Tuesday, October 24, 2000

Apache ready to brave Fort Phantom again

By Bill Whitaker

In today’s heady realm of political correctness, you have to wonder how appropriate it is to invite a Native American to celebrate a frontier fort once dedicated to keeping his ancestors at bay.

But Ray Olachia doesn’t mind.

“It’s OK, and I’ll tell you why,” the Mescalero Apache said while strolling the ruins of Fort Phantom Hill, 12 miles north of Abilene. “The reason I do these things is to teach young people about my culture.

“Often that means going to schools and Boy Scout meetings,” he said. “But the setting really makes no difference.”

Just the same, it may help that 149-year-old Fort Phantom Hill was dedicated to keeping Comanches and Kiowas at bay, not Apaches. And local historians such as Dr. David Coffey say area frontier forts were also set up to protect Indians from settlers just as much as the reverse.

“Either way,” Coffey adds, “it’s all a part of our heritage.”

Which is how Olachia looks at this weekend’s “Fort Phantom Rendezvous 2000,” a celebration in which historical re-enactors portray frontier soldiers, buffalo hunters and Indians, all to convey a rugged semblance of what our area was like before railroads, highways and man-made lakes.

And what of all the hair-raising hostilities between Native Americans and frontiersmen?

“I remind people that man has been mistreating his fellow man for thousands of years, long before Indians and settlers clashed,” said Olachia, who also attended last year’s rendezvous. “I just want to let people know about a different way of life and a different way of looking at things.

“You might even say it’s a different way of surviving. And isn’t that what we’re all doing even today — existing and surviving?”

While Friday and Saturday’s rendezvous promises lots of spectacle, including the Fort Griffin Fife & Drum Corps, stagecoach rides, Kwahadi Indian Dancers and the Texas Camel Corps, the quietly philosophical Olachia represents a walking one-man exhibit on Native Americans.

“I bring about 600 pounds of stuff with me — bows, arrows, bags of tools, almost anything a Native American might have used,” the Baytown native said. “I even have two headdresses, one from South America and one from here, but they’re very different.

“But when I lay all this out for kids, it definitely quiets them down.”

Olachia, who puts his age at “57 winters,” hails from Lake Jackson, south of Houston. And while he has always been observant of the culture quietly embraced by his grandparents, he didn’t really begin showcasing that culture for others’ benefit till he returned from Vietnam.

That’s when a teacher asked if Olachia could make some Indian artifacts, including a war club, and mount a presentation for some local students.

“And that got me to thinking about what my grandfather often talked about, carrying on my heritage,” Olachia said. “My grandfather was very profound about such things. He said, ‘Wherever you go, leave a shadow so others will know you were there.’”

Of course, if you get to listening to Olachia for too long, you can understand why he looks fondly on the ways of his Indian ancestors.

“Well, just think of it,” he told me. “The Indian thought he had a great life. The women did all the work and the men hunted and played all day! And today everyone’s equal. Now we all work, we all pay taxes and we all die!”

Contact associate editor Bill Whitaker at 676-6732 or whitakerb@abinews.com. Check out the Web site www.fortphantom.org for more information about this weekend’s celebration. Check out Bill’s previous columns at www.brazosbill.com.