Charles Fletcher Lummis

 

Mary Hunter Austin, 1900

 

 

Pueblo Maiden, 1890

 

 

Jeunes mariés à Isleta Pueblo

 

Bautista Chivira cacique d'Isleta Pueblo, sept. 1892

 

Charles Fletcher Lummis, né le 1er mars 1859 à Lynn dans le Massachusetts et mort le 24 novembre 1928 à Los Angeles en Californie, était un aventurier américain, journaliste, activiste des droits des amérindiens.

Pour en savoir plus http://www.charleslummis.com/

 

Charles Flechter Lummis, fin des années 1880

En tant que journaliste pour le Los Angeles Times, Lummis s'approcha de Geronimo mais le guerrier Apache s'était échappé au cours des deux mois où Lummis couvrait la guerre Apache. Ci-dessous son hymne au célèbre guerrier - et à la frontière disparue. Il termina le poème, 32 strophes en tout, dans les derniers mois de sa vie.

En voici des extraits :

 

Man-Who-Yawns
(1928)

The Desert's mighty Silence;
 no fuss of man can spill
 A hundred Indians whoop and sing,
 And still the Land is still;
 But on the city drunk with sound
 the whisper is a shout --
 'Apaches on the war-path!
 Geronimo is out!'

 

Brave rode our wiry troopers --
 they rode without avail;
 Their chase he tweaked it by the nose,
 and twisted by the tail;
 Around them and around he rode --
 A pack-train putters slow,
 And 'horse and man of ours must eat' --
 'Ahnh!' said Geronimo.

 

They never say a hair of him,
 but ever and oft they felt --
 Each rock and cactus spitting lead
 from an Apache belt,
 Where never sign of man there was,
 nor flicker of a gun --
 You cannot fight an empty hill;
 you run -- if left to run!

 

A prophet of his people, he,
 no War-Chief, but their Priest,
 And strong he made his Medicine,
 and deep the mark he creased --
 The most consummate Warrior
 since warfare first began,
 The deadliest Fighting Handful
 in the calendar of Man.

 

The Desert Empire that he rode
 his trail of blood and fire,
 Is pythoned, springs and valleys, with
 the strangle-snake of wire.
 The Fence has killed the Range and all
 for which its freedom stood –
Though countless footsore cowboys mill
 in mimic Hollywood.

 

A Tragedy ? What wholesale words
 we use in petty ways –
For murder, broken hearts of banks,
 and disappointed days!
 But here an Epoch petered out,
 An Era ended flat;
 The Apache was the Last Frontier –
The Tragedy is that!