The Only One Living to Tell: The Autobiography of a Yavapai Indian

Be the first to write a review

Overview

Mike Burns--born Hoomothya--was around eight years old in 1872 when the US military murdered his family and as many as seventy-six other Yavapai men, women, and children in the Skeleton Cave Massacre in Arizona. One of only a few young survivors, he was adopted by an army captain and ended up serving as a scout in the US army and adventuring in the West. Before his death in 1934, Burns wrote about the massacre, his time fighting in the Indian Wars during the 1880s, and life among the Kwevkepaya and Tolkepaya ...

See more details below
Paperback (1)
$15.99
BN.com price
(Save 10%)$17.95 List Price
Pick Up In Store

Pick Up In Store

Reserve and pick up in 60 minutes at your local store

Other sellers (Paperback)
  • All (20) from $7.18   
  • New (14) from $10.71   
  • Used (6) from $7.18   
Sending request ...

More About This Book

Overview

Mike Burns--born Hoomothya--was around eight years old in 1872 when the US military murdered his family and as many as seventy-six other Yavapai men, women, and children in the Skeleton Cave Massacre in Arizona. One of only a few young survivors, he was adopted by an army captain and ended up serving as a scout in the US army and adventuring in the West. Before his death in 1934, Burns wrote about the massacre, his time fighting in the Indian Wars during the 1880s, and life among the Kwevkepaya and Tolkepaya Yavapai. His precarious position between the white and Native worlds gives his account a distinctive narrative voice.

Because Burns was unable to find a publisher during his lifetime, these firsthand accounts of history from a Native perspective remained unseen through much of the twentieth century, archived at the Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott. Now Gregory McNamee has brought Burns's text to life, making this extraordinary tale an accessible and compelling read. Generations after his death, Mike Burns finally gets a chance to tell his story.

This autobiography offers a missing piece of Arizona history--as one of the only Native American accounts of the Skeleton Cave Massacre--and contributes to a growing body of history from a Native perspective. It will be an indispensable tool for scholars and general readers interested in the West--specifically Arizona history, the Apache wars, and Yavapai and Apache history and lifeways.
 

Read More Show Less

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Hidden in archives for decades and now expertly brought to light by writer and editor McNamee, Burns’ memoir is a compelling account of Indian-white relations during the tumultuous pre-reservation years." —Booklist

"Orphan, captive, servant, scout, and witness to the contagion of violence that drove the westward expansion: Mike Burns saw it all. The Only One Living to Tell is a crucial piece of American history--a firsthand account of the heartbreaking Skeleton Cave Massacre and its catastrophic consequences, a debunking of the romance of the nineteenth-century 'Indian fighter,' and a closely observed ethnography compiled by a man who almost singlehandedly preserved his people's heritage for posterity." --Margot Mifflin, author of The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman

 "What gives this memoir its peerless value is the potency and immediacy of the observations." —Kirkus Reviews

"This is a profound, important, and powerful book that will grab your heart and arouse your mind for years to come. Beautifully written, it should be read by anyone who cares about Native Americans or being human." --Jerry Ellis, author of Walking the Trail: One Man's Journey along the Cherokee Trail of Tears

Library Journal
Before he died in 1934, Yavapai Indian Burns wrote down his experiences, especially during the Indian wars that raged in Arizona from 1872 to 1886. His memoir has finally found a publisher, thanks to McNamee (Otero Mesa: Preserving America's Wildest Grassland). Burns begins with his childhood, when he was named Hoomothya. He was captured by the Fifth U.S. Cavalry and watched the soldiers and their Akimel O'Odham, Apache, and Maricopa allies slaughter his people at the Skeleton Cave Massacre. While growing up, he was assigned by the soldiers to multiple roles, from cleaning out stables to spying on other Yavapais. After a brief stint at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, he became an Indian scout, helping the cavalry subdue other native peoples. Obviously conflicted by this role, Burns repeatedly observed that all Native Americans, be they allies or victims, were mistreated and that the United States kept no promises to them. After his services were no longer required by the military, he was abandoned to life on the reservation. His manuscript ultimately arrived at Arizona's Sharlot Hall Museum. VERDICT McNamee has rescued a moving memoir from obscurity. Essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the Southwest and its native peoples as conveyed by a native writer.—John Burch, Campbellsville Univ. Lib., KY
Kirkus Reviews
One shattered life in what was to become Arizona in the second half of the 19th century, on a personal scale and from a native perspective. Burns started life as Hoomothya, aka Wet Nose, a child of one of the tribal branches gathered under the name Yavapai. In 1872, when he was about eight years old, his family was murdered at the Skeleton Cave Massacre, and Hoomothya was taken by Capt. James Burns, in whose home he fell somewhere between a ward and a servant, and renamed Mike Burns. This is the story of a swath of his life, though concentrating on the years 1872–1886, and told in his words. Aided by Bloomsbury Review and Encyclopaedia Britannica contributing editor McNamee's (Aelian's On the Nature of Animals, 2011, etc.) light editorial touch, those words have an unfiltered, sand-blasted polish, spare and well-chosen and strung with piquant atmospherics and a decided sense of transport. "Burns lived in two worlds, and he was at home in neither," writes McNamee, but he did spend many years as a scout for the United States military, where he took part in the push westward. There is plenty of mayhem and bloodshed, but what gives this memoir its peerless value is the potency and immediacy of the observations. This might be as quotidian as herding chickens, or as appalling as a man shot at such close range his clothes caught on fire, or as evocative as the place descriptions, moving camp, "following a big wash upstream toward the Superstition Mountains near the Gold Field." Threaded throughout is the mistreatment and murder of native populations that Burns, despite being a scout, could or would hardly ignore. An ethnographic and historical prize from "that anthropological desideratum above all others--the native point of view."
Read More Show Less

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780816501205
  • Publisher: University of Arizona Press
  • Publication date: 4/1/2012
  • Edition description: 1
  • Pages: 176
  • Sales rank: 624,494
  • Product dimensions: 6.00 (w) x 8.90 (h) x 0.60 (d)

Meet the Author

Gregory McNamee is a writer, editor, and photographer based in Tucson. He is the author of the modern classic Gila: The Life and Death of an American River and is the author or editor of more than thirty other books.

Read More Show Less

Customer Reviews

Be the first to write a review
( 0 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(0)

4 Star

(0)

3 Star

(0)

2 Star

(0)

1 Star

(0)

Your Rating:

Review Guidelines
Add Recommendations
Your Name: Create a Pen Name or

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Our reader reviews allow you to share your comments on titles you liked, or didn't, with others. By submitting an online review, you are representing to Barnes & Noble.com that all information contained in your review is original and accurate in all respects, and that the submission of such content by you and the posting of such content by Barnes & Noble.com does not and will not violate the rights of any third party. Please follow the rules below to help ensure that your review can be posted.

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

We highly value and respect everyone's opinion concerning the titles we offer. However, we cannot allow persons under the age of 13 to have accounts at BN.com or to post customer reviews. Please see our Terms of Use for more details.

What to exclude from your review:

Please do not write about reviews, commentary, or information posted on the product page. If you see any errors in the information on the product page, please send us an email.

Reviews should not contain any of the following:

  • - HTML tags, profanity, obscenities, vulgarities, or comments that defame anyone
  • - Time-sensitive information such as tour dates, signings, lectures, etc.
  • - Single-word reviews. Other people will read your review to discover why you liked or didn't like the title. Be descriptive.
  • - Comments focusing on the author or that may ruin the ending for others
  • - Phone numbers, addresses, URLs
  • - Pricing and availability information or alternative ordering information
  • - Advertisements or commercial solicitation

Reminder:

  • - By submitting a review, you grant to Barnes & Noble.com and its sublicensees the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use the review in accordance with the Barnes & Noble.com Terms of Use.
  • - Barnes & Noble.com reserves the right not to post any review -- particularly those that do not follow the terms and conditions of these Rules. Barnes & Noble.com also reserves the right to remove any review at any time without notice.
  • - See Terms of Use for other conditions and disclaimers.
Search for Products You'd Like to Recommend

Recommend other products that relate to your review. Just search for them below and share!

Create a Pen Name

Your Pen Name is your unique identity on BN.com. It will appear on the reviews you write and other website activities. Your Pen Name cannot be edited, changed or deleted once submitted.

 
Your Pen Name can be any combination of alphanumeric characters (plus - and _), and must be at least two characters long.

Continue Anonymously
    If you find inappropriate content, please report it to Barnes & Noble
    Why is this product inappropriate?
    Comments (optional)