Legend of the Apache Tears
Apache Tears in the rough. When held to the light they reveal the transluscent 'tears' of the Apache.
After a rain, in the white prelite in the shadow of the great cliff, the tears lay exposed. Tiny tears of those who mourn the dead: stone tears, dark and heavy with bitter sadness of those who died escaping death. Tiny black tombstones that today have become collector items for the rockhounds who have forgotten the famed Apache leap of 1871 and those who came to mourn the dead. This is a legend of the Apache Tears.
History records that in July 1870, General George Stoneman declared it necessary to establish an outpost of the Arizona Military District at Picket Post, near the mill site of the Silver King Mine and the townsite of Pinal, in the area just west of the present town of Superior. The outpost was located at the front door of the Apache stronghold and Gila River. Three war-tribes. The Coyoteros, Tontos and Pinals, held strongholds in the moutains to the north and east and carried out extensive raids on the white farmers and friendly Pima Indians on Gila Rover, Santa Cruz and San Pedro.
The raiders had been trailed time and again but the track was lost in the area of Big Picket, a few miles east of Picket Post.
In the winter of 1870-71 a raid on some cattle in the Florence area brought Capt. John D. Walkers' Company B (Pima Indian Group) of the Arizona Volunteers into action with the Picket Post Regulars.
High atop the ruggerd cliffs just east of Picket Post, Indian lookouts were sighted. It had been known for some time that a tribe of Pinal Apaches lived on the top of Big Picket, but no trail to the top could be located.
The searchers, trailing cattle, cautiously climbed to the top of the towering cliffs and waited to attack at daybreak.
The Apache, confident of the safetyof thier location, was completely surprised and outnumbered in the dawn attack. Nearly2/3's of the band of 75 were killed in the first volley of shots. The remainder of the tribe retreated to the cliffs edge and choose death by leaping rather than to die at the hands of the attackers.
For years afterward those who ventured up the treacherous face of Big Picket(Now named The Apache Leap) found skeltons, and could see the bleached bones wedged in the crevices of the cliff.
The Apache widows and the lovers of those who died gathered a short distance from the base of the cliff where the sands were white, and for a moon they wept for those who had died. They mourned greatly for they knew that not only had some 75 Apaches died, but with them had died the great fighting spirit of the Pinal Apaches.
Thier sadness was so great, the burden of sorrow so sincere that thier own tears were turned by the Great Father to black stones that contained the tears of the Apaches who mourned thier dead.
These black obsidian stones, when held to the light reveal the transluscent tears of the Apache, are found in great abundance near the town of Superior, Arizona, a short distance from the historic Apache Leap.
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