Indeh

Indeh: an Apache Odyssey by Eve Ball, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1988

This is arguably Eve Ball's magnum opus. She uses her 30 years of unique interviews with Apaches elders (especially Chiricahua, but also Mescalero and Lipan) on the Mescalero Reservation in New Mexico, to give the Apache point of view of the conflict between the expanding Anglo US of A and one of the most important indigenous peoples of Southwestern North America in the late 19th C. She also expands greatly on the fate of the Chiricahua after the surrender of Geronimo in 1886, their internment as prisoners of war, first in Florida, then in Alabama and finally at Fort Sill Oklahoma, before finding a home (at least for four fifths of them) on the Mescalero reservation.

Her most interesting informant was Asa Daklugie, son of Juh, the renowned chief of the Nednhi band of the Chiricahua, who roamed northwestern Mexico, and who was Geronimo's brother-in-law and most important ally. Daklugie, hostile and bitter towards the white eyes till his death, but intelligent enough to know that he had to find ways to work with them, was the unreconstructed opposite end of the spectrum from the acculturated Jason Betzinez (see my review of his I fought with Geronimo), for whom he shows nothing but disdain. Ball's interviews with Daklugie flesh out much detail concerning life in Mexico with the Nednhi, and the circumstances of the final breakouts with Geronimo.

An important voice at Fort Sill, Daklugie was, along with James Kaywaykla, one of those who advocated for the Mescalero Reservation as the Chiricahua's ultimate home. The story of the band's move to Mescalero and their relationship with their hosts/brothers and sisters is very interesting reading in and of itself. As at San Carlos and White Mountain, there were a few outstanding Indian Agents of the US gov't who worked as advocates for their charges amongst a mass of corrupt,  double dealing bureaucrats in the back pockets of local and national Anglo economic interests (especially ranchers in the case of Mescalero).

I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in the voices of the defeated indigenous protagonists of the centuries-long struggle for dominion in southwestern North America.