Apache of Aravaipa Canyon Projects

REPATRIATION EFFORTS

Two recently published books on the Camp Grant Massacre have told a strange but true story of grave robbery at the Aravaipa site.

In 1871 about nine months after the massacre, an Army physician by the name of Dr. Valery Havard snuck onto the burial site and unearthed the skull of a young murdered Apache woman. This deed was encouraged at the time by a letter from the Surgeon General’s office in Washington, D.C., directing Army physicians to collect Indian remains and artifacts.

Dr. Havard mailed the skull to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C., where it has remained for over 130 years. The Smithsonian identifies these remains as those of a woman 25 to 30 years old. On the forehead of the skull is written: Apache skull (female) Aravaipa Tribe, Camp Grant, A. T. Sent by Dr. Valery Havard, USA. December 15, 1871. From the ground of the massacre of April 30, 1871.

With the consensus of the great grandchildren of Capitan Chiquito, the Tribal Chairman was recently approached to request the repatriation of the remains of this departed one from the Smithsonian to her former gravesite at Aravaipa. It is the hope of the great grandchildren of Capitan Chiquito to rebury the her on the day of her murder, April 30th.

The Chairman has met with the Tribal Archeologist and has asked to meet with members of the Aravaipa clan, the tsebina zt i e, to decide how best to proceed. Any interested members of the tsebina zt i e clan may contact the chairman to voice their feelings about this matter.

Dr. Valery Havard, who in 1871 dug up the skull of a young Apache woman from the Aravaipa Massacre site and sent it to the Smithsonian Institution.