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.