The adult life of Goyahkla, aka
Geronimo – the famous Apache
spiritual and military leader –
may be divided into three parts:
combating the Mexican invasion
of his people’s homeland – now north east
Mexico and south west USA;
combating the American invasion
of the territory; managing
his twenty years or so of enforced exile
in Alabama, Florida and finally
Oklahoma. His soubriquet, it is said,
resulted from fearful Mexican soldiers
calling upon San Geronimo.
He was much photographed, and charged a fee
when he was in exile – as he did
for the events to which he was invited,
like President Teddy Roosevelt’s
inaugural parade. One photograph
was taken just before his surrender
after decades of guerrilla warfare.
Geronimo, and four of his ‘braves’
are standing foursquare before a landscape
of Arizona shrubland. They are holding
carbines the US Cavalry used,
he an infantryman’s long rifle.
***
After 9/11 the US Congress
passed the Patriots’ Act, setting up
Homeland Security to prevent
future attacks. Osama Bin Laden
acquired the code name Geronimo,
which, given the latter’s long struggle
to prevent the piecemeal genocide
of his people, and the ethnic cleansing
of their lands, where they had lived for at least
a thousand years, was curiously Freudian.
***
My favourite tee-shirt was manufactured
in Honduras – one of the poorest countries
in the Western Hemisphere – for Port
& Company, who have a declared
responsible sourcing policy, and are
based in Wilmington, North Carolina,
a Confederate port in the Civil War.
The photograph of Geronimo
and his warriors has been reproduced
on the front of the tee-shirt – between
‘HOMELAND SECURITY’ and ‘FIGHTING
TERRORISM SINCE 1492’. So,
while I am swaddled in the ironies of
white supremacy and capitalism,
I may enjoy the brief but life affirming
humour of the gallows.
By David Selzer