The war chief

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

“My son,” said the old chief, “the spirits of the white men that he has killed are clamoring for the life of Cochise. Nakay-do-klunni and Nan-ta-do-tash cannot make medicine strong enough to drive away the spirits of the white-eyes.

“Send then for all the great chiefs of the Apaches. Tell them to come and help Nakay-do-klunni and Nan-ta-do-tash frighten away the spirits of the pindah lickoyee, for they fear our war chiefs more than they do our izze-nantan. Go, Geronimo, or Cochise will surely die.”

And so Geronimo sent runners to the four tribes, summoning Nanáy and Victorio and Loco, Hash-ka-ai-la, Co-si-to and Juh; and they all came and with Geronimo and the warriors of the Be-don-ko-he and the Cho-kon-en they sat before the wigwam of Cochise and while some beat upon hides stretched over sticks they all chanted songs that would fill the spirits of the white-eyed men with fear and drive them from the body of their war chief.

They sat in a circle about a large fire beside which lay Cochise. Nakay-do-klunni and Nan-ta-do-tash, wearing the sacred izze-kloth and elaborate medicine headdress, danced in a circle about the sick man and the fire. The bodies of the izze-nantans were painted a greenish brown and upon each arm was a yellow snake with the heads toward the shoulder blades.

Upon the breast of Nakay-do-klunni was painted a yellow bear and on his back were zigzag lines denoting lightning, while Nan-ta-do-tash had lightning upon both back and breast. Dancing, bending low to right and left, forward and back, spinning first in a circle upon the left foot and then around again in the opposite direction upon the right, they voiced a weird whistling sound. Now Nan-ta-do-tash advanced toward Cochise and sprinkled hoddentin upon his arms and legs in the form of a cross and as he backed away to resume the dancing Nakay-do-klunni took his place beside the dying chieftain and made similarly the mystic symbol upon his head and breast.

For six weeks Cochise lay ill and for nearly all of this time the warriors and medicine men, working in relays and assisted by the women and the children, sought continuously by day and by night to frighten away the malevolent spirits by incantation and by noise.

Shoz-Dijiji added his bit, for he was fond of Cochise in whom he had always found an understanding as well as a powerful friend. Genuine was the sorrow of the lad in the sickness of his friend, and often he went alone into the mountains and prayed to Usen, asking him to let Cochise live; but not all the big medicine of the greatest of living izze-nantans, or even the love of a little boy could avail, and so it was that early in June, 1874, Cochise, the war chief of all the Apaches, went out upon the long, last trail.

All that night there was wailing and chanting and the beating of drums and early in the morning Geronimo and Victorio who had closed the dead chief’s eyes after he had died, came and painted his face afresh as for the war trail. They dressed him in his best buckskin shirt and moccasins and wrapped him in his finest blanket, while outside the rude shelter the tribes gathered to do honor for the last time to a wise and courageous leader.

The warriors and the women were arrayed in their finest: fringed buckskin and silver and bead work; heavy earrings of turquoise and silver; necklaces of glass beads, berries and turquoise, some of them a yard long, fell, a dozen or more perhaps, over a single deep, savage chest. The chiefs and the izze-nantans wore gorgeous war bonnets or medicine headdresses and each grim face was made more terrible by the pigments of the warpath. And always there was the wailing and the sound of the es-a-da-ded.

Apart from the others sat a boy, dry-eyed and silent, sorrowing for the loss of a kindly, gentle friend. In the mind of Shoz-Dijiji, who could not recall the time when he had not known the great chief, the name of Cochise suggested naught but courage, wisdom, honor and loyalty. Shocked and angry would he have been could he have sensed the horror that that grim name aroused in the breasts of the pindah lickoyee.