Nana (chief)
Kas-tziden (“Broken Foot”) or Haškɛnadɨltla (“Angry, He is Agitated”), more widely known by his Mexican-Spanish appellation Nana (“grandma” or “lullaby”) (1800? – 1896), was a warrior and chief of the Chihenne band (better known as Warm Springs Apache) of the Chiricahua Apache. In the 1850s and 1860s he was one of the best known leaders of the Bedonkohe and Chihenne, along with Tudeevia (Dudeevia, better known as Delgadito - “Little Thin”, “Skinny”),[1] Cuchillo Negro, Ponce and Loco (“crazy”, “mad”). He was a nephew of Delgadito, and married a sister of Geronimo.
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Early Fights
He fought alongside Mangas Coloradas and his mixed Chihenne-Bedonkohe band until Mangas was killed whilst in the custody of the California militia in January 1863. In Mexico he also undertook many joint raids with the Nednhi of Juh and Natiza against the Mexicans. After Ponce, Cuchillo Negro and Delgadito were killed too, Victorio took over the Chihenne leadership, joined by the leaderless Bedonkohe. Nana, although at least 20 years older than Victorio, married the latters elder sister, cementing his position as a leader.
Victorio's War
After several failed attempts to peacefully live on a reservation in their own country, Victorio and Nana gave up trying and fought back against the Americans and Mexicans. The Bedonkohe and Chihenne were joined by more than 80 warriors of the Mescalero Apache under their old chief Caballero and some Comanche of the Southern Plains. Victorio and Nana therefore had about 200 warriors.
During the Apache Wars and especially Victorio's War he raided areas of Texas and Mexico with Victorio until Victorio and his band were surrounded and killed by soldiers of the Mexican Army under Joaquin Terrazas at Cerro Tres Castillos - 68 women and children were captured by the Mexicans and sold as slaves in Mexico.
Nana’s Raid
Nana and his followers, counting only about 30 warriors, had been able to escape and hiding into the Sierra Madre, because he had been on a scouting mission. After the death of Victorio several prestigious leaders and warriors such as Fun (Yiy-gholl, Yiy-joll, Yiy-zholl, also known as Larry Fun), Ka-ya-ten-nae (Ka-e-te-nay, Kadhateni or Kieta - "Fights Without Arrows", "Cartridges All Gone") took the leadership of the Chihenne, Bedonkohe and south of the American border living Chokonen and Nednhi bands beside the already established leaders Nana, Loco, Mangas, Naiche, Geronimo and Juh. Nana, now almost 80 years old (according to some reports, nearly 90-years), formed his own war party with the Chihenne (Warm Springs Apache), enlisting loitering warriors in the reservations. His band joined by 15 Chokonen and 12 Mescalero warriors, began raiding Army supply trains and isolated settlers. In less than a month Nana fought eight battles, killing 30-40 Americans, at least as many Mexicans, captured about 200 horses to replace 100 ridden to death and then fled back to Mexico. He escaped more than 1,000 soldiers, not counting the three or four hundred militia volunteers and Indian Scouts.[2]
Nana's forces were shunted by an attack of American forces, the chief secluded himself on exile on a hut, but was kidnapped by two white adventurers of El Paso, Steve Cratte and physician Ben Haring. Cratte and Haring proceeded to torture Nana by burning his right hand, then drugging him, to force him to lead the two to the cave in which laid the treasures raided by him and Victorio. Nana's conditions quickly worsened and the right hand was going swiftly into gangrene. Already delirious, the chief brought the two to the hideout. After sacking a good quantity of gold, Cratte shot Nana twice, killing him at the spot. Nana's body was then recovered and buried by a team of Scouts sent at the pursuit of Cratte and Haring, that had meanwhile fled with a consistent quantity of treasures stolen from the hideout. While most of the Patrol proceeded to the burial and came back to Headquarters to report three of the Scouts -Huando, Nathan, and Tanato-, willing to avenge the old chief, continued to El Paso to investigate and find the killers, but when they entered the city, Cratte was already dead, killed by a sudden heart attack on the office of his saloon. The Scouts were then ready to capture Haring, after an agreement with the local Sheriff Pat Nobel, but the doctor, heavily drunken, attacked a prostitute of local Eldorado saloon on his house, believing she was Nana. In the subsequent fight, Haring was accidentally killed by his own knife.
Nana’s Death
However, numerous other sources (Sweeney, Thrapp, Lekson, etc.) report that Nana survived the Apache Wars. Like his people, upon surrender he was first sent to the American Southeast; here the Chiricahuas were prisoners of war in military installations in Florida and Alabama. In 1894, they were relocated to Fort Sill in the Indian Territory, present-day Oklahoma. Nana died of natural causes two years later, in 1896. Since he would have been a century old at the time, the Nana died in captivity may have been another Apache bearing that name.
Legacy
Nana is unique among the war chiefs. In an age where one left the fighting to the younger warriors, he had a tenacity, stamina, courage and cruelty, which characterized a true Apache warrior. Nana was half blind, crooked from arthritis and moved the foot behind, but once he sat in the saddle, he rode "like the devil." Nana was the last great, free leader (Nantan) of the Chihenne.
Notes
References
- Nana's Raid: Apache Warfare in Southern New Mexico, 1881 (Lekson, 1987)
External links
- Nana, Apache Chief at the Arizona Memory Project
- Nana (Kas-tziden) from the Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography, via Google Books
- Nana in photograph of the Council between General Crook and Geronimo from the U.S. government's American Memory website
- Warm Springs Apache Leader Nana: The 80-Year-Old Warrior Turned the Tables at the Weider History Group's historynet.com
