Southwestern Historzcal Quarterly
Nana's Raid: Apache Warfare in Southern New Mexzco, r 88i. By Stephen H.
Lekson. (El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1987. Pp. 49. Map, illustra-
tions, notes, references. $5, paper.)
Apache Women Warriors. By Kimberly Moore Buchanan. (El Paso: Texas
Western Press, 1986. Pp. 52. Introduction, maps, illustrations,
notes, bibliography. $5, paper.)
Here are two interesting, well-written contributions to the southwest-
ern saga-Stephen H. Lekson's Nana's Raid: Apache Warfare in South-
ern New Mexico, 188i and Apache Women Warriors by Kimberly Moore
Lekson investigates the 1881 Apache raid that rocked southwest-
ern New Mexico and northern Chihuahua. This expedition, born of
the myriad injustices of alien encroachment, was guided by Nana, an
elderly chief of the Warm Springs Apaches, easternmost of the Chiri-
cahua bands. In Nana's Raid Lekson wrings every particle of excite-
ment and pathos from an enduring epic without becoming maudlin.
The Apaches' hit-and-run guerrilla warfare was superficially success-
ful: in two months, Nana and his warriors fought seven major engage-
ments with soldiers and civilians, raided a dozen ranches and towns,
killed at least thirty-five enemies, and probably sustained few casualties.
The battle might have been won but the war was lost. Ultimately, the
game up, Nana suffered imprisonment in Alabama and later Okla-
homa, where he died in 1896, a captive nearly ninety years of age. His
Warm Springs Apaches, it almost goes without saying, never regained
One Apache with whom Nana was familiar was Lozen, who died in
1887, a prisoner-of-war at Mount Vernon Barracks, Alabama. Lozen, a
woman warrior, figures prominently in Kimberly Moore Buchanan's
work. The subject of women warriors is an esoteric one that has long
cried out for the sort of skillful research and deft narrative touch
she brings to the topic. Women warriors were not numerous among
the Apaches, or any other American Indian tribe for that matter.
Apache Women Warriors is a solid yarn, well grounded in the facts at
hand and consistently of interest. One particularly provocative point:
many North American tribal cultures, unlike their eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century Euro-American counterparts, admitted the possi-
bility of women succeeding in roles customarily reserved for males.
Consequently, as Moore points out, a need exists for revising "the drab
stereotype that belittles the image of native American women" (p. 44).
Interestingly, Buchanan, a historian, deals with what many might
consider a suitable topic for an anthropologist; Lekson, an anthropolo-
gist, treads onto a landscape generally seen as the domain of historians.