I would think since more than some think the horse was a mere object of food. I would state that a custom of killing the horse of a warrior as also the dog was tradition. In that some think they know all that is pf the several bands and clans of the inde. Thus I have heard Cochise had his horse and dog buried with him or they were tossed over inot the canyon. Again to each warrior it was a ritual since one apache was as good as a group of others. So I say I heard the hand story when young as it was stated the warrior wanted to let his kinsmen know he had fought the good fight and what better way than with a message written in blood on his horse. Pony were the favorite food not old tough mounts only when on a raids or when the horse had no more to give but his meat to keep his owner alive.
Staring at the Face of Death
As peace took hold, Cochise’s health began to fail, probably because of a stomach disorder, possibly cancer, according to authority Edwin R. Sweeney, Cochise: Chiricahua Apache Chief. With a condition that no witch could alter, Cochise made things worse by swilling tiswin, descending into repeated drunkenness.
He knew that his band would not speak directly of his coming death. “The topic of death is sedulously avoided,” according to Morris Edward Opler, An Apache Life-Way. In his waking hours, Cochise likely thought of the owl, in the Chiricahua mind, a terrifying agent of evil and sickness, a physical conveyance of the ghosts of the dead. During his comas, he may have peered into the “underworld,” the Chiricahua notion of paradise. He would have expected that, when he died, he would to pass bodily, with his possessions, into the underworld.
Once there he could expect to find, according to one of Opler’s informants, “lots of good things to eat. Affairs go on in the same way, but better. Those who are there just go on living happily. Life means more. It is always the same life, the hunting, the raids, and all, as in the old days. There are the same puberty rites, masked dances, and sacred mountains… Each person is with his own group. And each does the same things he used to do when he was on earth. As the story goes, if you were an arrow-maker, you are there making arrows. If you were a good hunter, you are over there hunting. If you were a great warrior on earth, you are out at war.”
Good Friends Will Meet Again
Even as he lay dying, Cochise welcomed Tom Jeffords, who had become a close and trusted friend, into the Chokonen encampment deep in the Dragoon Mountain stronghold on June 7, 1874. Cochise asked Jeffords, said Sweeney, “Do you think you will ever see me alive again?” In the frank way of the frontier, Jeffords said, “No, I do not think I will. I think that by tomorrow night you will be dead.”
“Yes, I think so, too—about ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Do you think we will ever meet again?”
“I don’t know. What is your opinion about it?”
“I have been thinking a good deal about it while I have been sick here, and I believe we will; good friends will meet again—up there,” Cochise said, pointing toward the sky. Cochise died the following morning about 10:00 o’clock, as he had predicted.
A Primal Pageant
Close relatives prepared Cochise’s body for burial. In their fear of death, all others stayed away. By tradition, “The body [of an Apache warrior] is bathed, or at least the face of the dead person is always washed,” said one of Opler’s informants. “The hair is combed, and red paint is put on his face to make him look nice. The dead person is dressed up in his best clothes for the burial. The burial always takes place in the day, on the same day that death occurred if possible. They bury the corpse quickly and far from the settlements—in the mountains, if they are near.
“The best horse, the favorite horse of the dead person, is used. The dead person’s robes or blankets are tied to the horse, and the horse is loaded with his belongings. His good saddle is put on the horse. Then the corpse is mounted on the horse and is held there by his relatives as the funeral procession makes its way up the canyon to the place where the burial is to be. As the funeral procession passes near the camps, the people cry for the dead man, if he was their good friend.”
Jeffords reported, according to Lockwood, that Cochise’s relatives, in accordance with their traditions, had clothed his body in his finest war garments and a feathered headdress. They decorated his face, for the final time, in the paint of the warrior. They shrouded him in a fine woolen red blanket given to him by a military officer. They placed his body on a favorite pony, with a warrior mounted behind to hold him secure. Followed by the Chokonens, they led the horse with its burden to a deep chasm in the Dragoon Mountains. They killed the horse and Cochise’s dog, dropping them into the chasm. They hurled his arms into the fissure. He would need his animals and weapons in his new life, in the Apaches’ underworld paradise. “If you were a great warrior on earth, you are out at war.”
Finally, using his lariats, they lowered Cochise’s body into the rocky sepulcher, to a burial site that would be known only to the Chokonens and by Jeffords. None would ever speak of the location.