Is there anybody found a photo of Dilth-Cleyhen, wife of Mangas and daughter of Victorio?
she was borned on 1848 and lived until 1926. So there is surely a photo of her. I do not find only one with her name...
Between the times of battle the family traveled throughout Tchihéné lands and beyond. Usually it was in quest of plant foods or game, but whatever their reason, the journeys provided
Dilth-cleyhen’s maternal kin time to inform the youngster more about the history and lore of The People.
“Apache Mothers and Daughters: Four Generations of a Family”
by Ruth McDonald BoyerIn the first excerpt below, an old Apache woman related to the leader Victorio remembers when members of her family traveled south to see another leader, Mangas Coloradas (“Red Sleeves” or “Colored Sleeves”), among the Mimbres near Santa Rita. In the second excerpt, she describes the games that men, women, and children played.
~ ~ ~ ~
Between the times of battle the family traveled throughout Tchihéné lands and beyond. Usually it was in quest of plant foods or game, but whatever their reason, the journeys provided Dilth-cleyhen’s maternal kin time to inform the youngster more about the history and lore of The People.
Victorio (Mimbreño Apache)“Victorio (Mimbreño Apache),” Unidentified (Artist)
There was the time shortly after the Gadsden Purchase that Victorio decided to travel south to be among the Mimbres near Santa Rita, to see Mangas Coloradas. The members of the family went along, including Dilth-cleyhen’s maternal grandmother, who lagged behind her son-in-law in order to permit respect between them. All were riding horses. When they were some twenty-nine miles northeast of Silver City, in what is now the state of New Mexico, the old lady stopped. She spoke to her granddaughter.
“Look over there. See the water over there. That is a lake, a lake where Chiricahua life began. Life was raised from that lake. That is where the Creator brought us forth—right over there. Do you see it?”
Dilth-cleyhen nodded in assent, straining to see the sacred place.
Her grandmother continued. “You must not forget this place. You must tell your grandchildren, and they will tell theirs. You must be sure you tell them the story of the creation.”
“I can’t remember it, Shi-choo, my grandmother.”
The old woman looked at the child. “You have forgotten. I guess you were too young when I told the story to you before. Tonight, when you are going to sleep, I will repeat it once again. This time you will remember.”
And so, as they lay wrapped in blankets on the earth, Dilth-cleyhen’s grandmother began:
“In the very beginning, there was the Creator. There was also White-Painted-Woman. Later, Child-of-the-Water was born, and so was Killer-of-Enemies. Then there were four. Child-of-the-Water was the son of White-Painted-Woman, but Killer-of-Enemies came from evil people.
Apache Babies, ca. 1884“Apache Babies, ca. 1884,” Ben Wittick (Photographer)
“There was another bad person, a giant, an Owl-Giant, who ate all the babies to which White-Painted-Woman gave birth. This had started even before she prayed and Child-of-the-Water was born. So when he came along, she was really worried. ’What shall I do?’ she wondered. ’Every day that giant comes to me to find my babies because he is hungry.’ She decided to dig a hole under her fire. She kept the infant there, nice and warm, taking him out only to feed and wash him.
“It wasn’t long before Child-of-the-Water could walk. One day Owl-Giant came to her, and he could see little tiny footprints, little tracks. The giant was angry and wanted to know what made them. ’These are the tracks of something good to eat!’
“But White-Painted-Woman thought fast. She told him that she was so lonesome for a child that sometimes she herself made those little marks. Owl-Giant doubted her. He told her to make some then and there. So she marked the dirt and finally he believed her. Then, as he looked around, he saw baby blankets all smeared with excrement. Again, he wanted to know what they were all about. ’Here is the excrement of something good to eat,’ he said to her.
“White-Painted-Woman countered again that she herself made the excrement simply because she longed for a baby. He demanded that she make some. The wise woman picked up a blanket, turned from the giant, and smeared wild honey on the bedding. Owl-Giant looked. Again he believed. Thus it was that White-Painted-Woman always tricked that evil one, and Child-of-the-Water lived.”
For the next few nights the old woman continued to tell stories to Dilth-cleyhen. She told the way that Child-of-the-Water grew to be a valorous man, one who killed the evil creatures of the world, the ones who killed with power from their eyes. He killed the bull, the eagle, the prairie dogs. He even killed Owl-Giant.
* * * *
While the tulapai was being prepared and meat was roasting or stewing, there was recreation. Boys and men held shooting contests with the bow and arrow. They wrestled. Women and children, as well as men, ran races on foot or competed with their horses. Endurance and speed were highly prized. The first time a boy ran in such a race, the bottoms of his feet were rubbed with mud. This would help him win. Another activity enjoyed by all was shinny—a rough, team game. This was played with a stick about three and one-half feet long and hooked at one end. The aim was to hit a wooden or buckskin ball, about half the size of today’s baseball, between two upright objects—poles or trees. Those able to run well loved this game. Every time a goal was made, one point was scored.
The game men preferred above all others was hoop-and-pole. Women were not permitted to play it, nor could they approach the grounds, which consisted of an area some thirty feet long, aligned east and west, and carpeted with a smooth layer of grass or of pine needles. The hoops and the poles could be made only by a man owning special power, one who knew the proper ceremonies. The night before the game, specific songs were sung.
The hoops and poles bore special notches, each notch being named, and the worth of each, for the purpose of gambling, was decided in advance. Over a foot in diameter, the hoop had a knotted string across its center, the knots being called “beads.“ The aim was to roll the hoop down a kind of alley and then stop it with the thrown pole, which many men referred to as “the snake.“
Apache Sunrise Ceremony“Apache Sunrise Ceremony,” Unidentified (Photographer)
There were two contestants at a time. Each one slid his lance after the rolling hoop in such a way that the latter would fall on the butt end of the pole. The winner was decided on the basis of how many pole notches were within the hoop and how many knots on the hoop’s crosspiece were over the pole. While the game was in progress, no one could walk around the field from the east. In this it resembles a similar restriction pertaining to the Feast Grounds during the sacred rituals of the maidens’ Puberty Feast.
Because of their association with Coyote, no dogs were allowed in the vicinity. And any time you hear that Coyote lost in a wagering game, you can be sure he was playing hoop-and-pole. The rules and regulations were handed down long ago, as the myth relates, when animals were people. The game came from Snake and from dangerous four-footed beasts such as Bear. Sometimes the contest was accompanied by music. A bystander took up an ordinary hunting bow. He tightened the string. Then he put one end of the bow in his mouth and hit the string with an arrow. The resultant sound is like Chiricahua singing. The women heard it from the far distance. They became quiet and listened.
The Tchi-héné loved music. They had a fiddle, “the wood that sings.” It was made from various kinds of wood, but the dried stalk of the century plant, four inches in diameter and about eighteen inches long, was generally preferred. Over the hollow cylinder, there was a single string of sinew. The bow was a length of sumac wood, with horsetail hair stretched its length.
The men may have had their hoop-and-pole, but the women had a counterpart. This was the stave game, called “gambling with sticks.” It, too, was sacred, and once again, only a person endowed with proper power could make the various playing pieces. Action consisted of advancing a counter along a circle of stones, with the number of spaces being moved in each single turn determined by the throw of marked staves. These were thrown against a large flat rock in the center of the playing circle. The staves consisted of round sticks, six to eight inches long, split lengthwise so that one side was flat and the other round. The flat side was painted red or black; the round side was yellow or white. Rules of the game and the number of players varied considerably according to various family traditions. Women laughed when men begged to join in, and only rarely did the latter try their luck.
Then there was the moccasin game. It, too, was associated with tradition, myth, and song and could not be played in the summertime at Santa Rita.
“This game was played in the Mogollon Mountains during the very beginning of the world,” Dilth-cleyhen’s grandmother told her. “There was a contest between the birds and the four-footed monsters and all the other animals. They were gambling, trying to determine whether there should be perpetual daylight, or whether the earth should be forever shrouded in darkness. We can only play the game in winter and at night when there are no snakes around.”
The players divided into two groups. One of the teams arranged four moccasins in the playing field, and hid a bone inside one of them. A blanket was hung to divide the two groups of players. As the game progressed, the contestants intoned the songs said to have been sung by the birds and animals who first played it. There was also dancing. The opposing team of players must guess which moccasin holds the bone. This was done by pointing it out with a stick. This game, too, has endless complications, countless variations.