Drumbeats from Mescalero

Conversations with Apache Elders, Warriors, and Horseholders

H. Henrietta Stockel with Marian D. Kelley

Publication Year: 2011

Wisdom from the past . . . hope for the future . . . In 1945 the hot wind from a nuclear explosion at Trinity Site on a nearby missile range raged across the Mescalero Apache Reservation in south-central New Mexico, killing hundreds of head of livestock and causing sickness among the descendants of some of the most famous Apache heroes in American history. In many ways, this disaster typified what these Apaches had come to expect from the federal government: attention was often accompanied by undesired results. Four thousand Apaches of the Mescalero, Chiricahua, and Lipan bands now live on this reservation. In twelve remarkable oral history interviews, three generations of Mescalero, Chiricahua, and Lipan Apaches reflect on the trials of the past, the challenges of the present, and hope for the future. A common thread among all of the interviewees is a collective memory of their people as formidable enemies of the U.S. government in the not-too-distant past. Author and ethnographer H. Henrietta Stockel has structured these interviews to encompass three groups of Mescalero Apache society: the elders, the “warriors” (middle-aged), and the “horseholders,” or young apprentices.

Published by: Texas A&M University Press

Contents
Search Inside This Book
Book Details

Most Americans know that during a significant period of settling the West, the name “Apache” carried such meaning that it became an integral part of our nation’s history that has endured until today. Behind the legend were hundreds of men, women, and children—the sons and daughters of true American heroes like Mangas Coloradas...

AUTHOR’S NOTE

pdf icon Download PDF (228.8 KB)
pp. xiii-xxii

This is an informal book of interviews, written and compiled by friends about friends. Yes, it does follow a few academic standards, but by and large there were no boundaries, no structured format that we routinely observed. It is a different type of book about Apaches, one that varies considerably from most previously written nonfiction tomes, and especially from pulp fiction portrayals...

INTRODUCTION

pdf icon Download PDF (216.0 KB)
pp. 1-3

The Apaches you are about to meet are storytellers of a sort, not exactly in the traditional understanding of that designation and its obligations,¹ but they are in the forefront of Indian peoples all across America who are speaking out for themselves. Too often, in years past, outsiders wrote their history; now some indigenous...

THE SPEAKERS

pdf icon Download PDF (316.0 KB)
pp. 5-18

The governments of Spain, Mexico, and the United States did everything in their power to completely exterminate the ancestors of our speakers, and failed. As time is passing, only the transmitted stories of those events remain in many families; actual contact with relatives who had the experiences and bore the pain of those times...

THE ELDERS

TESTIMONY OF KATHLEEN KANSEAH

pdf icon Download PDF (358.0 KB)
pp. 21-27

I am Kathleen Kanseah, age eighty- one, Chiricahua Apache. My mother’s name was Martina Little Smith; she had a Spanish grandmother. My father’s name was Hopkins Smith Sr., and my brother’s name was Hopkins Smith Jr. He was the oldest of the boys. I was the only girl and I was the eldest child. My brother Hopkins was in the Navy. Edward was my second brother and he was in the Air Force...

TESTIMONY OF EDWARD LITTLE

pdf icon Download PDF (379.8 KB)
pp. 28-49

I’m Edward Michael Little, a tribal member of the Mescalero Apache Tribe. I was born in 1941 and raised here in Mescalero. I’m sixty- six years old and I have lived a good part of my life here on the reservation. I was off the reservation for quite some time as well. Back in those days it was almost a must, there was almost no place to work. Work was pretty scarce. I lived here at Mescalero during my younger years. I left the reservation to go off to school...

TESTIMONY OF CLAUDINE SAENZ

pdf icon Download PDF (343.3 KB)
pp. 50-61

I’m Claudine Saenz, a Warm Springs Apache. I am a direct descendant of Chief Victorio, Chief Mangas Coloradas, and of Martine, the scout who found Geronimo in the Torres Mountains of Mexico. My mother was Evelyn Martine Gaines, one of the last surviving prisoners of war. She died only a short while ago. I am a registered nurse by profession...

TESTIMONY OF SISTER JUANITA LITTLE,OSF

pdf icon Download PDF (318.8 KB)
pp. 62-78

I am Sister Juanita Little, a member of the Franciscan Sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. I’m also a member of the Mescalero Apache Tribe. My mother was a member of a pueblo tribe, the San Juan Tewa, now called Ohkay Owingeh. I was raised here on the Mescalero Reservation with my father’s family with all the traditions, opportunities, and heartaches and so forth that the whole tribe enjoyed and benefi ted from. Although he was not Mescalero Apache himself...

THE WARRIORS

TESTIMONY OF JOEY PADILLA

pdf icon Download PDF (379.9 KB)
pp. 80-93

I’m a half- breed, half Mescalero. My mom’s from Mescalero, my dad’s from California. Been living at Mescalero all my life. My family comes from a line of medicine people, sixteen generations back. Our original place of homesteading was in Rinconada...

TESTIMONY OF DEPREE SHADOWWALKER

pdf icon Download PDF (352.2 KB)
pp. 94-105

I am the oldest child of Margaret B. Fields and Francis Neil Smith. I want to be called Depree Shadowwalker. Shadowwalker is my Indian name. In Apache it’s “walk shadow in,” but I had to anglicize it so it became Shadowwalker. Depree is a nickname and we have a long history of giving everybody nicknames...

TESTIMONY OFALFRED LAPAZ

pdf icon Download PDF (352.6 KB)
pp. 106-115

For the record, my name is Alfred G. LaPaz. I was born here in Mescalero in 1967. I’m Mescalero and Lipan Apache. I have lived here at Mescalero pretty much all my life. I graduated from Tularosa High School in 1948. That same year I traveled to San Francisco by train by myself and went to school in a little town called Kentfield...

TESTIMONY OF DEBI MARTINEZ

pdf icon Download PDF (377.9 KB)
pp. 116-135

My birth name is Debra Kaye Blaylock. Blaylock is my maiden name. My married name now is Martinez. Everyone knows me as Debi. Some people call me Debra. My mother is Elbys Naiche Hugar and my father was Clayton Blaylock. My mother is the great- granddaughter of Chief Cochise. Her grandfather was Christian...

TESTIMONY OF LARRY SHAY

pdf icon Download PDF (372.4 KB)
pp. 136-144

Good afternoon, I’m Larry Shay. I am a longtime member of the Mescalero Apache Tribe and I carry the title today as the War Chief for the tribe. I have been a Tribal Council member for nineteen years, appointed in 1986. I missed a couple of turns for a couple of years, and I have been fortunate enough to serve nineteen years...

THE HORSEHOLDERS

TESTIMONY OF ELIZA YUZOS

pdf icon Download PDF (365.1 KB)
pp. 147-153

I am Eliza Yuzos, I’m twenty- nine years old and I live with the Mescalero Apache Tribe. I am an Apache, half Chiricahua Apache, half Jicarilla Apache. I don’t work, I stay home with my kids. I’m known as a “homemaker.” I have four children who are ten, nine, eight, and four...

TESTIMONY OF DAN KANSEAH JR.

pdf icon Download PDF (349.8 KB)
pp. 154-161

My name is Danny Richard Kanseah Jr. I’m thirty years old and I have lived here at Mescalero on the reservation all my life. My great- grandfather was Jasper Kanseah, Geronimo’s youngest warrior who was thirteen years old when they surrendered in 1886...

TESTIMONY OF KIANA MANGAS

pdf icon Download PDF (323.7 KB)
pp. 162-195

Hello Kiana. Please spell your name for us. K- i- a- n- a M- a- n- g- a- s. I’m sixteen years old; just turned sixteen. I live in Mescalero, New Mexico. I had lived with my mom in Oklahoma but we moved back...

EPILOGUE

pdf icon Download PDF (213.6 KB)
pp. 173-174

The Apaches whose words you have just read and whose faces you have now seen in photographs have given you a rare glimpse inside a culture that for hundreds of years has been portrayed and defined by others.¹ Perhaps some Apaches endeavored, in the distant past, to tell their story and were rejected, mocked, or prohibited from doing so. Or, perhaps they didn’t trust anyone to accurately convey their...

REFLECTIONS

pdf icon Download PDF (212.4 KB)
pp. 175-176

This book was conceived in Oklahoma, born in Arizona, and came to life in New Mexico. It was back in October 2007 when Marian and I were respectfully wandering from grave to grave in the Apache prisoner of war cemetery at Fort Sill that the idea of this book was first spoken aloud. Between then and the last interview in January of 2009, a fifteen- month period, much had happened...

NOTES

pdf icon Download PDF (223.3 KB)
pp. 177-182

BIBLIOGRAPHY

pdf icon Download PDF (213.4 KB)
pp. 183-184

INDEX

pdf icon Download PDF (221.0 KB)
pp. 185-188

Volumes in the Elma Dill Russell Spencer Seriesin the West and Southwest:

pdf icon Download PDF (248.1 KB)
p. 189-189

E-ISBN-13: 9781603444835
E-ISBN-10: 1603444831
Print-ISBN-13: 9781603442305
Print-ISBN-10: 1603442308

Page Count: 176
Illustrations: 13 b&w photos. Bib. Index.
Publication Year: 2011

Series Title: Elma Dill Russell Spencer Series in the West and Southwest