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Cooper and Carlos to prepare their selves for a sudden ambush. Descontarti instructs them to come back to Carlos’ home and he also sends three of his
warriors in order to help them. Descontarti had dispatched three of his best scouts—Kinotatay and his
son, Pirontikay, and Menogoches—to accompany John Cooper and Carlos…the Apache chief declared, ‘these men will ride south , southeast,
and southwest to find the band and bring back the news of them, so that you will be ready’ p. 383.
This is another proof that John Cooper and Descontarti have built a strong relationship between them. The help that Descontarti provides to his two blood-
brothers, John Cooper and Carlos, indicates that he cares for what will happen to his peers. The sense of sympathy that Descontarti gives towards John Cooper is
indeed obvious. The further relationship between John Cooper and Descontarti is not expanded due to the fact that soon after John Cooper arrives at the Jicarilla
Apache tribe, he meets with Carlos de Escobar, who then takes him to his house and introduces him to his family. Here John Cooper has started his new life with
the de Escobar and eventually marries to Catarina de Escobar de Escobar.
4.3.1.8 Kinotatay
Kinotatay is the leader of the Jicarilla Apache scouting braves who come towards John Cooper after his fierce battle against Sanimito and his braves. He
witnesses what John Cooper has done with the Dakota Sioux braves and how he honors Lije as he makes a proper burial for him. At the very first time when John
Cooper meets Descontarti, the tribal chief of the Jicarilla Apache tribe, Kinotatay acts as the translator of their language to John Cooper as he speaks the Dakota
Sioux tongue. Kinotatay is also mandated to take John Cooper to a wickiup which
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will be made ready for him and to teach him the tongue of the Jicarilla Apache. Henceforth, John Cooper begins his peer relationship with Kinotatay.
Kinotatay has once shared his thoughts and experiences to John Cooper when he wonders why Kinotatay can speak Dakota Sioux tongue as fluently as the
Dakota themselves. ‘Many summers ago, when I was a young as you, wasichu, and my friends
and I rode north to find a great shaggy ones, because they has vanished from our land, a young squaw rode up to us. She was fleeing from a
Dakota village because her man had beaten her very badly. She had borne him a son, but it had died, and her man had said that she was accursed and
thus the child died. Because she could not bear the grief, she killed him, and she was an outcast from the Dakota. I took her into my wickiup, and
we were happy together for many moons. She gave me a son, and she died in the doing of it. I do not speak her name, one does not of the dead, but I
speak her tongue until my own is silent forever. Know this then, wasichu pp. 316-317.
From the explanation about his wife and his speaking the Dakota tongue, John Cooper learns something important about Kinotatay and also the tradition of the
Jicarilla Apache that indicates themselves as superstitious. This phase of sharing thoughts and experiences between two persons contributes a crucial development
to John Cooper’s growth and maturity as he learns to comprehend what others may feel and experience. John Cooper, with his unemotional way of thinking, has
welcomed Kinotatay as his peer mate who will then share more knowledge and hunts together.
There is also a moment when John Cooper and Kinotatay and his son come to the great summer fair of Taos. Kinotatay shows him how he can get the
supply of gunpowder and lead for his rifle by bartering for goods. John Cooper can see that there are Indians, Mexicans, and Spaniards who gather together in
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this summer festival. John Cooper proves himself to be as shrewd a trader as he is a hunter who barters antelope, deer skin and two mountain lion skins for the
gunpowder and lead. Kinotatay figures himself as the instructor of Apache tongue to John
Cooper. He diligently teaches John Cooper the language of his people and the ways that his people live along. Although Kinotatay has met and talked to other
white people and he is glad for it, he feels something different with John Cooper that the other white people do not always have. It is John Cooper’s truthfulness
and good heart that Kinotatay himself has seen through his deeds and words. It is obvious that a warm friendship grows up between them based on their mutual
respect and admiration to each other. Kinotatay also figures himself as one of the scouts who will find the tracks
of the bandidos invading the house of de Escobar. At the time when the sudden invasion of the bandidos emerges, the people of the de Escobar have already
prepared and Kinotatay also joins to them to fight and protect the house. This is an evidence of their strong friendship where one will give his hand over his friend in
need. As it is explained in John Cooper’s peer relationship with Descontarti, the
further relationship between John Cooper and Kinotatay is not extended. It means that the last relationship that they have marked together is when the bandidos
invade the house. In general, John Cooper’s experiences with the Jicarilla Apache, the last Indian tribe to which John Cooper comes, is only briefly described until
John Cooper takes Catarina de Escobar to their stronghold.
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4.3.2 Catarina de Escobar’s Peer Relationship with the Indians
