Geronimo's family call on Bush to help return his skeleton
By Andrew Buncombe in
Washington
Published: 01 June 2006
The great grandson of
the Apache leader Geronimo has appealed to the big chief in the White House
to help recover the remains of his famous relative - purportedly stolen more
than 90 years ago by a group of students - including the President's grandfather.
The story that members of Yale University's secret Skull and Bones society
took the remains - including a skull and femur - from the burial site in Fort
Sill, Oklahoma, has long been part of the university's lore. But a university
historian recently recovered a letter from 1918 that appears to support the
story that members of the society did indeed take the remains while serving
with a group of army volunteers from Yale, stationed at the fort during the
First World War.
The students - among them, Mr Bush's grandfather Prescott - apparently returned
with the remains and kept them in their society's headquarters at the university
in New Haven, Connecticut. The society's initiation rite reportedly involves
kissing a skull, referred to as "Geronimo", usually held in a glass
case.
The letter from society member Winter Mead to fellow member F Trubee Davison,
made public earlier this month, said: "The skull of the worthy Geronimo
the Terrible, exhumed from its tomb at Fort Sill by your club... is now safe
inside the [tomb] together with his well worn femurs, bit and saddle horn."
The famous Indian chief's great-grandson is appealing for President Bush's
help in recovering the remains. Speaking from his home in Mescalero, New Mexico,
Harlyn Geronimo said: "I am requesting his help in getting the remains
- the skull and the femur - returned, if they were taken. According to our
traditions the remains of this sort, especially in this state when the grave
was desecrated ... need to be reburied with the proper rituals. To return
the dignity and let his spirits rest in peace ... is important in our tradition."
The letter was discovered by the Yale historian Marc Wortman and published
in the Yale Alumni Magazine. Mr Wortman said there was still scepticism as
to whether the remains were those of Geronimo - something that could probably
only be proved by carrying out DNA tests.
"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."
Geronimo, a leader of
the Chiricahua Apache, is remembered as one of the last Native American leaders
to hold out against the forces of the US government. He eventually surrendered
in Skeleton Canyon, Arizona, in 1886 and was moved first to Florida and then
Oklahoma. He died of pneumonia at Fort Sill in 1909, and was buried at the
fort's Apache Indian Prisoner of War cemetery.
The White House yesterday did not return calls seeking a comment. A Yale spokeswoman,
Dorie Baker, said the university could not comment because the Skull and Bones
was a separate entity and that because it was a secret society "we
don't know anything". The society has not commented on the issue.
Life of a warrior
Geronimo's real name Goyathlay literally meant "one who yawns",
but any further comparisons with lethargy stop there.
The Chiricahua Apache leader was head of one of the last American Indian fighting
forces to formally capitulate to the United States, and gained a reputation
for his bravery and ability to dodge bullets.
The feared Apache warrior took up arms against the Mexicans, and later the
Americans, after Spanish troops massacred his wife and three children in 1858.
His tribe was later forcibly moved by the US government to arid reservations.
Geronimo and his 35 warriors avoided the combined armies of Mexico and the
US for a year before being captured in 1886 by General Nelson A Miles at Skeleton
Canyon, Arizona.
Geronimo became something of a national celebrity, despite being a prisoner.
He even rode in Roosevelt's 1905 inaugural parade, but still died a prisoner
of war far from his homeland.
MORE….
The Order of Skull and
Bones, once known as The Brotherhood of Death, is a secret society based at
Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut, and the first of a strong and
sustaining group of socieites that rival Phi Beta Kappa, originally a secret
society, in worldwide prestige. The society is legally known as the Russell
Trust Association.
The group was founded in 1832 by Alphonso Taft and William Russell. The first
Skull and Bones class, or "cohort," "bonded" the 1832-33
academic year. The society was all male until 1992. All new members, as in
all Yale societies and most fraternal groups, must withstand an initiation.
If Skull and Bones is mentioned today, it is often in light of elite political
conspiracy theories concerning use of federal power in the United States of
America.
Given its status, interests is always keen in the membership of Skull and
Bones. Traditionally, the Yale Daily News published the names of newly "tapped"
members of all major secret societies at Yale, but this practice was abandoned
during the "student rebellion" of the sixties. It has since been
reinstated informally by the campus tabloid The Rumpus. Hence, although the
society's current membership rosters and activities are not officially disclosed,
the membership is in fact a matter of knowledge among the incoming and outgoing
Yale senior class, University administration, active alumni from other societies,
and underclassmen. This may be said of the other societies, as well, particularly
Wolf's Head and Scroll and Key. University archives has documents, provided
by the societies, that would confirm membership.
The society inducts only rising seniors during the late junior year prior
to their graduation. By reputation, "Bonesmen" tapped the current
football and heavyweight rowing captains as well as notables from the Yale
Daily News and Yale Lit before the 1970s. However, the group's decision, after
much dispute, to admit women eventually diversified the membership. Numerous
undergraduate constituencies are better represented among the recently-tapped
membership compared to the cohorts, or delegations, that included the 27th,
41st and 43rd Presidents of the United States.
The Skull and Bones tomb.
Members meet in the Bones "Tomb" on Thursday and Sunday evenings
of each week over the course of their senior year. As with other Yale societies,
the sharing of a personal history is the keystone of the senior year together
in the tomb. Reputedly, members are assigned a nickname; it is understood
but unsubstantiated that each member "carries on a line" in the
society, and that each line is assigned a name. For Bones, it is said that
these names are associated with Roman mythology (or just almost-typical high
school male nicknames), while at Scroll and Key the names are associated with
Greek mythology, and with Egyptian mythology at Wolf's Head.
According to "dissident" Bones members interviewed by Alexandra
Robbins for her book Secrets of The Tomb, members dine off a set of Hitler's
silverware while in the tomb, consuming expensive gourmet meals with each
other over the span of the year. The members call themselves "hill billy's,"
and simultaneously call everyone else in the world at large "honkys."
Another dissociation is that clocks in the Bones "tomb" run intentionally
five minutes ahead of the rest of the world (though this is a common practice
in the homes of many members of the American military), to give the members
an ongoing sense that the Bonesmen's space is a totally separate world —
and a world just a bit ahead of the curve of the rest of the "Barbarians".
There are also reports that the society has ideals of racial purity and accumulation
of power by any means.
Bonesmen
Main article: List of Skull and Bones members
The leading families in Skull and Bones have been known because in 1985 an
anonymous source leaked rosters to a private researcher, Antony C. Sutton,
who wrote a book on the group titled America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction
to the Order of Skull & Bones. This leaked 1985 data was kept privately
for over 15 years, as Sutton feared that the photocopied pages could somehow
identify the member who leaked it. The information was finally reformatted
as an appendix in the book Fleshing out Skull and Bones, a compilation edited
by Kris Millegan, published in 2003.
Many influential figures have been in Bones and influential families have
often had multiple members over successive generations, much like other societies
at Yale. Bonesmen include U.S. Presidents such as George H. W. Bush and William
Howard Taft, Supreme Court Justices, and U.S. business leaders.
Both 2004 Presidential Nominees - Democratic Massachusetts Senator John Kerry
and Republican President George W. Bush - were members of Skull and Bones.
The nominees were interviewed separately by Meet the Press's Tim Russert.
When asked about the organization, both declined to give any details.
Bones and the U.S. Intelligence Community
Although George H. W. Bush served as Director of Central Intelligence from
January 30 1976 - January 20 1977, Skull & Bones has been inaccurately
associated with legendary founding members of the U.S. Intelligence Community
since 1941. Movies such as The Good Shepherd perpetuate the notion, however
it is not historically accurate that leadership of the CIA depends on being
a Bonesman. CIA founders James Jesus Angleton attended Yale, but was not a
Bonesman. Richard Bissell (Bay of Pigs) declined the offer of a Tap to join
Skull and Bones (although his brother was a member). Richard Helms (DCI 1966-1973)
attended Williams College. Allen W. Dulles (DCI 1953-1961) attended Princeton.
Recently, ex-CIA Director Porter Goss, Yale '60, was in the Fence Club, Yale's
name for the Psi Upsilon fraternity (now defunct), as was his classmate John
Negroponte, the first Director of National Intelligence, but neither were
Bonesmen in their senior year.
While Bones may not be the incubator of the CIA, it would be more accurate
to note that a disproportionate number of Yale graduates have led and staffed
the intelligence community. Yale also lent the term 'spook' (designating a
secret society member) as a colloquial term for anyone in espionage.
( For more on Yale graduates'
and faculty influences on the formation of the intelligence agencies, see
the book Cloak and Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939-1961 by historian
Robin W. Winks.)