Herman's Story Comes To An End
Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!
I've been highlighting the works of the Western artist Zhou Shu Liang because so much of his work is of the American Indian. I really like this one called Red Rock Crossing, Northwest Montana:
Ok, well we're finishing a series about the Wild West.. the incredible 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 and then later lived with the Comanche.
He's now 20 years old at this point in the story and has become a full blown warrior who hates and fears the White man. And in fact, has taken many a scalp. He'd been with the Comanche for about 5 years but has been returned to his white family.
Yesterday's post
In the last post Herman was telling about the only two times that his Indian people ran into technology. One in the form of telegraph lines and the other was a locomotive which they thought was an evil monster who'd come for the souls of man!
Today's story
I've been reading Herman's story at a clip of about a chapter a day and then retelling it in my own way so I was surprised to find out that it ends abruptly.
He sums up the rest of his life, from the time he was slowly adjusting to white culture to when he was an old man... in about three paragraphs!
There are lots of pages left in the book but he's talking about the other white kids who were captured and how they got back to their families, if they did. He said there were hundreds of captured kids over the years.
After he got used to the white culture
So I'll give you the synopsis of his story. When he finally got used to living as a white man( he didn't say how long that took) he worked for ranches and farms.
It's ironic that he worked as a cowboy when as an Indian he tried to kill as many cowboys as he could! It was about ten years after he returned to the whites that he married a girl with the interesting name of Fannie Light .
I bet she was a tough ranch girl that he met doing cowboy work, he was gifted with horses and was hired to break horses at times.
All his kids were successful and productive
They had five kids; two boys and three girls. But he didn't give a single detail about his wife or how they met or anything else, unfortunately. I just know there are good stories there!
But, perhaps his wife didn't want to be in the book. The kids were all grown at that time so maybe they didn't want to be named in the book either.
He stayed in contact with the Comanches and was considered an official member of the Comanche tribe and blood brother to all his Comanche friends his whole life. He wrote his book in 1927 and died in 1932.
There are few photos of Herman online, none in the book.. here's what I found.
In this one the man to the right of Herman(with the great mustache) is another captive who spent 5 years with the Indians.
I'm sure Herman was the only captive to officially remain an Indian after he was back in white society. His band of Comanches was one of the last of the renegade bands to go onto the reservation, I think the year was 1879.
I'm doing a few more posts about the amazing baskets and pottery that the tribes crafted, along with some more artwork but Herman's astonishing story is over.
At the end of the book he swore that as God was his witness, every word was true and happened as he described it..and I believe him.
He gave God the glory
He also gave God the credit for saving his life countless times when he should have died or been killed, and he knows it was the fervent, faithful prayers of his mother that God was honoring.
I also found it interesting that even living as an Indian he tried to worship God as best he could in his Indian fashion but was very sorry for the atrocities that he'd helped to commit...believing at the time that it was the way to live.
Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy
Texas
I really enjoyed this series- sorry I’ve been busy some days this past week and only get to catch up with Steemit friends posts on the weekends! I find it amazing and yes an answer to prayer that he ended up living back with his family and even got married!! Thanks again for this series!
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Howdy today violetmed! thanks so much for your kind words and that's okay about missing, it's hard to catch all of them when it's a series and I'm posting everyday.
Seems like I missed a lot. No way it is over. It would be interesting to know what his family would tell about his life or what he told them about it. It must have been an unending storytelling.
At the time, surviving is the way of life. We should not judge.
Howdy sir leeart! He ended his story too fast for me, he still had 2/3rds of his life to live, but it is what it is. Yes, it's hard to read every single day and it went on for months!
A really great story and sad it has come to an end. What is next from the Great Plains of Texas ? I hope you aren't taking a break and have something cooking.
Howdy sir cryptoandcoffee! thanks, I agree that it was one of the most amazing stories ever, even though he ended it very abruptly and caught me by surprise, normally I know these stories inside and out before I start writing. I am taking a little break from series type stories because I don't know what I'm writing about next. lol.
Several people have asked if I was going to do some on the Texas Rangers so that's one possibility.
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Howdy esteemapp! thanks so much for the upvote!
Howdy Janton! So I am to check what you have for us today and I see the inevitable end is here!!! Altough I am going to miss it a lot, I am happy that it ended all well for Hermann and he was able to adopt the best way possible. In addition he was able to keep his Comanche heritage. I really like the first photo of him. He looks like he was still in a very good shape even in his old age and you can see he deep wisdom in his face. God bless him 😊
Well done Janton, this was truly a masterpiece! As I said many times I love your way of writing and your sense of humor. Even despite all the atrocities, you made this story extremely enjoyable. Well done and thank you. Without you I would never know that Hemann ever exited and all the details about the lives of Indians 😊
And yes, life is a circle, not only for Indians...........great quote!
Howdy Miss Lena! yes that quote is universal in truth isn't it? Well thanks so much for the kind words, it is one of the most amazing stories ever. lol. It's going to be hard to find another one this good.
Yes, he kept in great shape, it must have been all those raw organs that he ate!
Oh my gosh! I was thinking it was the studs he was doing on the horse, lol. You just had to bring that up, did you!!!
And yes, this story will be hard to match! As I said, it was the best so far! Maybe the artists could work well if you find it, although it will not be gruesome, lol.
I do have other Indian captive stories but I'll wait and do them another time, give people a break from that storyline.
lol..yes I had to tease you about all the raw meat he ate!
You are such a troublemaker..................and I wrote studs instead of stunts,lol.
Oh you do? I hope that one has happy ending too! But I agree; we need break, lol.
Yeah you can't get much more terrifying and stressful than being captured by Indians! I have a book by a young lady who got captured and it's disturbing, she went through hell but was bought back after about 6 months I think. but it's brutal.
She was captured with Cynthia Parker who stayed with the Comanche and who had her son Quanah Parker, who became one of their greatest chiefs and who Herman stayed with at the last of his time with the Indians.
Oh STUNTS! that makes sense now! lol.
Oh dear!!! That sounds horrific! But how incredible was Cynthia Parker who survived and eventually who had son who became the grates chiefs. Of course I remember him and his mother from he story.
So I guess, you will write about this other woman too?
I might write about it eventually but I don't want people to get the wrong opinion about the Indians if they don't know much about them. Herman's story was great because I could present both sides. Her story in this book is just a nightmare I think. lol. I haven't read all of it though, I'd have to do that first and then decide but I think it puts them in a very bad light and sometimes they DID act like demonic bloodthirsty animals. Their hatred for their enemies was unreal.
I wanted to do a series about Cynthia Parker but she never told her story to anyone so I can't really do that. All we know is what happened in the attack where she was taken, and then this other girl gave her version of what it was like up until she was ransomed but we know that Cynthia Parker came to love the Comanche people. How that happened we don't know.
I could tell PART of Cynthia's story.
Good day janton, Hermann had an amazing life living as an Indian and as a white man, seeing both sides of the coin. How old was he janton? What struck me most of all was his enormous faith in God.
Howdy today angiemitchell! Yes, his faith in God, I think it helped that he realized that he was miraculously saved time after time! lol. I think he knew without a doubt that it had to be God. If I figured it right he was about 75 when he died.
janton, Hermann would have been taught about God before he was taken by the Indians. He must have strongly believed as a child.
Exactly. I was kind of shocked that he still remembered about God during all those years with the Indians.
So you're saying that he just summarised the remainder of his years in a few words - "So yeah, I got old and that's it"? After all that hardship I guess Hermann the German just wanted a peaceful life and maybe not much happened after?
Or were you too drunk to read his book and cobbled together this blog Lord Janton? I keep telling you, beer is not the answer lol
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lol! I was quite disappointed that he ended his life story when he still had 2/3rds of his life to live! He got married and had 5 kids, the courtship had to have some funny stories at least! but he wanted to keep all that private so that's fine. It's the first time one of my stories has had a good ending though, you should like that. Most of them end in a suprise, violent death! lol.
Haha is that because you went in all guns blazing and shot them yourself?
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lol! that's hilarious sir nickyhavey. I gotta go over and see if you done wrote anything worth reading or are you too busy hiking? hey you don't have to post if you're busy, that can be a huge hassle, just buy your votes like I do, then you don't have to worry about it!
There's always time to make a post, even if it's a giant ball of fluff Lord Janton haha. Need to build up the steem pot so that one day I could potentially live off of it. And I definitely won't be selling my upvotes. They are gold dust haha
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Howdy tonight sir nickyhavey! so you are still bullish on steem and steemit? If it lasts and the price goes up a ways you could actually live off of it and travel around doing travel posts..in a couple years or so.
Having seen these other crypto blogging platforms that are out, I have to say I am more bullish on steem than I am on the others but I have not spent as long on them as I have on steem and don't have the time to keep involved. Better to focus on 1 I think. Besides, all these other platforms aren't taking any users away from the mainstream sites, maybe a few steemians but they still post here which is what I don't get. It's like sleeping with the enemy?
Exactly my plan Lord Janton, if I can build my steem account up and get it to afford even just a side income, I'll be over the moon. Maybe it will contribute to buying my first house. Who knows? The platform is more developed than others and has a unique point over Facebook and the like in that it doesn't censor content (unless you get an angry whale flagging and hiding content)
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Howdy sir nickyhavey! good points, especially for a Brit. I still like it too except recently it seems like it's almost impossible to grow your account, the growth has slowed to a snails pace. And I don't think the new hardfork is going to help anyone. In fact, everyone I talk to hates the idea of a 50/50 split. It sounds pretty snowflaky to me, you Brits probably love the idea!
Are you signing up for Palnet?
Good work Jonboy @janton. I didn't read any of the rest of this man's story
But your synopsis here is worthy of a good story.
And of course I upvoted it. ☺
Howdy sir jerrytsuseer! Well thanks for stopping by. Yes, it was one of the most astounding stories I've ever heard, now I'll try to find another good one! Thanks so much for reading and commenting.