Captured By The Apache: Tales Of Tribe Culture
Apache country in the winter time:
source
Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!
We're in a series about the Wild West and the story of an 11 year old German boy, Hermann, who was captured by an Apache war party from his family's farm in 1870 in Central Texas. He is now about 14 years old at this point in the story and has become a full blown warrior.
In yesterday's post I was talking about the big "high" that the entire tribe got for some big celebration and the wild demonstrations that the medicine men put on by stabbing and cutting themselves with no damage or blood being spilled.
Today's story
They also claimed to control the weather and Hermann said he would watch them go up on a hill or mountain and do incantations and chants and wave a cows tail for rain. If it didn't rain they blamed someone in the tribe for angering the Great Spirit.
Well, one time they were in a drought so the medicine men were doing their incantations and so forth but no rain came so they came into camp and blamed a Mexican man who was staying with them.
He was ordered to be bound head and feet and then he was carried up the mountain and tied to a flat rock.
Then they tied a huge rattlesnake beside him just near enough to strike him whenever he moved. They went back down to the camp and started doing their incantations again and here come the rains, in abundance.
I reckon it worked
It poured so much that the area they were in flooded, it was a flash flood zone and took out their wigwams. They lost several horses and they had a white child captive who was being held there and the child drowned too.
Hermann didn't say but I'm sure the unlucky Mexican died. Either he got bit by the rattler or died of thirst or something else. It sounded more like a human sacrifice than just getting rid of the problem.
But I'm sure the medicine men were highly revered, or feared, for ending the drought.
It was an entirely foreign realm of knowledge
They had tremendous knowledge and power and knew more about nature and herbal medicines than we'll ever know, but this particular incident sounds a little bizarre to me.
But then, it was told by a white boy who never had a clue of what they were doing or why!
Talk about dangerous snakes
This is a wild story that Hermann was told and apparently it was accepted as fact by his tribe. It seems there was a very dangerous snake in the region where they were, not a rattlesnake but some other type of venomous snake.
Legend has it that they always traveled in pairs and if you killed one of them, the other would follow you and bite you, even if you were miles from where you killed it's mate.
Hermann was told that a young Indian who had just gotten married killed one of these snakes and then traveled on and camped that night with his new wife.
The snake gets it's revenge
Well, the dead snake's companion trailed them all the way to their campsite and bit the young wife in the throat and she died straight away. The young brave quit the tribe and spent the rest of his life hunting and killing those snakes.
That one sounds a little hard to believe, what do you guys think? A good campfire story?
In the next post Hermann's war party has a deadly encounter with the dreaded Texas Rangers.
Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy
Texas
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every nation has its own wild stories in which children believe :))) the snake was unjust: you had to bite the warrior himself :))))
haha! yes that's true tali72, the snake bit the wrong person! But I agree about the stories that each country has, very true.
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If you find one snake you will normally find two. The truth is if you keep looking you will find a lot more than two though. If it happened it was a coincidence and I have never heard of someone being bitten in the throat so I would say it is a camp fire story.
haha! howdy sir cryptoandcoffee! I agree totally, but it DOES make a good campfire story!
Guess you really ought to be careful what you ask fore.
The snake one sort of sounds like the tale about why Ireland has no snakes. An explanation story as to why the crazy-venomous snakes disappeared or some such.
haha! I agree, it is that kind of story, good thinking sir fotosdenada, as always!
I was just reading a long thread on the internet about water moccasins and whether they chase you or not. The experts said they do not, hundreds of non-experts claim they do. Thankfully I have no personal experience, but apparently this sort of snake concern has made it all the way to modern times :)
very interesting ginnyannette! well I've talked to locals here who've seen alot of them and they say they can be very agressive and one guy said when they were fishing one time alot of them showed up and they had to try and outrun them because they were coming up to the boat and trying to get in, one guy was on the motor and the other guy was using an oar to beat them in the head when they tried to get in!
I always carry a gun when I'm down at the one pond we have which has not been cleared out around it, lots of overgrowth and I've seen one down there.
I thought you'd be asleep by now!
That is the sort of stories people were telling. One expert was saying that the moccasins can't see well, and they think you are a shadow to hide under. That made zero sense to me. I think that expert was even more sleep drunk than I am. Scary stuff. I live near a creek and have always thought I'd run into one, but I haven't. I've heard nonvenomous snakes don't live on the same land as venomous, and thus far that seems to be the case because I have a lot of rat snakes.
Oh I haven't heard that about non venomous and venomous not living on the same land. I've seen both on our property though, one of the first ones we saw was a Copperhead at the end of the porch. You have to be very alert all the time that's for sure. Even rat snakes creep me out.
The neighbor kid was playing with my son the other day and decided to grab a bunch of spider egg sacks and bring them in the house to show me. I flipped out. So freaking disgusting! My wise son instinctively knew not to touch those things :)
oh do spiders freak you out? Do snakes? Spiders don't bother me and I've seen some huge ones in Texas. Your son knew better!
Spiders don't bother me too much so long as they aren't touching me. But the eggs - gross.
It must be midnight in Texas? It is 1 here. Alright, I'm finally going to sleep :)
yes Ma'am it's midnight here, have a great night's sleep!
It makes a good fairy tale but like all tales it's a warning. Somehow I feel pity for the snake. Snake = nature... humans are ...
Howdy wakeupkitty! I agree that it's a great way to make a warning for venomous snakes. Yes, man always is natures worst enemy! Thanks so much for reading and commenting!
Chant to invoke rain. If no rain, blame someone and push him. Repeat chant for rain. If still no rain, repeat the above. Keep doing that until it rains. Viola! The power of the medicine man. haha.....
haha! hey you don't believe in medicine men? I think it depends on the medicine man and what powers he's tapping into. And if none of that works, blame someone else.
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Hi Janton, did you know that human sacrifice is still going on today by medicine men in parts of Africa and elsewhere?
They call it muti.(magic)
They believe the more pain that is inflicted in the killing. The stronger the muti.
Some things in human existence never change like these superstitions.
The snake story can be seen as a parable...leave snakes well alone. 😇😈
Howdy again sir molometer! you know what? papilloncharity from Africa just told me today that human sacrifice was still going on! I had no idea, why doesn't someone stop this evil stuff?
The point about the snake story makes sense! lol.
The tribal customs run deep in these places still. Pure horror stories to most people. The details are to gruesome to contemplate or discuss.
The police seem ineffective in stopping it. It is widespread.
Howdy again sir molometer! You're talking about South Africa? And it's widespread? dang!
Yep in sunny South Africa! Shocking just how often it was in the news when I lived there.
oh so it was reported by the news like other crimes were! wow. That's spooky!
Well there are so many things that need changed but that stuff should be at the
top of the list!
Yep it made the national news on a sickeningly regular basis.
Mind boggling that people still believe all that nonsense. Baffling!