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1918 Letter Claims Geronimo's Bones Found



HARTFORD, Conn. - A Yale University historian discovered a 1918 letter that raises anew questions about a secretive Yale student society and the remains of the American Indian leader Geronimo.


The letter, written by a member of Skull and Bones to another member of the society, purports that some of the Indian leader's remains were spirited from his burial plot in Fort Sill, Okla., to a stone tomb in New Haven that serves as the club's headquarters.

A portion of the letter and an accompanying story were posted Monday on the Yale Alumni Magazine's Web site.

At one of the most selective universities in the country, Skull and Bones marks the elite of the elite. Only 15 Yale seniors are asked to join each year. Alumni include
President Bush, Sen.
John Kerry, President William Howard Taft, numerous members of Congress, media leaders, Wall Street financiers, the scions of wealthy families and agents in the
CIA.

Members swear an oath of secrecy about the group and its strange rituals, which includes devotion to the number "322" and initiation rites that include confessing sexual secrets and kissing a skull. The atmosphere makes Skull and Bones favorite fodder for conspiracy theorists.

Its most enduring story concerns Geronimo, who died in 1909. According to lore, members of Skull and Bones — including the president's grandfather, Prescott Bush — dug up his grave when a group of Army volunteers from Yale were stationed at the fort during World War I.

A purported diary of the event, sent to a leader of the San Carlos Apache tribal nation in the 1980s by an anonymous Bonesman, records that the Bonesmen took from the grave some bones and several pieces of tack for a horse.

The 1918 letter posted on Yale's alumni Web site was discovered last fall by researcher Marc Wortman. The letter, sent to F. Trubee Davison by Winter Mead, said Geronimo's skull and other remains were taken from the leader's burial site.

"The skull of the worthy Geronimo the Terrible, exhumed from its tomb at Fort Sill by your club and Knight Haffuer is now safe inside the T- together with is well worn femurs, bit and saddle horn," Mead wrote.

Mead was not at Fort Sill and Wortman said Monday he is skeptical the bones are actually those of the famed Indian fighter.

"What I think we could probably say is they removed some skull and bones and other materials from a grave at Fort Sill," he said. "Historically, it may be impossible to prove it's Geronimo's. They believe it's from Geronimo."

Wortman said he found the letter in Yale's archives while researching Davison, a member of a group of wealthy Yale students who founded a flying squadron.

Harlyn Geronimo, the great grandson of Geronimo, said he has been looking for a lawyer to sue the U.S. Army, which runs Fort Sill. Discovery of the letter could help, he said.

"It's keeping it alive and now it makes me really want to confront the issue with my attorneys," said Geronimo, of Mescalero, N.M. "If we get the remains back ... and find that, for instance, that bones are missing, you know who to blame."

Wortman said that the letter is a great find, regardless of the letter's claim.

"I was stunned and I felt a little bit like I had stumbled on an illicit treasure and something that does not belong to me and something the world should know about," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060509/...nimo_s_bones_1