Apache country in the winter time:
Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!
We're in a series about the Wild West and the story of an 11 year old German boy, Hermann, who was captured by an Apache war party from his family's farm in 1870 in Central Texas. He is now about 14 years old at this point in the story and has become a full blown warrior.
In yesterday's post I was talking about the big "high" that the entire tribe got for some big celebration and the wild demonstrations that the medicine men put on by stabbing and cutting themselves with no damage or blood being spilled.
Today's story
They also claimed to control the weather and Hermann said he would watch them go up on a hill or mountain and do incantations and chants and wave a cows tail for rain. If it didn't rain they blamed someone in the tribe for angering the Great Spirit.
Well, one time they were in a drought so the medicine men were doing their incantations and so forth but no rain came so they came into camp and blamed a Mexican man who was staying with them.
He was ordered to be bound head and feet and then he was carried up the mountain and tied to a flat rock.
Then they tied a huge rattlesnake beside him just near enough to strike him whenever he moved. They went back down to the camp and started doing their incantations again and here come the rains, in abundance.
I reckon it worked
It poured so much that the area they were in flooded, it was a flash flood zone and took out their wigwams. They lost several horses and they had a white child captive who was being held there and the child drowned too.
Hermann didn't say but I'm sure the unlucky Mexican died. Either he got bit by the rattler or died of thirst or something else. It sounded more like a human sacrifice than just getting rid of the problem.
But I'm sure the medicine men were highly revered, or feared, for ending the drought.
It was an entirely foreign realm of knowledge
They had tremendous knowledge and power and knew more about nature and herbal medicines than we'll ever know, but this particular incident sounds a little bizarre to me.
But then, it was told by a white boy who never had a clue of what they were doing or why!
Talk about dangerous snakes
This is a wild story that Hermann was told and apparently it was accepted as fact by his tribe. It seems there was a very dangerous snake in the region where they were, not a rattlesnake but some other type of venomous snake.
Legend has it that they always traveled in pairs and if you killed one of them, the other would follow you and bite you, even if you were miles from where you killed it's mate.
Hermann was told that a young Indian who had just gotten married killed one of these snakes and then traveled on and camped that night with his new wife.
The snake gets it's revenge
Well, the dead snake's companion trailed them all the way to their campsite and bit the young wife in the throat and she died straight away. The young brave quit the tribe and spent the rest of his life hunting and killing those snakes.
That one sounds a little hard to believe, what do you guys think? A good campfire story?
In the next post Hermann's war party has a deadly encounter with the dreaded Texas Rangers.
Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy
Texas
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If you find one snake you will normally find two. The truth is if you keep looking you will find a lot more than two though. If it happened it was a coincidence and I have never heard of someone being bitten in the throat so I would say it is a camp fire story.
haha! howdy sir cryptoandcoffee! I agree totally, but it DOES make a good campfire story!
Guess you really ought to be careful what you ask fore.
The snake one sort of sounds like the tale about why Ireland has no snakes. An explanation story as to why the crazy-venomous snakes disappeared or some such.
haha! I agree, it is that kind of story, good thinking sir fotosdenada, as always!
I was just reading a long thread on the internet about water moccasins and whether they chase you or not. The experts said they do not, hundreds of non-experts claim they do. Thankfully I have no personal experience, but apparently this sort of snake concern has made it all the way to modern times :)
very interesting ginnyannette! well I've talked to locals here who've seen alot of them and they say they can be very agressive and one guy said when they were fishing one time alot of them showed up and they had to try and outrun them because they were coming up to the boat and trying to get in, one guy was on the motor and the other guy was using an oar to beat them in the head when they tried to get in!
I always carry a gun when I'm down at the one pond we have which has not been cleared out around it, lots of overgrowth and I've seen one down there.
I thought you'd be asleep by now!
That is the sort of stories people were telling. One expert was saying that the moccasins can't see well, and they think you are a shadow to hide under. That made zero sense to me. I think that expert was even more sleep drunk than I am. Scary stuff. I live near a creek and have always thought I'd run into one, but I haven't. I've heard nonvenomous snakes don't live on the same land as venomous, and thus far that seems to be the case because I have a lot of rat snakes.
Oh I haven't heard that about non venomous and venomous not living on the same land. I've seen both on our property though, one of the first ones we saw was a Copperhead at the end of the porch. You have to be very alert all the time that's for sure. Even rat snakes creep me out.
The neighbor kid was playing with my son the other day and decided to grab a bunch of spider egg sacks and bring them in the house to show me. I flipped out. So freaking disgusting! My wise son instinctively knew not to touch those things :)
oh do spiders freak you out? Do snakes? Spiders don't bother me and I've seen some huge ones in Texas. Your son knew better!
Spiders don't bother me too much so long as they aren't touching me. But the eggs - gross.
It must be midnight in Texas? It is 1 here. Alright, I'm finally going to sleep :)
It makes a good fairy tale but like all tales it's a warning. Somehow I feel pity for the snake. Snake = nature... humans are ...
Howdy wakeupkitty! I agree that it's a great way to make a warning for venomous snakes. Yes, man always is natures worst enemy! Thanks so much for reading and commenting!
Chant to invoke rain. If no rain, blame someone and push him. Repeat chant for rain. If still no rain, repeat the above. Keep doing that until it rains. Viola! The power of the medicine man. haha.....
haha! hey you don't believe in medicine men? I think it depends on the medicine man and what powers he's tapping into. And if none of that works, blame someone else.
Hi, @janton!
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Howdy steem-plus and thank you for the upvote!
every nation has its own wild stories in which children believe :))) the snake was unjust: you had to bite the warrior himself :))))
haha! yes that's true tali72, the snake bit the wrong person! But I agree about the stories that each country has, very true.
Hi Janton, did you know that human sacrifice is still going on today by medicine men in parts of Africa and elsewhere?
They call it muti.(magic)
They believe the more pain that is inflicted in the killing. The stronger the muti.
Some things in human existence never change like these superstitions.
The snake story can be seen as a parable...leave snakes well alone. 😇😈
Howdy again sir molometer! you know what? papilloncharity from Africa just told me today that human sacrifice was still going on! I had no idea, why doesn't someone stop this evil stuff?
The point about the snake story makes sense! lol.
The tribal customs run deep in these places still. Pure horror stories to most people. The details are to gruesome to contemplate or discuss.
The police seem ineffective in stopping it. It is widespread.
Howdy again sir molometer! You're talking about South Africa? And it's widespread? dang!
Yep in sunny South Africa! Shocking just how often it was in the news when I lived there.
oh so it was reported by the news like other crimes were! wow. That's spooky!
Well there are so many things that need changed but that stuff should be at the
top of the list!
Yep it made the national news on a sickeningly regular basis.
Mind boggling that people still believe all that nonsense. Baffling!
Howdy Sir @janton, the snake story sounds a bit fuzzy, but sacrifices of humans we know about. Many murders take place for body parts and the witchdoctors use the parts to cast spells and to "heal". I was told that if you have a liver, or kidney problem, they offer you tea of a dried out healthy liver, or kidney part to drink, at a huge price of course.
Albino's are also favored for body parts, as the belief is that they have special powers.
This is of course illegal, but rarely are the witchdoctors prosecuted.
Blessings!
Howdy sir papilloncharity! well you're using present tense, so this is still going on??
Howdy Sir @janton, oh yes indeed, it is still going on and often in the news.
The sad thing is that animals are also targeted. Dead lion's are found without claws and other body parts, cheetahs, porcupines, and a host of other animal. Even the birds are targeted.
Blessings!
Here's a link: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/africa-witchcraft-returns-to-haunt-new-south-africa-1139937.html
holy moly sir papilloncharity! dang, that sucks. Plus you have all the animal poaching on so many of the animals. Wow, you all got some major problems there! Is progress being made, in other words, it's not as bad as it used to be?
thanks so much for that link I got it saved to look at later.
Sadly it's getting worse by the day Sir @janton.
Blessings!
howdy tonight sir papilloncharity! It's getting worse instead of better??
well that's downright depressing. What needs to happen to slow down the poaching and
these other hideous things, besides a revival?
That’s the second time you’ve sent me to the dictionary, I like it—incantation,
I’m going with campfire story. A good one. I’m going to your current one now. Hope you’re having a good evening, Janton.
Howdy sir dandays! and yes I had a great day but didn't spend hardly any of it on steemit so I'm way behind, I think I saw a comment from you earlier I gotta get to also. Thanks, I agree..campfire story to warn them about the snakes. Too bad he didn't know which one it was, I'm sure we have those here.It don't matter to me if they come in pairs or quadruple, I kill em all!
Hey you got some friends who are crypto experts right? or crypto knowledgeable I bet. right? I mean you say you have friends so some of them probably are. Anyways I asked about this before and it was one of the questions you rudely ignored or else I didn't get the reply.
And that was about cryptos that pay dividends? If you did see that question then you are breaking one of the cardinal rules of Steemit. In fact have you ever read that book on steemit etiquette? that's socially unacceptable to not answer questions man. lol.
Either I don’t remember being asked or you didn’t like my answer abour dividends because it would’ve been something like “I don’t know about crypto paying dividends.” Everyone I know is banking on luck too—just like the rest of us.
I hate snakes. I don’t like any kind of snake, I don’t care if it’s a kissy snake, cutsie wootsie snakes, don’t care—I hate snakes.
You know.. I just got ahold of that Steemit etiquette book recently and haven’t had time to go through it yet. I guess I better get on that.
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haha! howdy again sir dandays! wrong answer! you're supposed to say that you'll contact your friends in the Know and get back to me! lol.
That doesn't make you a little curious? I know a few people are making pretty good money on those types but I have no idea how to tell a decent gamble from a total loser gamble. lol. If we're going to be gambling I want to have at least a shot!
I hate snakes too, I just kill all of them I see. No snakes are allowed on our property. If they come here they have to die. That's because they stay in an area and experts say you have to take them a couple miles away to be sure they won't come back. well I ain't handlin no snake.
ps- true story. house burned down when I was in Kansas, lost everything except the clothes on my back AND my favorites six shooter, it was the first gun I ever owned that my pappy bought for me when I was a kid. How it survived I don't know.
It looks like hell because it has a silver finish, not stainless steel, more like chrome, and battery acid or something got all over it and ruined the finish and now it's all pitted up but it's still a beauty to me. lol. But anyway the walnut handles were burnt off of it but it survived. Now it's my main snake gun.
here's the style but of course mine doesn't look like this one because of the color and I got black grips.
Ah man, I thought this was a picture of your gun.
haha! well sir it's the same style. Here's one that looks close to mine, I got the same black plastic grips and mine used to be Nickel plated but now it just looks old silverware in color. But this is close.
Howdy Janton! Oh wow! Definitely a good comp storey. I have to remember for a future when the boys get older, lol. However, as far contorting the rain and all the other witchcraft they were doing I believe it was for real. Altough I suspect, their so called Great Spirit was some kind of demon and I think it is better that is forgotten.
Howdy Miss Lena! I think that stuff still goes on in Africa, two different people told me that, even with human sacrifices still! I didn't know that human sacrifices were still going on anywhere except maybe secret accult ceremonies.
Oh yes, I am sure they are, although I didn't know about the human sacrifices nether. Scary stuff!
It's hard to believe that in our modern times they can still get away with things like that!
I am sure it's illegal everywhere, but they are always fanatic groups who will brake the law.
Very sad and true Miss Lena. I like to break the rules, I'm a big rule breaker but major laws I try not to break! lol.
We have that in common, too, lol
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Yikes Cowboy! Snakes Alive! I couldn’t sleep outside or in a teepee knowing snakes were around. I wonder if the legend is true about the snake following the brave and killing his new wife.
well most people think it's just a good story to warn people of the tribe about snakes but who knows? I agree though, it would be creepy to live outside in those parts. But I guess if you were brought up that way it wouldn't be a big deal. Like it is to us!
Reminds me of the story of Elijah and his challenge to the priests of Baal. You remember, Jon...where they danced and prayed all day for their fake god to send down fire and burn their offering, and then when it came Elijah's turn THE ONE TRUE GOD not only burned up the meat, but the altar, and the water in the trench, and the whole kit and kaboodle.
Howdy tonight sir mepatriot! oh yes, that's a wonderful story, I love that! there was alot of bloodshed after that demonstration.
Indeed there was!
We have a jealous God.
When it rains it pours! They sure did have a lot of obstacles to overcome during their hard lives. About that snake...sounds like a good campfire story to me.
Howdy today Butterfly! yes that would be a great way to warn younger ones. It was such a hard life, I don't think they had a very long life span, about 60 I think. On average.