Part 3 (1/2)

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5. Apaches, Comanches, and Other Plains Indians

THE APACHES and the bareback Indians of the Plains were extraordinary _hombres del campo--_men of the outdoors, plainsmen, woodsmen, trailers, hunters, endurers. They knew some phases of nature with an intimacy that few civilized naturalists ever attain to. It is unfortunate that most of the literature about them is from their enemies. Yet an enemy often teaches a man more than his friends and makes him work harder.

See ”Indian Culture,” ”Texas Rangers.”

BOURKE, JOHN G. _On the Border with Crook_, London, 1892. Reprinted by Long's College Book Co., Columbus, Ohio. A truly great book, on both Apaches and Arizona frontier. Bourke had amplitude, and he knew.

BUCKELEW, F. M. _The Indian Captive_, Bandera, Texas, 1925. Homely and realistic. OP.

CATLIN, GEORGE. _Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Conditions of the North American Indians, Written during Eight Years'

Travel, 1832-39_, 1841. Despite many strictures, Catlin's two volumes remain standard. I am pleased to find Frank Roe, in _The North American Buffalo_, standing up for him. In _Pursuit of the Horizon: A Life of George Catlin, Painter and Recorder of the American Indian_, New York, 1948, Loyd Haberly fails in evaluating evidence but brings out the man's career and character.

CLUM, WOODWORTH. _Apache Agent_, Boston, 1936. Worthy autobiography of a n.o.ble understander of the Apache people. OP.

COMFORT, WILL LEVINGTON. _Apache_, Dutton, New York, 1931. n.o.ble; vivid; semifiction.

DAVIS, BRITTON. _The Truth about Geronimo_, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1929. Davis helped run Geronimo down.

DEs.h.i.+ELDS, JAMES T. _Cynthia Ann Parker_, St. Louis, 1886; reprinted 1934. Good narrative of noted woman captive. OP.

DOBIE, J. FRANK. _The Mustangs_, Little, Brown, Boston, 1952. The opening chapters of this book distil a great deal of research by scholars on Plains Indian acquisition of horses, riding, and raiding.

GRINNELL, GEORGE BIRD. _The Cheyenne Indians_, New Haven, 1923. This two-volume work supersedes _The Fighting Cheyennes_, 1915. It is n.o.ble, ample, among the most select books on Plains Indians. _Blackfoot Lodge Tales: The Story of a Prairie People_, 1892, shows Grinnell's skill as storyteller at its best. _p.a.w.nee Hero Stories and Folk Tales_, 1893, is hardly an equal but it reveals the high values of life held by representatives of the original plainsmen. _The Story of the Indian_, 1895, is a general survey. All OP. Grinnell's knowledge and power as a writer on Indians and animals has not been sufficiently recognized.

He combined in a rare manner scholars.h.i.+p, plainsmans.h.i.+p, and the worldliness of publis.h.i.+ng.

{ill.u.s.t. caption = George Catlin, in _North American Indians_ (1841)}

HALEY, J. EVETTS. _Fort Concho and the Texas Frontier_, San Angelo Standard-Times, San Angelo, Texas, 1952. Mainly a history of military activities against Comanches and other tribes, laced with homilies on the free enterprise virtues of the conquerors.

LEE, NELSON. _Three Years among the Comanches_, 1859.

LEHMAN, HERMAN. _Nine Years with the Indians_, Bandera, Texas, 1927.

Best captive narrative of the Southwest.

LOCKWOOD, FRANK C. _The Apache Indians_, Macmillan, New York, 1938.

Factual history.

LONG LANCE, CHIEF BUFFALO CHILD. _Long Lance_, New York, 1928. OP. Long Lance was a Blackfoot only by adoption, but his imagination incorporated him into tribal life more powerfully than blood could have. He is said to have been a North Carolina mixture of Negro and Croatan Indian; he was a magnificent specimen of manhood with swart Indian complexion.

He fought in the Canadian army during World War I and thus became acquainted with the Blackfeet. No matter what the facts of his life, he wrote a vivid and moving autobiography of a Blackfoot Indian in whom the spirit of the tribe and the natural life of the Plains during buffalo days were incorporated. In 1932 in the California home of Anita Baldwin, daughter of the spectacular ”Lucky” Baldwin, he absented himself from this harsh world by a pistol shot.