Nora Caplan-Bricker - August 9, 2010

It looks like the public will not be learning any times soon whether the secret society Skull and Bones keeps an Apache warrior’s skull in its tomb.

A District of Columbia judge on July 27 dismissed a case that had been brought against the mysterious society, as well as the University and senior members of the U.S. government, in February 2009. The plaintiffs are 20 descendants of the legendary Native American chieftain Geronimo hoping to reclaim their ancestor’s remains. But their lawyer, Ramsey Clark — who has represented controversial figures such as Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic — said Monday that he is not giving up.

“We’re obviously disappointed,” Clark said in a phone interview. “We believe that [this case] is awfully important, not only to the wishes of Geronimo himself, but to the spirit of the Indian people and their relationships to the government of the United States.”

The objective of the original suit is to gather Geronimo’s remains and reinter them near his birthplace at the head of the Gila River in New Mexico, thereby fulfilling what plaintiff Harlyn Geronimo says were his great-grandfather’s wishes. Geronimo is reportedly buried in a prisoner of war cemetery in Fort Sill, Okla., but according to an old legend, Prescott Bush — Yale graduate, Bonesman, father of former President George H.W. Bush ‘48 and grandfather of former President George W. Bush ‘68 — looted that grave in 1918 or 1919 and took the chief’s skull, along with some of his other bones and artifacts buried with him, back to the Skull and Bones tomb on High Street in New Haven.

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Tags: Skull and Bones

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