Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1881-10-06
The Medicine Men at the Bottom of the
Indian Outbreak.

A reporter cleaned the following facts
from an interview with Mr.. Edward
Hudson, cashier of the banking house
of Stafford, Hudson & Co., Tucson, Ari-
iona, at the Planters House, yesterday.
Mr.. Hudson said that he was at Tucson
when the massacre of Lieut.. Hentig and
his men, near Fort Apache, in the
White Mountains, took place. The
massacre occurred about 116 miles from
Tucson, where it was first reported that
Gen. Carr, Lieut.. Carter, and all the
officers, who were summering with
their families up in the mountains at
Fort Apache, had been massacred.
These officers, with their families, had
been stopping for years at Fort Lowell,
about seven miles from Tucson, and
had become very popular with the. peO-
pie in Tucson and the neighborhOod.
The report also added that several hun
dred Apaches, who were employed as
scouts, had turned traitors and joined
the White Mountain Apaches in massa-
cring the post. This created such in
tense excitement that nearly every man
and boy in the settlement commenced
arming themselves, and had not the
true report of the massacre been brought
the next day the people would have pro-
ceeded en- masSe to the mountains
against the Apaches. After this the ex-
element subsidized and troops began to
pour in from all the surrounding posts.
The Government commenced to do
what nothing short of the massacre of
troops could have brought them to do;
that is, turn their attention to the depre-
dations of the Apaches. Mr.. Hudson
seemed to think that the killing of
ranchmen, and especially prospectors
and miners, by the Apaches was very
common occurrence in the mountains,
and matter which the Government
paid little or no attention to in that Sec
ton of the country.
The late war is said to have been Or
ganized by the medicine men, and is a
regularly organized religious war. And
from what Mr.. Hudson says, in some of
its features it is not unlike the crusade
of the twelfth century, in Eu-
rope, preached by Peter the
Hermit. The medicine men are
promising the braves all sorts of immu-
mites if they join in the war against the
whites, and the $50 bucks belonging to
the White Mountain Apaches are in it
to a man. The whole tribe only num-
bers about 750, land they live in the most
inaccessible parts of the White Noun
tains, chiefly upon a plant gath
cred by the squaws and known as Mes
cal, which is very nutritious. Mr.. Hud-
son thinks it will be almost impossible
to punish the White Mountain Apaches
if they retire to the mountains and stay
there, as they can reach the mountain
Businesses by paths known only to
themselves and inaccessible to white
men. He further stated that all the
bucks believe that if any of them are
killed in battle it will only be necessary
to bring the bodies to the medicine men,
who will, by certain incantations and or
gies,. raise the bodies from the dead.
This belief has gained ground to such
an extent that it will make the Indians
very reckless for some time to come,
until the inability of their medicine men
to do what they promise is practically
illustrated.
Since Cochise, the great Chief of the
Apaches was killed, some years ago, in
the Dragon Mountains, sixty miles above
Tombstone, the Apaches have behaved
pretty well, but the White Mountain
Apaches have never been whipped, and
they feel very proud of that fact, which
makes it all the more difficult to con-
quer them.-St. Louis Globe Democrat.