Skeleton canyon. New Mexico

 John LeKay: Can you tell me about what happened at Skeleton Canyon?

Harlyn Geronimo: Yes. Skeleton Canyon. Ok. I was there about a year ago in 2005; I believe it was in February. However, I was invited to speak on my great grandfather at that time. While I was there, I did a blessing at the site and the group that had attended to listen to the historical part of the event. There was probably about 200 people. After I did a blessing, I believe for about 10 minutes or so, I asked the spirit there, that I'm happy that I'm here with you all. If it was for not you all, I wouldn't be here. But my prayers are with you all. I said that and after the conclusion of my prayers, I said to them the spirits, to send me a sign, that they were still here spiritually. What happened was in about a split second, I had this terrible pain in my stomach. It seemed like somebody got a knife and moved it around in there. Moving it around in there for a good, I would say 5 minutes.

The pain was so intense I could not stand up. I couldn't speak it was so painful and the crowd was still waiting for me. At that time, I asked my wife, you know,  we had to do something, because it was getting very intense. So I asked her if she had the herbal, the root that we use in this area, for that purpose.  I told her to get it out of her medicine bag which she did. She put it in my mouth and put the pollen on me. As soon as she put the pollen on me, the pain disappeared. 

JL: What kind of pollen was this?

Harlyn Geronimo: Cattail pollen. We have used it for hundreds of years. It is used for religious purposes; for blessing, for the tribe. Puberty rites takes a big part in that.

JL So it's from the flower of the cactus?

Harlyn Geronimo: Yes, I guess you could say that, not the cactus, the cattail.

JL: Oh the cattail.

Harlyn Geronimo: Yes, it grows along the creek. You see the long dark green plant grows probably about 7feet tall. Sort of has a spongy tip at the end. It's probably like a hot dog. Something like that.

Cattail pollen

General Nelson Miles

JL; So it's just used basically for religious ceremony and for healing too?

Harlyn Geronimo: Yes, for healing.

JL; Yes, so it took away the pain immediately?

Harlyn Geronimo: Yes it took away the pain. But you see, what I'm trying to get across to you; things like this and things similar to this occurred before.  You have to know how to deal with it.

JL: Did it frighten you?

Harlyn Geronimo: Well, it doesn't frighten me because I asked for a sign. But the thing about it, the pain was so intense it was unbearable, I can't even describe it. I was kneeling down.  Another thing is how powerful they were, (the spirits).  You know they are still there. They are still there spiritually.

JL: So, Skeleton Canyon is where your great grandfather was in the 1890s?

Harlyn Geronimo: The fall of September of 1886. This is the last time they met with the military there. To surrender to General Miles, what they called him.

JL: General Miles, yes.

Harlyn Geronimo: And then from there they were promised that they would be given back their land after two years in Florida and that never happened. My grand father died there in captivity. He was incarcerated for 28 years. He died in Fort Sills Oklahoma. The military reservation, but a year later, my great grandmother and her daughter, that was born in at Augustine was released back to Mescalero.  She is the only one that had offsprings; Lana Geronimo, that's my grandmother - my father's mother.

JL: How do you spell her name?

Harlyn Geronimo: L a n a.  I think I told you before one time, she died of the flu epidemic, but she left two sons and a daughter.

 JL: Who is Lozen?

Harlyn Geronimo: Lozen is the sister of Victorio. Lozen was also at the final surrender site.  She was one of the well know Chiricahua Apache women warriors. She was accepted into the warrior society at the time

JL: Is she related to you too?

Harlyn Geronimo: Yes she is. Distant, not close.

JL: I remember now. Didn't she also have medicine abilities?

Harlyn Geronimo: Yes. She was very powerful in that area. After her 4 days puberty rites, close to where the main base camp was, she had puberty rites there.  She was only about 12 years old at that time when she had it. Several weeks later she went up to one of the sacred mountains here in the Southwest and prayed for 4 days and then the creator gave her the medicine. That's how she became so powerful and how she could predict where the enemy was; the Calvary and the military. From Mexico and the US Calvary that were tracking them, she could exactly pinpoint their exact location.

Lozen

 

Geronimo

JL; How did she do this?

Harlyn Geronimo: By lifting her hands. A complete circle and when she gets to the area where they are coming from, Her Arms, you know, the veins in her arms would turn really dark blue.

JL: So she was working then at the time with your great grandfather Gernonimo. Together.

Harlyn Geronimo: Yes. She was just as good as any other Apache warrior at that time.

JL: Did your great grandfather teach her as well?

Harlyn Geronimo: Yes, she learned a lot from him. You know my great grandfather taught her on tracking the enemy. Also on ambush. You know, the military tactics. The military is presently using it.  You see. When I was in Nam, the lecture officer that was at West Point, told me that your grandfather's tactics are being studied there.

JL: Really, in West Point?

Harlyn Geronimo: Yes, that was in 1968. So he told me that is how it's been implemented now in the military for now  6 or so decades.

JL: How did Geronimo learn all this?

Harlyn Geronimo: You see. The Chiricahua society got their tactics. You see, when a little boy starts to reach their teens, they are taught the art of warfare. It's part of the tradition. It's part of the tribe culture, so it's implemented as soon as they learn how to ride a horse. Then after that in their teens they run about 75 miles a day. With trial tests they have to go through. They have to pass that. Then they are admitted to the warrior society. As a teenager, they have to go with the warriors first.  The raids I guess, the war party.  When they do they have to actually see them in combat, on the 4 trips they make to be accepted into the warrior society.

This is a part of tradition they learned from a very young age.

JL; That's really interesting.

Harlyn Geronimo: The Chiricahua Apache tribe is one of the tribes that fought to the final campaign, because they are one of the tribes that continued fighting for the homelands, their way of life, their freedom. The didn't give up and they were never conquered too. Also, if you look at the history, all of the books that have been written about it, they were incarcerated for 28 years and they were promised their land and their freedom. Which they never received.

JL: How about now, did you ever get your land back?

Harlyn Geronimo: Right now we are on borrowed land, you could say. The land here, is where we were just placed here by the military back in 1912. My people, the Mescalero tribe, said that we can't stay here, but the military demand that we stay here. This is the only final solution to the problem, that the land is not going to be given back to you.

JL: But is it like a reservation?

Mangas Coloradas

Harlyn Geronimo: It's a reservation. Half a million acres. But the Chiricahua Apache tribe is still here. We are still surviving here but the land is not ours. There's probably 300 full blooded Chiricahua Apache tribal members that were descended from the original tribe. We are still here, we are still thinking about the promises that were made if it's going to be given back to us, the land that was included in the promise.

JL: Was it a treaty of some sort?

Harlyn Geronimo: Well it came from Washington. It was given to General Miles at that time. You know one of the officers under General Miles approached Geronimo with that message. If you look at it. It's all lies.  They didn't live up to their promises.

JL: They lied, yes.

Harlyn Geronimo: The whole Gila wilderness belongs to three separate bands there. The Gila belongs to Geronimo, Victorio and Mangas Coloradas and Lozen was also from that area. Then you go to the central South Eastern Arizona, the land in that area. The home land was Cochise and Naiche and then down into Mexico. That's the third band. The southern band of Chiricahua that belonged to Juh, the chief. But, during the winter months the tribe would migrate all the way to the Sierra Madres, about 50 miles North of Mexico. They spent the winter months there, then traveled back home in the spring; the Gilas. This is all their land for a good two or three thousand years. The Mexican government stole all the land in that area from the Chiricahua.

 

JL: The Mexican government?

Harlyn Geronimo:  Yes. They chased all the Chiricahuas out of there back around the 1800s.

JL; So you have the Mexicans taking the land, then the Americans over here doing the same thing?

Harlyn Geronimo: Yes, and the Americans took all the Chiricahua land up in the Gilas you know. So, it's a shame what happened.

JL:  The documents, the agreement that General Miles had with your great grandfather Geronimo; is this on paper anywhere? Is there any kind of legal document that I could find?

Harlyn Geronimo: There's got to be because the military records all their daily activities. So it's got to be there because this was given to us orally.

. Ruidoso. New Mexico

JL:  Do you have any problems on your reservation with the environment?

Harlyn Geronimo: Well, about 15 years ago when I was on the tribal council, there was an agreement with several mining companies to mine Yttrium on the reservation. Yttrium, that is used in the jet engines, also in color TVs. This is only only place they found deposits, in the South West. The only other place is Canada. So, I was very vocal at that time and started working against the people in the tribal council that had actually planned to do the mining with other major mining companies.  So, I got the information and started to do speeches here around the community. Finally, I got a group together here in Mescalero. Also in Ruidoso, a small tourist town.

Then at the same time another issue came  up. That was the nuclear waste the government wanted to store nuclear waste on the Indian reservation.  So that time it was the late Wendell Chino, who was really in favor of storing nuclear waste here on the reservation. And would get large amounts of money from the utility companies that were storing nuclear waste. Also at that time, I got this same group to oppose that.  Making meetings here and there in the communities until we had a good large following. 

And then they had a referendum, to see if the people were for it. And they first won by a big landslide when they put this in the referendum. Then we called for another election, went through, then at the second election, we defeated the two projects. So, at that time I was also working with the anti nuclear groups here in the south west. Not only that, but I was also communicating with Washington; a major group. A nuclear research group that studies the different sites where.  They have nuclear reactors. I got involved back then and attended different training with these groups also. But it's been a long time since then, about 15 years now. I was involved also at the same time with all of these projects that the council and Mr. Chino wanted here on the reservation, that was defeated by the group that I was working closely with.

 

JL: On another subject - Art. You told me that you make sculptures?

Harlyn Geronimo: Yes.

JL: What kind of materials do you use?

Harlyn Geronimo: I use wax. The hard wax. It's called the lost wax method. And then I also use the clay. I feel comfortable with the wax itself.

JL: So do you also work the wax; melt it and pour it into a mold? 

Harlyn Geronimo: When I do a figure, a figure of an Apache warrior, I complete it with the wax itself. The armature is usually wires and all that. The outside, I use the wax on it. After I complete it, I take it to the foundries here. There are several here in the south west of New Mexico. Then they will process it.  Right now, I have been trying to get my great grandfather's statue in the Gila, but we are running into some obstacles. The forest service is sort of dragging its feet and the monetary part, we are kind of having a little problem with it.

JL: What size did you envision this statue to be?

Harlyn Geronimo: I would probably say about 15 feet. Then I thought of putting about 4 or 5  Chiricahua Apache chiefs on the interstate here in the south west between Lawrenceburg and Los Cruces. 150 miles, that's how far apart they are.  The two towns that are centrally located in this area. But I would like to maybe possibly 5 chiefs.  Even Lozen, along the interstate.

JL: That would be fantastic. What size?

Harlyn Geronimo: Maybe I'm looking at about 9 feet, standing next to one another.

JL; Wow. Would you say your sculptures are very realistic?

Harlyn Geronimo: They are near realistic. You see right now, I work closely with my son and I have been teaching him and he caught on pretty good. He is making his own bronze.

Continue to part 3