Table Of ContentIN 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]
