1918 Letter Claims Geronimo's Bones Found

HARTFORD, Conn. - A Yale University historian discovered a 1918 letter that raises anew questions about a secretive Yale student society and the remains of the American Indian leader Geronimo.

The letter, written by a member of Skull and Bones to another member of the society, purports that some of the Indian leader's remains were spirited from his burial plot in Fort Sill, Okla., to a stone tomb in New Haven that serves as the club's headquarters.

A portion of the letter and an accompanying story were posted Monday on the Yale Alumni Magazine's Web site.

At one of the most selective universities in the country, Skull and Bones marks the elite of the elite. Only 15 Yale seniors are asked to join each year. Alumni include President Bush, Sen. John Kerry, President William Howard Taft, numerous members of Congress, media leaders, Wall Street financiers, the scions of wealthy families and agents in the CIA.

Members swear an oath of secrecy about the group and its strange rituals, which includes devotion to the number "322" and initiation rites that include confessing sexual secrets and kissing a skull. The atmosphere makes Skull and Bones favorite fodder for conspiracy theorists.

Its most enduring story concerns Geronimo, who died in 1909. According to lore, members of Skull and Bones — including the president'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.

A purported diary of the event, sent to a leader of the San Carlos Apache tribal nation in the 1980s by an anonymous Bonesman, records that the Bonesmen took from the grave some bones and several pieces of tack for a horse.

The 1918 letter posted on Yale's alumni Web site was discovered last fall by researcher Marc Wortman. 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.

"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.

Mead was not at Fort Sill and Wortman said Monday he is skeptical the bones are actually those of the famed Indian fighter.

"What I think we could probably say is they removed some skull and bones and other materials from a grave at Fort Sill," he said. "Historically, it may be impossible to prove it's Geronimo's. They believe it's from Geronimo."

Wortman said he found the letter in Yale's archives while researching Davison, a member of a group of wealthy Yale students who founded a flying squadron.

Harlyn Geronimo, the great grandson of Geronimo, said he has been looking for a lawyer to sue the U.S. Army, which runs Fort Sill. Discovery of the letter could help, he said.

"It's keeping it alive and now it makes me really want to confront the issue with my attorneys," said Geronimo, of Mescalero, N.M. "If we get the remains back ... and find that, for instance, that bones are missing, you know who to blame."

"I was stunned and I felt a little bit like I had stumbled on an illicit treasure and something that does not belong to me and something the world should know about," he said.

My impression was that Geronimo was a Mescalero Apache, not a Chiricaua which is a different branch of the Apache tribe.

Here's what I found:

Subdivisions of the Apache Tribe as explained by Geronimo
Source: As Told By Geronimo, Public Domain Document
The Apache Indians are divided into six sub tribes. To one of these, the Be-don-ko-he, I belong.
Our tribe inhabited that region of mountainous country which lies west from the east line of Arizona, and south from the head waters of the Gila River.
East of us lived the Chi-hen-ne (Ojo Caliente), (Hot Springs) Apaches. Our tribe never had any difficulty with them.
Victorio, their chief, was always a friend to me. He always helped our tribe when we asked him for help. He lost his life in the defense of the rights of his people. He was a good man and a brave warrior.
His son, Charlie, now lives here in this reservation with us.
North of us lived the White Mountain Apaches. They were not always on the best of terms with our tribe, yet we seldom had any war with them. I knew their chief, Hash-ka-ai-la, personally, and I considered him a good warrior.
Their range was next to that of the Navajo Indians, who were not of the same blood as the Apaches. We held councils with all Apache tribes, but never with the Navajo Indians. However, we traded with them and sometimes visited them.
To the west of our country ranged the Chi-e-a-hen Apaches. They had two chiefs within my time, Co-si-to and Co-da-hoo-yah. They were friendly, but not intimate with our tribe.
South of us lived the Cho-kon-en (Chiricahua) Apaches, whose chief in the old days was Cochise, and later his son, Naiche.
This tribe was always on the most friendly terms with us. We were often in camp and on the trail together. Naiche, who was my companion in arms, is now my companion in bondage.
To the south and west of us lived the Ned-ni Apaches. Their chief was Whoa, called by the Mexicans Capitan Whoa They were our firm friends.
The land of this tribe lies partly in Old Mexico and partly in Arizona. Whoa and I often camped and fought side by side as brothers.
My enemies were his enemies, my friends his friends. He is dead now, but his son Asa is interpreting this story for me.
Still the four tribes (Bedonkohe, Chokonen, Chihenne, and Nedni), who were fast friends in the days of freedom, cling together as they decrease in number. Only the destruction of all our people would dissolve our bonds of friendship.
We are vanishing from the earth, yet I cannot think we are useless or Usen would not have created us.
He created all tribes of men and certainly had a righteous purpose in creating each.
For each tribe of men Usen created, He also made a home. In the land created for any particular tribe, He placed whatever would be best for the welfare of that tribe.
Usen created the Apaches He also created their homes in the West. He gave to them such grain, fruits, and game as they needed to eat.
To restore their health when disease attacked them He made many different herbs to grow. He taught them where to find these herbs, and how to prepare them for medicine.
He gave the Apaches a pleasant climate and all they needed for clothing and shelter was at hand.
Thus it was in the beginning: the Apaches and their homes each created for the other by Usen himself.
When they are taken from these homes they sicken and die. How long will it be until it is said, there are no Apaches?

So, it appears that Geronimo was a Bedonkohe Apache.

"There's no good reason to believe Geronimo's remains ever left Oklahoma, and plenty of reasons to think they didn't. One obvious problem is the description of the theft in the S&B history: "The ring of pick on stone and thud of earth on earth alone disturbs the peace of the prairie. An axe pried open the iron door of the tomb, and Pat [short for 'patriarch,' the honorific used among S&B alums] Bush entered and started to dig. . . . At the exact bottom of the small round hole, Pat James dug deep and pried out the trophy itself. . . . We quickly closed the grave, shut the door and sped home.""

What a hoot, eh? Trouble is, the description bears no relationship to the actual burial place, which wasn't a mausoleum with a door, as the account suggests, but rather a conventional grave in the ground. An S&B representative has described the "crook" account as a hoax, and no less than celebrity biographer Kitty Kelley, in The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty (2004), writes that the whole thing was a tall tale cooked up by Prescott Bush and friends that made its way into S&B lore. OK, so Kelley isn't a sterling source, but most accounts agree that stories of Geronimo's bones having been moved were circulating before 1918--put in play, perhaps, by the local Apache in hopes of discouraging thieves. (Today the grave is covered by a concrete slab and marked with a pyramid of stones, but these were added after 1918.) A Fort Sill spokesman tells me, "There is no evidence to indicate the bones are anywhere but in the grave site."

S&B, through another Bush, offered a skull to the Apaches, which apparently was that of a 10 year old boy, not Geronimo.

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