The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 85, July 1981 - April, 1982 Page: 469

Book Reviews

come up with an oral-history masterpiece ready to serve to any aficio-
nado of recent Apache history.
Eve Ball, a long-time resident of Ruidoso, a resort town on the
fringe of the Mescalero Apache reservation in southern New Mexico,
offers an exciting description of the life styles, dangers, hardships, and
dreams of the Indian residents of this area between the Civil War and
1955. Through friendly interviews the author probes the innermost
feelings, prejudices, loves, hatreds, traditions, and mores of leaders as
well as lesser-known members of Apache tribes living in southeastern
New Mexico, southern Arizona, southwestern Texas, and northern
Mexico.
She divides her study into three sections: "Indeh: the Dead," to
this reviewer the most interesting portion; "Twenty-Seven Years as
Prisoners of War," in Florida and Oklahoma; and "Coveted Haven,"
a description of recent Apache-Anglo relations. Most of her interviews
were provided by Daklugie, son of Juh, chief of the Nednhi Apaches
and nephew of Geronimo. It took four years of patience and persis-
tence to break through the almost impenetrable wall of reticence of
this interesting leader, but the author's final success was eminently
rewarding. Daklugie's penetrating and expectedly biased accounts
offer intriguing contrasts with "White-Eye" viewpoints found in gov-
ernment and secondary accounts. The author deliberately concentrat-
ed her interviews on areas of disagreement rather than on well-known,
noncontroversial episodes found in the numerous recent accounts of
U.S.-Apache relations.
If you want to learn about Apache traditions, their life-permeating
religious beliefs, their competition for tribal leadership, their remark-
able devotion to family, why they despised General Nelson A. Miles
but admired General George Crook, the reasons for their great ad-
miration of Geronimo and Chato (in spite of the former's pathetic
death), and many other little-known aspects of Apache life, then this
is the book for you. Adding to the interest are such facets of Apache
life as why they refused to use mirrors, why they feared bodily mutila-
tion more than death, why they refused to dig for and use gold, their
use of cleverly processed herbs 'to color deer skins, their respect for
tepee privacy, and their use of "chili bombs" to incapacitate their
enemies.
Dan L. Thrapp, himself the author of several books on Apaches,
states in the foreword that Eve Ball over the span of three decades has
become "a part of them, as she has come to share with the Apaches in

469