https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/us/20geronimo.html
Geronimo’s Heirs Sue Secret Yale Society Over His Skull
HOUSTON — The descendants of Geronimo have sued Skull and Bones, a secret society at Yale University with ties to the Bush family, charging that its members robbed his grave in 1918 and have kept his skull in a glass case ever since.
The claim is part of a lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington on Tuesday, the 100th anniversary of Geronimo’s death. The Apache warrior’s heirs are seeking to recover all his remains, wherever they may be, and have them transferred to a new grave at the headwaters of the Gila River in New Mexico, where Geronimo was born and wished to be interred.
Geronimo died a prisoner of war at Fort Sill, Okla., in 1909. A longstanding tradition among members of Skull and Bones holds that Prescott S. Bush — father of President George Bush and grandfather of President George W. Bush — broke into the grave with some classmates during World War I and made off with the skull, two bones, a bridle and some stirrups, all of which were put on display at the group’s clubhouse in New Haven, known as the Tomb.
Ramsey Clark, a former United States attorney general who is representing Geronimo’s family, acknowledged he had no hard proof that the story was true. Yet he said he hoped the court would clear up the matter.
Tom Conroy, a spokesman for Yale, declined to comment on the lawsuit but was quick to note that the Tomb was not on university property.
Members of the Skull and Bones, who guard their organization’s secrecy, could not be reached for comment. Though the society is not officially affiliated with the university, many of Yale’s most powerful alumni are members, among them both Bush presidents and Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts.
Some local historians and anthropologists in Oklahoma have cast doubt on the tale, noting that no independent evidence has been found to suggest that Geronimo’s grave was disturbed in 1918. Ten years later, the army covered the grave with concrete and replaced a simple wooden headstone with a stone monument, making it nearly impregnable.
Geronimo, whose given name was Goyathlay, put up fierce resistance to white settlers, fighting the Mexican and United States armies for nearly three decades. He finally surrendered, with only 35 men left, to Gen. Nelson A. Miles on the New Mexico-Arizona border in 1886 and spent the rest of his life in prison, dying of pneumonia.
Not all Apaches want to move his remains to New Mexico. The branch of the tribe that settled at Fort Sill after Geronimo died is fighting to keep the grave where it is.
“There is nothing to be gained by digging up the dead,” said Jeff Houser, the chairman of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe. “It will not repair the damage to the tribe caused by its removal and imprisonment.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNzy7gkC1e8&ab_channel=LibraryofCongress
Harlyn Geronimo: 2015 National Book Festival
Updated at 7:50am — Geronimo Descendants Vow To Fight On After Dismissal of Lawsuit
Efforts will continue to repatriate warrior’s remains to Gila headwaters, lawyer says.
Efforts to repatriate the remains of the legendary Apache warrior to his birthplace at the headwaters of the Gila River will continue, despite recent legal setbacks, the attorney for a group of Geronimo’s descendants told the Las Cruces Sun-News.
U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts last month granted a U.S. Department of Justice motion to dismiss a lawsuit seeking repatriation of Geronimo’s remains, saying that plaintiffs had failed to establish that the government had waived its right not to be sued, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.
Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark filed suit on behalf of 20 descendants, including Mescalero resident Harlyn Geronimo, on Feb. 17, 2009, the 100th anniversary of Geronimo’s death, claiming that the legendary warrior’s remains were stolen in 1918 by members of Yale University’s Skull and Blones society from a graveyard in Fort Sill, Okla., according to the Sun-News.
The judge also said the lawsuit against Yale and the secret society should be dismissed because plaintiffs cited a law that only applies to Native American cultural items excavated or discovered after 1990, the AP reported.
Clark told the Sun-News in a telephone interview Tuesday that the plaintiffs haven’t given up the fight.
“We’re committed to trying to return Geronimo’s remnants to the headwaters of the Gila and there is new hope that we can find ways to do it. This judgment does not preclude other efforts,” Clark told the paper. “It is shameful that Geronimo’s remains would be in Fort sill in an Apache prisoner of war cemetery in contradiction to his wishes to live and die and be buried in the mountains where he was born.”
Clark said he has asked the federal court for an order to exhume the remains at Fort Sill to determine whether they are Geronimo’s and whether they are all there, the Sun-News said.
Meanwhile, Lariat Geronimo of Mescalero, a great-grandson of Geronimo who disputes Harlyn Geronimo’s ties to the warrior, told the Sun-News his family learned of the judge’s decision about two weeks ago and was pleased with the news.
“It’s going to stay there,” he said of the Oklahoma gravesite. “It they want to keep throwing their money around, go ahead.”
8:20am 5/6/09 — Geronimo Family Feud Escalates: Second group of descendants files motion Tuesday opposing removal of warrior’s remains to N.M.
A second group of Geronimo’s descendants and the Fort Sill Apache Tribe of Oklahoma went to court Tuesday to oppose the repatriation of the legendary Apache warrior’s remains to New Mexico — as sought in a February lawsuit by Harlyn Geronimo of Mescalero and others, the Las Cruces Sun-News reported.
Lariat Geronimo, also of Mescalero and a great-grandson of the warrior, claims that Harlyn Geronimo doesn’t have a valid claim as a descendant and shouldn’t have a say as to where the original Geronimo is buried, the Sun-News said.
“Our objective here is to set the record straight: Our family is the true Geronimos,” Lariat Geronimo said. “This guy is trying to ride on somebody else’s reputation.”
Harlyn Geronimo, who also claims to be the warrior’s great-grandson, filed suit on Feb. 17 — the 100th anniversary of Geronimo’s death — along with other family members seeking the return of his forebear’s remains to the headwaters of the Gila in New Mexico, the Sun-News said.
Harlyn Geronimo also asked for the return of any of the warrior’s remains that may be held by the secretive Skull and Bones Society at Yale University, which was rumored to have not only Geronimo’s skull but that of Pancho Villa.
Philip Thompson, an attorney for the Fort Sill Apaches, said the tribe and the second group of Geronimos didn’t name Skull and Bones as defendants in its motion to intervene in the case filed Tuesday, saying they weren’t going to wade into that debate for now, the Sun-News said.
9:45am 2/27/09 — Geronimo Lawsuit Sparks Family Feud: Another branch of the Apache warrior’s family wants remains to stay at Fort Sill, Okla.
A second family from the Mescalero Apache Reservation claiming to be descendants of Geronimo is planning to oppose an attempt — spelled out in a lawsuit filed earlier this month — to repatriate the legendary Apache warrior’s remains from Fort Sill, Okla., to New Mexico, the Las Cruces Sun-News reported.
Harlyn Geronimo, a former Mescalero councilman and Geronimo’s great-grandson, and several other descendants filed suit in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 17 — the 100th anniversary of the warrior’s death in captivity in Oklahoma — asking that the remains be brought to Geronimo’s reputed birthplace in the Gila Wilderness, the Sun-News said.
But another Mescalero resident who claims to be Geronimo’s great-grandson — 39-year-old Lariat Geronimo — told the Sun-News that he and his immediate family members are the true descendants of the warrior and they don’t want the remains moved from Oklahoma.
“Everybody from the original Geronimos are going to fight this; this is a form of identity theft, and we’re going to fix it,” Lariat told the paper in a phone interview. “My family, the true descendants, never considered (Harlyn Geronimo) family.”
Attempts to reach Harlyn Geronimo were unsuccessful, the Sun-News said.
Lariat Geronimo said Jeff Houser, chairman of the Fort Sill Apaches, visited one of his relatives in Mescalero over the weekend to confirm that the family was in fact opposed to repatriating the remains from Oklahoma, the paper reported.
Houser told the Sun-News that he’d heard through another tribal member that Lariat Geronimo’s family disagreed with the repatriation attempt.
Both branches of the family have ties to the historic Apache warrior, Houser told the paper, but he said he remains opposed to the Oklahoma gravesite being disturbed.
Houser said the Fort Sill Apaches would have deferred to Geronimo’s blood relatives if they all had agreed about what should be done with the remains, but because there’s a dispute, the Fort Sill Apaches should have the final say, the Sun-News reported.
Meanwhile, the U.S. House of Representatives this week approved a resolution honoring the Chiricahua Apache leader who died a prisoner of war 22 years after his surrender, the Albuquerque Journal reported this morning.
The resolution, which passed by a voice vote, was introduced by Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., at the request of the San Carlos Apache Tribe in southeast Arizona, and New Mexico Democratic Reps. Harry Teague and Ben Ray Lujan spoke in favor of the measure that hailed Geronimo as a “spiritual and intellectual leader” who led his people when their homeland was “invaded by the citizens and armies first of Mexico and then of the United States,” the Journal said.
That, according to the Journal, was a far cry from the end of the 19th century when Geronimo was “the most feared and hated Native American in the U.S. and Mexico.”
8:50am 2/19/09 — Geronimo’s Kin Sue Feds, Skull and Bones: And, while we’re at it, what about Pancho Villa’s skull, also allegedly stolen by Yale secret society?
A federal lawsuit filed this week by descendants of the legendary Apache warrior Geronimo to return their ancestor’s remains to his birthplace in New Mexico, also asks to clear up the longstanding rumor that members of the Yale secret society Skull and Bones stole Geronimo’s skull, bones and other items, the Albuquerque Journal reported this morning.
Mescalero Apache artist and former council member Harlyn Geronimo, the warrior’s great-grandson, and 19 other relatives filed suit in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday seeking the repatriation of Geronimo’s remains from Fort Sill, Okla., where the captured warrior died on Feb. 17, 1909, the Journal reported.
Named as defendants in the lawsuit are President Barack Hussein Obama, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Army Secretary Pete Geren, Yale University and the Order of Skull and Bones, according to a copy of the complaint (pdf download).
Yale and Skull and Bones are named because the lawsuit asks that if any of Geronimo’s remains are located within Skull and Bones’ windowless clubhouse at Yale’s New Haven, Conn., campus, they must be returned as well, the Journal reported.
According to the lawsuit, it has long been rumored that in 1918 or 1919, a group of students who belonged to Skull and Bones, including Prescott Bush, the father of President George H.W. Bush and grandfather of President George W. Bush, opened Geronimo’s tomb and removed his skull, other bones and items buried with the Apache leader and took them to the Yale campus.
The suit asks that Skull and Bones and Yale account for any such articles that are or have been in their possession to assure that all existing remains and funerary objects are recovered by Geronimo’s lineal descendants.
According to an article in the Lakota Nation Journal by Tim Giago in 2000, former San Carlos Apache Chairman Ned Anderson had been waging a similar struggle since the early 1980s to have Geronimo’s remains returned to Arizona for reburial.
A supposedly disgruntled Skull and Bones member told Anderson that Geronimo’s remains had been stolen by Prescott Bush and five other officers who were stationed at Fort Sill in 1918, prompting Anderson to go to New Haven and even meet with members of the Bush family, but without success, according to Giago’s report.
Skull and Bones attorney Endicott P. Davidson denied at the time that the club had Geronimo’s remains and claims that a Skull and Bones ledger from 1918 that contained notes about the grave robbery provided to Anderson was a hoax.
Alexandra Robbins, in her 2002 book Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League and the Hidden Paths of Power, wrote that the society offered to give Anderson a display case and a skull, which they said had been examined but found to be, not Geronimo’s skull, but that of a 10-year-old boy, according to the Web site www.straightdope.com.
An obvious problem with Skull and Bones’ alleged account of the theft, straightdope.com wrote, was that it described breaking into a mausoleum with a door, but the actual burial place was a conventional grave in the ground.
And according to no less an authority on the Bush family than Kitty Kelley, the whole thing was a tall tale cooked up by Prescott Bush and his friends that made its way into Skull and Bones lore
Skull and Bones was founded in 1832 and its members have included not only the Bushes, but football coaching legends Walter Camp and Amos Alonzo Stagg, President William Howard Taft and his son and presidential wannabe Sen. Robert Taft, Henry Luce, historian and literary critic F.O. Matthiessen, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, Averill Harriman, McGeorge Bundy, William Sloane Coffin, William F. Buckley Jr., Olympic swimmer Don Schollander and Sen. John F. Kerry.
It is also, as it happens, the prime suspect in the alleged desecration of Pancho Villa’s grave in Parral, Mexico, and the theft of the Mexican revolutionary leader’s skull, which also is rumored to be on display at the society’s inner sanctum.
According to Ernesto Cienfuegos, writing in La Voz de Aztlan in 2004, Villa’s skull was stolen by soldier of fortune Emil L. Holmdahl in 1926 and was sold for $25,000 to people working on behalf of … you guessed it! … Prescott Bush.
Meanwhile, Jeff Houser, chairman of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, told the Journal’s Rene Romo that he was not consulted about Harlyn Geronimo’s lawsuit but said “We prefer to leave the remains where they are.”
As to whether Skull and Bones may have made off with Geronimo’s skull, Houser told the Journal, “I’m not saying if it’s true or not, but I don’t think it’s worth desecrating a grave to find out.
“He’s buried in a tribal cemetery, and we’re a successor tribe to the Chiricahua tribe, of which (Geronimo) was a member,” Houser told the Las Cruces Sun-News. “We don’t believe Geronimo’s remains should be disturbed.”
The cemetery site is about 25 miles from the Fort Sill tribe’s headquarters in Apache, Okla., and the tribe still buries members there, Houser told the Sun-News.
Mescalero Apache Tribe President Carleton Naiche-Palmer told the Sun-News that Geronimo never lived on the Mescalero reservation but “a lot of his relatives ended up her, when their prisoner-of-war status terminated.”
Naiche-Palmer told the paper it’s doubtful the Mescalero tribe would throw its support behind the lawsuit, saying “Normally, I think people feel that once a burial has taken place, it’s better not to disturb it.”
6:35am 2/17/09 — Geronimo Died 100 Years Ago Today: Now some want to repatriate legendary Apache warrior’s remains to his birthplace in the Gila.
The legendary Chiricahua Apache leader and warrior Geronimo died 100 years ago today, and there’s a movement afoot to repatriate his remains from Fort Sill, Okla., to a site in the Gila Wilderness reputed to be his birthplace, the Las Cruces Sun-News reported.
Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Geronimo’s great-grandson Harlyn Geronimo of Mescalero and Las Cruces activist Carlos Melendrez will hold a news conference in Washington, D.C., this morning to announce the filing of a lawsuit under the Native America Graves Protection and Repatriation Act to “force compliance and repatriate Geronimo to his birthplace,” Melendrez said in an e-mail to the Sun-News.
“Tuesday, Feb. 17, will mark the 100-year anniversary of the death of Geronimo, yet he remains imprisoned, in spite of presidential promises to the contrary,” Melendrez said in the e-mail.
The news conference will broadcast at 8 a.m. MST on C-SPAN, the Sun-News said.
Harlyn Geronimo told the Sun-News in a May 2007 interview that he wants to see Geronimo’s remains returned from “burial in captivity” in Oklahoma to a final resting place where he’d like to see a 12-foot bronze statue placed at his great-grandfather’s Gila Wilderness birthplace.
According to the interview, Harlyn Geronimo said he’d like the world to know that Geronimo was not only a warrior, but a spiritual leader, the Sun-News said
After decades eluding capture, Geronimo surrendered to Gen. Nelson Miles on Sept. 4, 1886, in what Melendrez and Geronimo’s surviving family say was the “last American Indian force formally to capitulate to the United States,” the paper reported.
The government took Geronimo and nearly 450 Apache men, women and children to Florida for confinement in Forts Marion and Pickens, then transferred many of that group to a military barracks in Alabama where about a quarter died from tuberculosis and other diseases, according to historians.
In 1894, the Chiricahuas were moved to Fort Sill, where on Feb. 17, 1909, Geronimo “died as a prisoner of war, unable to return to his homeland,” family and other historians said.
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