Any honest account of the Geronimo skull mystery must include the fact that Apache perspectives on the proper treatment of the dead are specific and important, and that those perspectives complicate the question of what the optimal resolution of this situation would look like.

The Apache approach to death and burial, across various Apache communities, traditionally emphasizes minimal disturbance of the dead.

Various Apache communities have described traditional practices that include not returning to a person’s grave after burial, not speaking the name of the deceased, and treating everything associated with the dead as potentially dangerous or spiritually significant.

Craig Houser, identified in one published account as an Apache cultural expert, is quoted as saying: “Apaches were nomadic people.

When somebody is buried we traditionally do not revisit the grave.