Geronimo's descendants demand return of 'stolen' remains
American Indian leader Geronimo's descendants have launched
a legal fight to have his 'stolen' remains returned to his birthplace in the Gila
Mountains New
Mexico
By Tom Leonard in New York
They claim his body was taken by members of Skull and Bones,
a secret student society, and are hidden at Yale University
George W Bush's grandfather and two other members of the
group are said to have taken the remains of the Apache warrior Geronimo during
the First World War.
However, the society's repeated refusal to comment on the
story, or on rumours that new members have to kiss the chief's skull, have
prompted the extraordinary lawsuit.
In a court action that names not only Yale and the society,
but also Barack Obama and Robert Gates, his defence secretary, 20 descendants
of the famous American Indian leader are seeking to recover his remains so his
spirit can be laid to rest in his tribal homeland.
Their legal action, filed this week in a federal-district
court in Washington DC Fort
Sill Oklahoma
Related Articles
Three Bonesmen, including Prescott Bush, served at Fort
Sill
The trio were rumoured to have dug up Geronimo's remains in
1918 and took some of them back to Yale where they are supposedly still kept in
the society's hall – known as the "Tomb" – on the university campus.
The Skull and Bones, whose illustrious membership has
numbered three US
The lawsuit – which also names Pete Geren, the Army
Secretary, as a defendant – seeks to "to free Geronimo, his remains,
funerary objects and spirit from 100 years of imprisonment at Fort Sill,
Oklahoma, the Yale University campus at New Haven, Connecticut and wherever
else they may be found".
Mr Obama and his colleagues were included in the action
because Geronimo was initially buried on US
The remains would be returned to Geronimo's birthplace in
the Gila Mountains of New Mexico for a traditional Apache burial, said his
great-grandson, Harlyn.
He stressed that such a burial was one of the most important
sacred rites in his tribe's culture.
"It's been 100 years since the death of my
great-grandfather in 1909. It's been 100 years of imprisonment," Mr
Geronimo said outside court.
"The spirit is wandering until a proper burial has been
performed. The only way to put this into closure is to release the remains, his
spirit, so that he can be taken back to his homeland in the Gila
Mountains Gila
River ." The suit contends that Geronimo's descendants are
entitled to his remains and funerary possessions under the 1990 American Indian
Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
The Geronimo family are being represented by Ramsey Clark,
who was attorney general under President Lyndon Johnson.
"In this lawsuit, we're going to find out if the bones
are there or not," he said.
Mr Geronimo said he hoped the people named in the suit would
take it seriously.
A spokesman for Yale said the university had "no relics
or bones belonging to Geronimo" but stressed it could not answer for Skull
and Bones because it was independent. The society has so far refused to
comment.
Aged 79, Geronimo died of pneumonia in 1909 as a prisoner of
war at Fort Sill
Skull and Bones, about which George W Bush once wrote that
it was "so secret, I can't say anything more", has never said whether
any of Geronimo's remains are in its possession.
However, in 2006, the Yale Alumni magazine published a
letter written at the time of the alleged grave robbery in which a Skull and
Bones member confirmed that Geronimo's skull, femurs and some of his riding
gear had been taken to the society's hall.
The letter prompted Harlyn Geronimo to write to President
Bush, but he said he never got a reply.
Geronimo's Descendants Sue Yale's Skull And Bones Over
Remains
STEPHANIE REITZ 02/18/09
HARTFORD, Conn. — Geronimo's descendants have sued Skull and
Bones - the secret society at Yale University linked to presidents and
other powerful figures _ claiming that its members stole the remains of the
legendary Apache leader decades ago and have kept them ever since.
The federal lawsuit filed in Washington
Geronimo's great-grandson Harlyn Geronimo said his family
believes Skull and Bones members took some of the remains in 1918 from a burial
plot in Fort Sill , Okla. New Haven
"I believe strongly from my heart that his spirit was
never released," Harlyn Geronimo said.
Both Presidents Bush, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and many
others in powerful government and industry positions are members of the society,
which is not affiliated with the university.
After years of famously fighting the U.S.
Geronimo was eventually sent to Fort
Sill
According to lore, members of Skull and Bones - including
former President George W. Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush - dug up his grave
when a group of Army volunteers from Yale were stationed at the fort during
World War I, taking his skull and some of his bones.
Harlyn Geronimo, 61, wants those remains and any held by the
federal government turned over to the family so they can be reburied near the
Indian leader's birthplace in southern New Mexico
Their lawsuit also names President Barack Obama, Defense
Secretary Robert Gates and Army Secretary Pete Geren as defendants.
"I want them to understand we mean business," said
Harlyn Geronimo, who lives in New Mexico
Neither members of Skull and Bones, who closely guard their
secrecy, nor the Russell Trust Association, the organization's business arm for
tax purposes, could not be reached for comment.
Justice Department spokesman Andrew Ames said the government
will "review the complaint and respond in court at the appropriate
time."
Yale officials declined to comment Wednesday, saying they
had not yet seen the lawsuit. Spokesman Tom Conroy noted the Skull and Bones
crypt is not on Yale property.
Membership into Skull and Bones marks the elite of the
elite at the Ivy League school. Only 15 Yale seniors are asked to join each
year.
Members swear an oath of secrecy about the group and its
strange rituals, which include devotion to the number "322" and
initiation rites such as confessing sexual secrets and kissing a skull. The
atmosphere makes Skull and Bones favorite fodder for conspiracy theorists.
Its most enduring story is the one concerning Geronimo's
remains, and in 2005, Yale historian Marc Wortman discovered a letter written
in 1918 from one Skull and Bones member to another that seemed to lend validity
to the tale.
The letter, sent to F. Trubee Davison by Winter Mead, said
Geronimo's skull and other remains were taken from the leader's burial site,
along with several pieces of tack for a horse.
"The skull of the worthy Geronimo the Terrible, exhumed
from its tomb at Fort Sill by your club and Knight Haffuer, is now safe inside
the T - together with is well worn femurs, bit and saddle horn," Mead
wrote.
Wortman, however, has said he is skeptical the bones are
actually Geronimo's.
Geronimo's descendants say in their lawsuit that they want
to uncover any information that people know, but have been keeping to
themselves.
"To assure that all existing remains of Geronimo and
funerary objects are recovered by Geronimo's linear descendants, the Order of
Skull and Bones and Yale University must account for any such articles that are
or have been in their possession, or on their property, and persons with
knowledge must provide any facts known to them concerning the claims," the
descendants' lawsuit says.
If the bones at Yale aren't those of Geronimo, Harlyn
Geronimo believes they belonged to one of the Apache prisoners who died at Fort
Sill
Harlyn Geronimo wrote to President George W. Bush in 2006,
seeking his help in recovering the bones. He thought that since the president's
grandfather was allegedly one of those who helped steal the bones, the
president would want to help return them.
Judge dismisses Geronimo lawsuit
A lawsuit filed by descendants of the Native American
chieftain Geronimo, who claimed some of his remains were stolen in 1918 by the
secretive Skull and Bones society of Yale University, has been dismissed by a
federal judge.
The lawsuit was filed last year in Washington New
Mexico
It claimed that during the First World War, Skull and Bones
members, including Prescott Bush, the grandfather of former US Fort
Sill , Oklahoma
Judge Richard Roberts last month granted a Justice
Department motion to dismiss, saying the plaintiffs did not establish the
government had waived its right not to be sued without its consent.
He also dismissed the lawsuit against Yale and the society,
which is not officially affiliated with the university, saying the plaintiffs
cited a law that applies only to Native American cultural items excavated or
discovered after 1990.
Geronimo died aged 79 as a prisoner of war at Fort
Sill
The Skull and Bones illustrious membership includes three
former US
Geronimo’s Remains to Remain with Skull and Bones: Judge
Dismisses Lawsuit
August 12, 2010
By Grant Lawrence
Bodhi Thunder
Imagine if some club had George Washington’s skull and used
it as a source for amusement and weird rituals.
Americans would be outraged and demand justice for the
disrespect paid to the father of their country.
It has been reported that George W. Bush’s Yale Skull and
Bones Society uses the skull of Geronimo for their college rituals. Skull and
Bones, out of respect, should apologize and turn the skull over to the
descendants of Geronimo.
Instead they refuse to do what is right by hiding behind the
law.
Recently a judge threw out the lawsuit by the descendants of
Geronimo, a great Apache Indian leader, asking for his remains to be returned
and buried in New Mexico
.…The lawsuit was filed last year in Washington New
Mexico
It claimed that during the First World War, Skull and Bones
members, including Prescott Bush, the grandfather of former US Fort
Sill , Oklahoma
The judge threw out the lawsuit because the law protecting
Native remains in America
In other words, here is another example where the law is
doing what it is meant to do.
The law is meant to protect the rich and powerful at the
expense of those that have neither wealth nor power. The justice system is
generally a sham and a scam set up to appear as if there is justice.
It is an outrage that the sacred remains of a great leader
will continue to be used as a play thing for parties and rituals of
the super rich.
I live and work among the Navajo, cousins of the Apaches. I
can tell you how much they respect the remains of the deceased and will not
even disturb ancient Pueblo
Unlike the Navajo, the law in this country only respects the
wealth of the powerful.
I work as a school counselor and mental health
counselor in Gallup , New Mexico
Mystery of The Bones: Geronimo's Missing Skull
by DIANE ORSON
For decades, mystery has surrounded an elite secret society
at Yale University Fort Sill , Okla.
As the story goes, nine years after Geronimo's death, Skull
and Bones members who were stationed at the army outpost dug up the warrior's
grave and stole his skull, as well as some bones and other personal relics.
They then sprinted the remains away to New Haven ,
Conn.
To make matters even more intriguing, legend has it that the
grave-robbing posse included Prescott Bush, father of George H.W. and
grandfather of George W.
A Letter Offers Clues
All of this is speculative; Skull and Bones members swear an
oath never to reveal what goes on inside the Tomb. But author Marc Wortman says
that when he was at Yale's Sterling Library researching The Millionaire's
Unit, his book about young men from the university who flew during World War I,
he stumbled on a letter that seemed to confirm the rumor.
Written from one Bonesman to another, the letter, which is
dated 1918, reads:
The skull of the worthy Geronimo the Terrible exhumed from
its tomb at Fort Sill by your club and the Knight Haffner is now safe inside
the Tomb, together with his well-worn femurs, bit and saddle horn.
Now 20 descendants of Geronimo have filed a lawsuit against
Skull and Bones, Yale University U.S. New Haven Fort
Sill
Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark who represents the
Geronimo family says that Geronimo made it very clear — even before his
surrender — that he wanted to be in the Apache lands of southwestern New
Mexico
"When he met with Teddy Roosevelt, for instance, in
March of 1905, his request was that he and the other Chiricahua Apaches who
were prisoners of war be permitted to return to the headwaters of the Gila
River ... adding that if he couldn't return in his lifetime, that he wanted to
be buried there," says Clark.
But Suzan Shown Harjo, president of The Morning Star
Institute, a Native rights organization, says it might not be possible to
return Geronimo's remains. Twenty years ago, an Apache tribal chairwoman told
Harjo that Geronimo's body had already been moved from Oklahoma New Mexico Connecticut
The Mystery Abides
We may never know the truth about Geronimo's remains, says
Jeff Houser, chairman of the Fort Sill Apache tribe. Houser is uncomfortable
with the lawsuit and would prefer not to disturb Native human remains. He also
disputes the idea that Apaches are traditionally buried in their homeland.
"Unlike what was stated in the complaint, Apaches do
not like to disinter remains, and there is no tradition of burying them in
their birthplace. Apaches were nomadic people," says Houser. "When
somebody is buried we traditionally do not revisit the grave. We don't make a
big deal out of it."
And there's a further complication. Alexandra Robbins,
author Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the
Hidden Paths of Power says that even if Bonesmen displayed Geronimo's
skull in the Tomb at one time, it's likely not there now.
"There are, at any one time, approximately 800 living
members of this organization across the world. So any of them could have put
the skull anywhere by now. And it's never going to surface," says Robbins.
In an e-mail, Yale
University
Efforts to reach members of Skull and Bones for comment were
met with silence.
Geronimo was in prison in Fort Sill ,
Okla.
The Skull and Bones clubhouse — also known as "The
Tomb" — is secured with a padlock. Members are forbidden to reveal what
happens inside the building.
Geronimo: A century after his death, mysteriously tied to
Bin Laden, the CIA and Skull and Bones May
3, 2011 |
Geronimo was an Apache leader in the 19th century. More
than 100 years after his death the Native American warrior's name is back in
the news when it was revealed that "Geronimo" was the code name used
for Osama Bin Laden while the U.S.
Born in what would later become New
Mexico U.S.
Geronimo was sent to an Army outpost at Fort
Sill Oklahoma
In 1918, according to legend, members of the secret Skull
and Bones club at Yale (including, allegedly, former President George W.
Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush) dug up Geronimo's grave when a
group of Army volunteers from Ivy League school was stationed at Fort
Sill
On the 99th anniversary of Geronimo's death a group of 20 of
the warrior's decendants sued the U.S.
In 2010 Judge Richard Roberts granted a Justice
Department motion to dismiss the suit. Geronimo's relatives, he said, failed to
establish that the government waived its right not to be sued. Roberts
also
dismissed the lawsuit against Skull and Bones and Yale, saying the plaintiffs cited a law that applies only to Native American cultural items excavated or discovered after 1990.
Though Skull and Bones is often known as a
Yale organization, the college has never officially recognized it. When
President George W. Bush was asked on "Meet The Press" about Skull
and Bones he said, "it's so secret we can't talk about it."
Don Oldenburg of the Washington Post wrote: "Conspiracy
theorists have a field day over the fact that Bonesmen were among the founders
of the Central Intelligence Agency. They love to point out that statues of the
patriot spy Nathan Hale, Yale 1773, stand on both the university's campus
and the CIA 's headquarters in Langley [Va.
Though one of Oldenburg's sources has a perfectly good
explaination for the coincidence, there's no doubt that more conspiracy
theorists will reopen their argument that there is a relationship between Skull
and Bones and the CIA now that the world
knows that the CIA -led mission to kill Bin
Laden used the name of an alleged victim of the secret society: Geronimo.
The Skull—and the Bones
This month, 125 years ago, the Apache warrior Geronimo
surrendered to U.S. Yale University Oklahoma New Mexico
By Marc Wortman
‘Did a group from Skull and Bones break into Geronimo’s tomb
and ship his skull back to the society’s clubhouse at Yale?” My question was
directed at Towana Spivey, the director of the Fort
Sill National Historic
Landmark Museum Fort
Sill Oklahoma
Spivey has been asked this question before. He sat across
from me at an old rolltop desk in the office from which Custer, Sherman Sheridan Cheyenne U.S. Connecticut
While training at Fort
Sill
There had long been rumors about a human skull kept in a
glass case by the club’s front door—a skull that members reportedly refer to as
“Geronimo.” In the 1980s, the rumors began to acquire solidity when a secret
history of the goings-on at Skull and Bones mysteriously surfaced. The document,
apparently compiled for the club in 1933 by the literary critic F. O.
Matthiessen, a member of the club’s class of 1923, recounted a “mad expedition”
in 1918 to a graveyard at Fort Sill
They took turns with a pickax until they “pried out the
trophy.” Matthiessen declared it their society’s “most spectacular ‘crook,’”
their code word for theft of a trophy brought back to the clubhouse, on High
Street in New Haven
The entry from the logbook was a significant piece of
evidence. In 2005, while researching a book on another subject, I stumbled
across a second important clue. It was a 1918 letter between two Bonesmen. Written
by an undergraduate, Winter Mead, to a Skull and Bones member from the previous
year’s cohort, F. Trubee Davison, who was recovering at home from injuries
suffered while training to serve as a pilot in the First World War. Davison
would later become president of the American
Museum Fort
Sill
Ramsey Clark, attorney general under President Lyndon Baines
Johnson, has been pursuing unpopular and sometimes hopeless causes for longer
than most Americans have been alive. Since leaving the federal government, in
1969, he has been a thorn in its side, recently contesting U.S. Pakistan
Courteous to a fault, speaking slowly and precisely in a
soft Texas Clark
calls the matter of the missing skull part of a wider “human rights” issue
involving the treatment of Native Americans. He told me in one of our numerous
conversations, “The real purpose is to return his remains to New
Mexico Clark
said, “Everything depends on exhumation of the grave to determine whether it is
Geronimo’s remains, and whether they are complete.”
On February 17,
2009 —100 years to the day after Geronimo’s death, at Fort
Sill Washington , D.C. Yale
University
The flesh-and-blood Geronimo arose as a leader of his
Chiricahua Apache band through his uncanny success in hit-and-run guerrilla
fighting. He secured his mythic status in the course of a final, bloody
campaign in 1886 as he and a small band of followers eluded fully a quarter of
the U.S. Army. Geronimo finally surrendered, after winning the army’s promise
of eventual release to his former homeland, along the border of today’s New
Mexico Arizona U.S. Florida Alabama Fort Sill Lawton
At a Washington Gila River headwaters region of New
Mexico
As he considered whether to take on the Geronimo case,
Ramsey Clark recalls, “Harlyn and his wife got me down by the Rio
Grande
WHO IS A GERONIMO?
‘We don’t want the attention,” said Lariat Geronimo, the
warrior’s great-grandson. “We’re trying to put a stop to this nonsense.” We
were talking over dinner in a tavern tucked into the high-country ski town of Ruidoso New
Mexico Inn of
the Mountain Gods Resort and Casino complex, where huge plate-glass windows
frame the 12,000-foot-high Sierra Blanca peak . Busloads
of gamblers from El Paso
The news of the Ramsey Clark lawsuit took most Apache by surprise,
including Lariat and his extended family. They were never contacted about the
litigation, Lariat said.
“When Harlyn showed up on CNN, it made a lot of people
angry.” He sounded angry now. “Apache culture is about being who you are and
not taking an identity that doesn’t belong to you.” And the Geronimo name?
“He’s using it for his own personal gain.” I said, Wait, he’s your cousin — it’s
his name too. Lariat replied, “From where I come from, he has no direct
connection to Geronimo. Anyone can change his name.”
Harlyn Geronimo, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, was born
Harlyn Via. Now 63 years old, he is a sometime actor and a self-proclaimed
Apache medicine man who lives in Mescalero. Harlyn is also a sculptor and has
said that he would like the new Geronimo grave site to be marked by a
monumental sculpture of his own creation. About 15 Years ago, Harlyn and his
brother Joseph legally changed their surname to Geronimo.
According to at least one credible Geronimo biographer,
their grandmother was Geronimo’s daughter from a brief marriage during the
period of his exile in Alabama
The evening after I met Lariat, I had a drink with Lariat’s
cousin Robert Lensen Geronimo, an undisputed great-grandson of the warrior. He
is 42 and an accountant for the Mescalero Apaches’ casino business. His face is
a bit rounder, but he looks enough like his ancestor to have posed for
a National Geographic–magazine remake of an iconic 1885–86 photograph of
Geronimo. Sitting at the bar at the Inn of the Mountain
Gods, Robert said of Harlyn and Joseph, “I always knew them as Via, and out of
the blue they changed their name to Geronimo.”
Whatever the nature of Harlyn’s kinship, he has certainly
exploited the name. As Harlyn Geronimo, he has acted on television and been
featured in documentaries. He has traveled to France Germany America France Paris Europe ,
and unreachable. I finally contacted his brother Joseph, in Mescalero. Joseph
was not interested in pursuing a conversation. What he in fact said was “I
ain’t giving anything away for a handful of beads. Mail me a check, and if it’s
enough and don’t bounce, I’ll talk.”
I turned to a non-Indian familiar with the Geronimo family,
Henrietta Stockel. She has lived just outside the Mescalero, reservation on and
off since the 1970s. She has published 10 books about Chiricahua Apache culture
and history. She calls Harlyn’s lineage “murky” and adds, “There’s always been
a conflict, especially among the elders, whether Harlyn and Joseph are the true
blood descendants of Geronimo.” One of those elders, an Apache woman I met with
on the Mescalero reservation insisted that I not quote her by name. “People
here don’t understand what they’re trying to do,” she said of the former Via
brothers. “I think all of this is for publicity.”
Ramsey Clark hasn't been to Mescalero since this case began,
but he said, “I don’t think there’s any question about Harlyn’s bloodline.” He
did wonder whether something more sinister was at work, pushing the other side
to fight him to keep the great renegade’s grave at Fort
Sill
CASINO WARS
It gets complicated. When Lariat Geronimo learned about
Harlyn’s lawsuit, he sent a letter to the Mescalero tribal council asking that
the tribe intervene to oppose it. It wasn’t long before word of the lawsuit
reached the small group of Apaches still living near Fort
Sill Oklahoma Fort Sill New
Mexico Apache Oklahoma
Some 300 Chiricahua Apache descendants, designated the Fort
Sill Apache Tribe, still live in Oklahoma Fort
Sill Lawton
Ramsey Clark harbors suspicions about Houser’s motives for
injecting himself into the case: he believes the Fort Sill Apaches want to keep
Geronimo’s remains, or what’s left of them, nearby, because Geronimo’s grave
site brings in tourists—“and they gamble.”
DISPUTED GROUND Geronimo’s grave, in the Apache
Prisoner of War Cemetery, at Fort Sill , Oklahoma
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