leading warriors in shackles, Clum put the Geronimo and his war leaders in the guardhouse and told the sheriff in Tucson to come collect Geronimo for civil prosecution for murder and horse theft, which meant certain hanging from a civil court. The sheriff never came; Clum in a bitter argument with the army over who controlled San Carlos, left in a huff; and, the new agent, Lyman Hart, seeing no reason to keep him if the sheriff hadn’t come, released Geronimo.

In early September 1877, after three months at San Carlos, Victorio outraged by Clum’s false claims about what a heaven-on-earth San Carlos was and seeing his People dying from smallpox and ill from the “shaking sickness” (malaria), starving and poorly clothed, broke out with Loco and 323 of their followers leaving only about 20 behind. Naiche and most of the Chiricahuas stayed on the reservation. Geronimo didn’t leave either, and Hart made him “captain” of the Warm Springs People who had stayed behind. Geronimo promised Hart he would not leave the reservation and would inform him of any talk from the others about a breakout. But, dissatisfaction with life on the reservation continued to grow and warriors began stealing and hiding guns and ammunition and their women laid aside food preparing for a breakout. It came on 4 April 1878 when Geronimo, Ponce, and other warriors left the reservation for Mexico. It was Geronimo’s first San Carlos breakout. Naiche continued to peacefully stay on the reservation with his People.

Believing civil authorities were about to arrest him, Victorio, who stayed mostly peaceful while trying to live on a reservation in New Mexico, left the Mescalero reservation in late August 1879. He roared across the southwest like a forest fire in dry tender burning and killing nearly everything in his path. Armies on both sides of the border were desperate to stop him. Geronimo and Juh, knowing they might be implicated in Victorio’s war and caught in the surround to wipe out Victorio, returned to San Carlos in late December 1879 or early January 1880. Ten months later, Victorio, out of ammunition, was wiped out at Tres Castillos in October 1880 by Mexican military led by Colonel Joaquin Terrazas. By contrast, Geronimo, Juh, and their followers had been living quietly on the reservation.

The following year in July 1881 Nana, Victorio’s segundo, his number two, with about fifteen Chihenne warriors and maybe twenty-five Mescaleros began a raid lasting about six weeks that covered up to seventy miles in a day, killed anyone in his path (about fifty), and stole over two hundred head of horses and mules. The army sent eight companies of cavalry, eight companies of infantry, and two companies of scouts after him, but he disappeared south into the Sierra Madre, and the chase was abandoned. Geronimo and Juh and their people on the reservation were not directly affected by Nana’s raid, but the panic it instilled in government officials caused them to overreact to perceived threats that were not threats at all. The result drove once peaceable Apaches off the reservation and into camps in the Sierra Madre in Mexico where they believed they were safe from blue coat attack. On 30 September 1881, the peaceable Naiche and most of his Chiricahua warriors and their families joined Geronimo and Juh with of their seventy-four warriors and headed south. This was the first known incident where chief Naiche, then about twenty-four, followed Geronimo’s lead off the reservation.

During the nearly two years of peace after Geronimo and the other Chiricahuas returned to the reservation in early 1880, Naiche had made him his medicine man (Geronimo claimed supernatural powers, Naiche did not) and gave him his war leader responsibilities. As Daklugie related to Eve Ball years later, Geronimo had said when they met at Fort Pickens after their surrenders in 1886, “. . . I was never elected to chieftainship, I had this thing also (ed. qualities of leadership), and men knew it. Had Naiche been older, experienced in warfare and a Medicine Man as I was, he would never have depended upon me to exercise many of his prerogatives. But he was not. And he was wise enough to know that the life of his people depended upon someone who could do these things. And I, rather, rather than see my race perish from Mother Earth, cared little who was chief so long as I could direct the fighting and preserve even a few of our people. . .”

In the years that followed Naiche was content to let Geronimo take the lead in fighting and negotiating with the White Eyes. Naiche remained in the background during the 1883 surrender and the 1885 breakout and 1886 surrender. However, there are a number of examples where Naiche exercised his authority as chief over Geronimo. For example when Geronimo ordered warriors to kill a child after a sheep camp had been taken in early 1882, Naiche ordered the child to be let go. After Martine and Kayitah, scouts for Lieutenant Gatewood came to Geronimo’s camp above the big turn south by the Bavispe River and convinced Geronimo and the warriors to speak with Gatewood about surrender to General Miles, Naiche made a point of telling Martine and Kayitah to tell Gatewood that he had Naiche’s word that he would not be harmed if he came to the camp. After Naiche became a Christian, he encouraged Geronimo to become a Christian too, was delighted when he did, and badly disappointed when Geronimo slipped back into his old ways of hard drinking (when he could get the whiskey) and gambling on everything from horse racing to monte card games. However, when Geronimo held a big feast to celebrate his daughter Eva’s coming of age ceremony, Naiche led the singing while Geronimo led the dancing, and Naiche provided a nice spot of ground where the ceremony was held. When Naiche’s children were sick, Geronimo used his power as a Medicine man to help cure them. More than one who knew them said that they were friendly, but not friends.

After Geronimo died from pneumonia Naiche spoke graveside at his service. He said Geronimo had been a brave and skillful war leader, but had loyally adhered to the peace he made at the surrender. However, Geronimo had refused to accept Christianity, and was thus an utter failure in the chief thing in life. Naiche closed by urging the assembled people to profit by Geronimo’s example.

Next Week: Geronimo Meets the Son He Didn’t Know He Had

Most of the information for this post is from Geronimo by Angie Debo, Indeh by Eve Ball, Nora Henn, and Lynda Sánchez, and Apache

Native American Daily Wisdom

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