The High Chaparral Episode: The Stallion

"The High Chaparral" was a western television series originally broadcast on NBC from 1967 until 1971. It was created by David Dortort.

Cast:

Big John Cannon, the owner of the High Chaparral: Leif Erickson
Buck Cannon, Big John's brother and therefore, naturally, Blue's uncle: Cameron Mitchell
Blue Cannon, Big John's son: Mark Slade
Victoria Cannon, Big John's wife and daughter of a wealthy Mexican landowner: Linda Cristal
Manolito "Mano" Montoya, Victoria's brother: Henry Darrow
Chatto, son of Natchez: Clive Clerk*
Natchez, Apache chief: Michael Keep

This was a great episode of "The High Chaparral." The story is fictional, but it uses the historical Apache chief Natchez as one of the main characters, even though the real Natchez would have been a young man in the 1870s, the general time frame setting of "The High Chaparral."

Blue Cannon (aka, Billy Blue or Blue Boy) pursues a magnificent wild black stallion, but before he can rope the horse, Chatto, the son of Apache chief Natchez, gets a rope around the great horse, only to have the rope break. Blue chases and ropes the horse. Chatto is not far behind and he feels the horse is his. Blue and Chatto fight and Blue pulls his gun, but just then, Natchez and several of his men ride up. From the opposite direction comes Blue's father, Big John Cannon, and ranch hands from the High Chaparral. Big John and Natchez have an earlier agreement to try to keep the peace, but this incident is about to put that agreement to the test. Blue tells his father what happened, and Big John has Manolito tell Natchez that Chatto lost the stallion and that Blue caught it, so it is his. Chatto does not want to give up the horse, but his father does not want an incident that could lead to war. Chatto angrily dashes away to his own horse.** Natchez and his men ride off, but Buck says he doesn't think they have heard the last about the possession of this stallion.

When Blue takes the horse back to the High Chaparral, he prepares to train the horse for riding, but Buck brings him a set of hobbles, which restrain a horse's legs, and thus, its movement, to allow a person to put a saddle on them, and then begin to get the horse to accept a rider. At first Blue decides to call the horse "Windy," but later when Big John talks to his son, he proposes a new name, "Sirocco," a word meaning, "a hot, dry wind from the Sahara Desert." *** Big John also tells Blue that a horse such as "Sirocco" should be won over and not be broken in the usual manner. Blue takes his father's advice and spends days working with the stallion to win him over, which he finally does. One day as Blue and the ranch hands eat and Sirocco is tied up nearby, Chatto sneaks in and takes the stallion. Blue chases after him, but Sirocco is too fast and eventually Blue has to temporarily abandon the pursuit. In the meantime, Chatto names the stallion "Santana" and treats the horse well, developing a good relationship with him, just as Blue did.

Big John goes to see Natchez and neither wants an incident that will provoke war, but John tells him that Blue is willing to kill to get the horse back. Natchez and his men show up where Chatto has been keeping the stallion. Natchez wants to keep the peace, but his son will not give up the horse, and the young Apache men choose to side with Chatto. War may be approaching. Blue returns to the ranch and Buck prepares to have the ranch hands ride out with Blue to find Chatto and the stallion and to provide support for Blue if things turn ugly. Blue takes off without Buck and the ranch hands, but they soon follow after Blue. Natchez goes to the High Chaparral alone and tells Big John about his men siding with Chatto, which could mean war. Big John and Natchez go out together to try to resolve the situation and to keep the peace.

Blue finally spots Chatto on the stallion and a chase begins. Buck and the men are also not far behind, and the young Apache men leave their camp to find Chatto, as Big John and Natchez race to intervene. Chatto draws his knife and waits for Blue above the trail on a large rock. He leaps down at Blue and the fight is on as Buck and the men continue to close in. Chatto is able to hop on the horse to try to get away, but Blue hops on the stallion too. Their fight continues until they both fall off the horse and fight on the ground. The Apache men appear on the ridge above where the two men are fighting, and Buck and the ranch hands appear nearby. Buck wants to let the two men fight it out, but the Apache men begin to slowly descend from the high ground. Buck and his men also begin to move in. Natchez and Big John ride up and Natchez grabs his son and Big John grabs his son. Big John comes to a decision to see if the two young men will let the horse decide which man it wants to go with. Blue and Chatto agree to the plan and both are confident the horse will choose them. The horse is released and both men call to him, Blue using "Sirocco," and Chatto using "Santana." The horse turns and moves one way, and then the other. Up on the high ground the stallion's former herd appears.... the stallion runs to the herd! Blue and Chatto are stunned. Blue takes his father's horse and begins to chase after the stallion, but John tells him, "Some things are just naturally born to run free." Blue agrees and Natchez looks at Chatto. Blue rides over to Chatto and tells him to get on. He reaches out and Chatto reaches out and Blue pulls him up onto the horse; there will be no war. The stallion appears on the high ground.   

* Clive Clerk was a young actor in the 1960s and early 1970s who was in several episodes of NBC's daytime soap opera "Days of Our Lives," as well as in episodes of other shows. In the 1970s, he chose to concentrate more on interior design and art. He met actor and writer Tom Tryon when he did the interior design and decorating of Tryon's New York City residence. The two became romantically involved for a time.     

** In an error made during filming, we see Chatto run toward his horse, which is facing him, but then the view changes to Chatto jumping onto the horse (probably a stunt man was used), which is turned around. They had to clearly see this when editing, if not before, but they likely felt it wasn't worth the time and effort to shoot the scene again.

*** "Sirocco" is a word from Arabic, but its borrowing by English in the early part of the 1600s is from either French or Italian. The story in "the High Chaparral" episode has Big John say it's a French word, but from what I found in just a brief review, is that a number of histories say English took the word from Italian, and they also say French got the word from Italian. The thing is, it looks as if many of the southern European languages (Greek, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and others) borrowed the word from North African sources, which is not terribly surprising, because this dry, hot wind blows across the Mediterranean Sea into southern Europe, sometimes powerfully so.

Photo is of the 2018 Shout Factory High Chaparral, Season Two DVD set

WORD HISTORY:
Stallion-This word for a "strong male horse," often with the additional notion of, "strong male horse used to sire offspring," is related to "stall" (a place for animals, later also, a small enclosed area for merchants to sell things), a word from the Germanic roots of English. It goes back to Indo European "stel," which had the notion, "to place, to put, to set." This gave Old Germanic "stallaz," meaning, "place, place for standing;" thus also, "place for an animal to stand." This gave Frankish, a Germanic language/dialect, "stal(l)," with the same meanings. This was taken into Old French to form "estalon," meaning, "a male horse kept in a stall for breeding purposes." This became "estaloun" in the Norman dialect in England. It was borrowed by English in the early 1300s as "staloun," before the change to "stallion" in the 1400s. (I inadvertently left this out: "Stallion" replaced the original English word for such a horse, "hengist." German still has "Hengst," meaning "stallion," and the figurative, "stud.")      

The High Chaparral Episode: Ten Little Indians

One of the outstanding episodes of the television western series "The High Chaparral" * was an episode called, "Ten Little Indians," a fictional story using the real Apache leader Geronimo. In these times now, decades removed from the time the episode was filmed, it seems to fit with our nation's troubled and exploited questions about helping people who might be a bit different from us in some ways, even children, in danger and in need. Many Americans seem to have been appalled by the revelation that many children, perhaps numbering in the thousands, have been taken from their parents at the southern border. I can't help but wonder how many supporters of such a policy call themselves "Christians." You can be a hater or you can be a Christian, but you can't be both at the same time. This has nothing to do with my personal beliefs about religion, but rather it is about one of the main principles of Christianity. Anyway, the episode shows what Americans do. These aren't cringing Americans who are having their fears exploited by a self centered pompous ass, but they are Americans who have questions, and they are Americans who rise to the principles and ideals of the nation and what it has represented for so long to people looking for a better life, and to people in desperate need. These Americans in the story fed and clothed the children, they did not put them in cages. 

Buck (played by Cameron Mitchell) and Blue (played by Mark Slade) come across two Apache boys. We're never told their ages, but maybe the oldest is about 10 or 12. Their camp has been attacked by an enemy tribe, the Pima, and the adults have all been killed. Buck and Blue feed the two boys and then the two men set off for home, only to notice that the two boys are following them on horseback. During an attack by some Pima warriors, the boys disappear. The attack is broken up by Buck and Blue and the guys set off again, only to notice the horse is again following behind, but it now holds FOUR Apache boys. When the group arrives at the High Chaparral ranch, Big John (played by Leif Erickson) hears Buck's story, but he is concerned that the Apaches in the area will track the young boys to the ranch and that this could then cause trouble. John's wife, Victoria (played by Linda Cristal), persuades John to let her feed and take care of the children for a couple of days, until they are strong enough to travel back to their home area. The oldest boy makes the sign of the cross to Big John, and a translation by ranch hand Vaquero (played by Rodolfo Acosta) brings some laughter from the other assembled ranch hands and Cannon family members, as the boy thinks Big John is really John the Apostle, because he is willing to help feed and care for children.

The ranch takes on new life and purpose as the ranch hands are happy to have the children around. Then, as Victoria is outside, she discovers two new Apache children hiding by the house; this time, two girls, the youngest of which takes a liking to Big John, whose rough and tumble exterior cannot compete with the personality of his little admirer, who tugs not only at his pant leg, but at his heart. Vaquero finds out that the oldest boy is named "Choddi" (played by Armando Islas), AND that he is the grandson of none other than Geronimo. Now Big John is really worried, because he believes the Pima will attack so they can get hold of Geronimo's grandson, but that Geronimo will attack because he doesn't know the circumstances as to why his grandson and the other children are at the ranch. John decides to go and find Geronimo the next day, but that night Choddi uses a lantern to signal someone outside the ranch, only to be stopped by Big John. You have to pay close attention to keep count of the children, but we see the two girls are sleeping separately, and then we see the four boys. By morning, Manolito (played by Henry Darrow) counts the boys and there are six boys; thus EIGHT children. Then the ranch hands see and hear a little Apache child crying. Buck and Blue go to the rescue, only to find another girl collapsed on the ground with the smaller child, now making for a total of TEN.

John and the men go out to find Geronimo, who is not hard to find, if you get my drift. Geronimo thinks there is some trick afoot, because Big John is not asking for any ransom for his grandson or the other children. John convinces Geronimo to come to the ranch and get the children himself. When they all arrive, the children have disappeared, prompting the suspicious Geronimo to give Big John a few hours to get the children and return them to him and his band of warriors.

John and the men find the children hiding in some brush outside the ranch (the implication "seems" to be that Choddi wanted everyone safe, if the Pima returned). With John and the whole ranch staff gathered around, Choddi utters a sentence in ENGLISH! John tells him that he is not an apostle, but just a man trying to do the best he can for all involved. Choddi says that John may not be a holy man, but that he is a good man. He tells how he and some other Apache children had their parents killed when they were small, and that they were taken in by Catholic clergy, which is how Choddi and some of the others learned about John the Apostle. They then later returned to their Apache people. In a touching moment, Choddi tells how the padres who helped him explained how a man must take responsibility for those entrusted to his care. Choddi says that the parents of all of these children had been killed and that he is all they have. Even though he is still young, he is trying to be a man and fulfill his responsibility by seeing that these children are cared for. John tells Choddi that he will be a great Apache chief one day. One of the men calls out that Geronimo is coming, but it turns out to be a group of Pima moving in to attack. Victoria takes the other children inside, but Choddi stays outside and even alerts Big John to a Pima who has gotten inside the ranch yard. Now on the other side of the ranch appears Geronimo and his warriors. They charge forward and Choddi opens the gate to let them get through to the Pima, who flee at the sight of the Apaches.

Geronimo gets his grandson and the other children, but it is something of a time of mixed emotions for the people of the High Chaparral, who have taken the children into their hearts, and who will miss them. 

* For more general information about the television series "The High Chaparral," here is the link:   http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-high-chaparral-excellent-western.html

Photo is from the 2018 Shout Factory The High Chaparral Season Two DVD set 

WORD HISTORY:
Apostle-This is actually a prefixed word, with a prefix that is also part of the word "apology," a word of Greek derivation that was borrowed by Latin, that passed it on to Latin-based French, and English then borrowed it. This prefix is also distantly related through Indo European to English "of" and to "off," both words from the Germanic roots of English. The prefix goes back to Indo European "apo," which had the notion of, "away, away from," which gave Ancient Greek "apo," with the meaning "from, of, off." The main body of "apostle" is distantly related to English "stall" (place for animals), a word from the Germanic roots of English. It goes back to Indo European "stel," which had the notion, "to place, to put, to set," and this gave transliterated Ancient Greek "stellein," which meant, "to send;" from the idea of, "to place or put something somewhere." Together Greek had transliterated "apóstolos," meaning, "someone who is sent out or sent forth;" thus, "a messenger, a representative." Latin borrowed the word as "apostolus," and this was borrowed by Old English (Anglo-Saxon) as "apostol." Later (1500s?) the spelling was influenced by French "apostle." Long associated with Christianity and the 12 disciples, "apostle" also later broadened in meaning beyond religion to, "someone advocating a particular political or governing belief or set of beliefs."