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Apaches
There are three main Apache accounts: Geronimo, Kaywaykla, and Daklugie. It is important to note that none of these narrators were present for Mangas Coloradas’s death. They describe events leading up to Coloradas’s capture and facts learned later from scouts. All three accounts are part of narratives recorded much later in their lives, and while this paper examines the sections about Mangas Coloradas, it is essential to understand that these sections are found within larger narratives of their life stories. Unlike the military narratives considered in this paper that are all written specifically about Coloradas’s death, the Apache accounts of his death are recorded as part of larger narratives.
This distinction is necessary because the intentions with which the Apache narratives were written was to tell their own stories about their lives and identities. Mangas Coloradas’s death is discussed not as the primary inspiration for the text, but as something that impacted their lives. If West had not been directly involved in the events surrounding Coloradas’s death, he would not have written the report discussed in this paper. If Coloradas had not died, the texts recorded from Apaches would still exist, because Coloradas’s death was not their primary focus. This makes the motivations of the Apaches as narrators much different than the others who wrote specifically about Coloradas’s death.
Geronimo provides a first-hand account of the events preceding Coloradas’s capture, recorded 43 years later in 1906 by Stephen Barrett as part of an “authentic record of the private life of the Apache Indians” (Barrett i). Geronimo’s story recounts that Coloradas had talked to someone who promised him government rations like food and blankets if he returned within a week. He unsuccessfully advised Coloradas not to go and then heard from scouts that Coloradas had been killed (Barrett 119-20).
Daklugie’s and Kaywaykla’s accounts were also recorded long after Coloradas had died. Both were recorded by Eve Ball, Daklugie’s in Indeh, first published in 1980, and Kaywaykla’s in In the Days of Victorio, published in 1963.6 These accounts are not first-hand, but were told to Daklugie and Kaywaykla by others. Kaywaykla prefaces this section of the text by saying, “I learned the history of my people about the fires at night. Word for word I could repeat many of the stories long before I understood the significance of them” (Ball, In the Days of Victorio 45). Daklugie’s and Kaywaykla’s accounts do not mention Coloradas going earlier and being promised rations, but they do both mention Coloradas going to the fort willingly, under the promise of peace and safety, and that he was killed there (Ball, Indeh 20; Ball, In the Days of Victorio 48). These accounts are coherent as they are in accordance with what we know from letters, that Mangas Coloradas was seeking peace. Daklugie even mentions Carleton by name as one of the military leaders in charge. They also both mention the mutilation of Coloradas’s body, that they “dug up [Coloradas’s] body, cut off his head, and boiled his head in a big black kettle” (Ball, Indeh 20). Geronimo’s story does not mention the mutilation of Coloradas’s body after his death. While it is possible that Geronimo did not know, especially as his narrative was recorded 60 years before the others, it does provide a strain of incoherence between their stories. The fact that the other two Apaches give much more specific details of the mutilation could also indicate the story being embellished over time, which would harm their credibility. However, Conner’s testimony and the separate claims made by Fowler, years later, along with the information in his book, support the fact that Coloradas’s head was, in fact, removed. Therefore, embellished or not, these accounts do coincide with what we can assume with reasonable certainty to be true.
While the Apache stories do not contain as much information about the events of Coloradas’s death as the other narratives, the facts that they do provide are, by Fisher’s narrative paradigm, relatively credible. The stories are coherent amongst each other and within themselves. All narrators agree that Coloradas went willingly to Fort McLean under the assumption that he was to discuss peace with the U.S. military, and that he was killed while in their captivity. Additionally, while there is always incentive to lie to shift blame or maintain reputation, the Apache accounts differ from the others because they were recorded under such different contexts. There is no job on the line or possibility of reprimand for their actions; there is no punishment that these men face by telling the truth.
[6] It is not readily apparent the order in which the narratives in these books were written. The publication dates are given in lieu of the specific dates that sections about Mangas Coloradas were recorded.
[7] While a full discussion of the topic is beyond the scope of this paper, I believe that part of the reason the Apache accounts have been generally considered less credible in this instance is due to Eurocentric prejudices against stories passed down orally, and in favor of written narratives. For a more detailed analysis and critique of the oral-written binary and its effects see Lyons Rhetorical Sovereignty 460; Hannah 2-22; Stromberg 149-162.