The famous legend of a Thunder God guarding the Superstitions' gold — and the honest, more respectful truth: that the Apache themselves say the outside world invented it, and that to them gold was never treasure at all.
You'll hear it said, all over gold country, that these mountains are guarded — that a Thunder God dwells in the Superstitions, jealous of his gold, and strikes down with storm and disaster any man who dares to hunt it. It's a story that's been told a thousand times, and it's why some folks say the name "Superstition" itself was earned. Let me tell it to you — and then let me tell you something more honest about it, because I think the honest version is the better tale.
The popular legend goes that the Apache held these peaks sacred and dreadful, home to a wrathful spirit — a god of thunder and wind who lived in the mountain and would not suffer his treasure to be stolen. Cross him, go seeking the gold, and he'd send the lightning, the flash flood, the rockfall, the strange death. And people have hung all the mountain's tragedies on him — poor old Adolph Ruth and all the rest — as proof of the guardian's wrath.
But here's the thing, friend, and I got this from the Apache side of it, so I want to pass it on straight. Apache voices — people whose business it is to know their own culture — say that this Thunder God guarding the gold was very likely never an Apache belief at all. That it was dreamed up by outsiders, prospectors and storytellers, and then put into Apache mouths to give the legend a spooky, ancient flavor. And here's the detail that turns the whole thing on its head: to the Apache, gold was not treasure. It held no great value; some say it was even regarded as bad, a thing best left alone. So the picture of Apache people fiercely guarding a hoard of gold they didn't even prize — that's not their story. That's the outside world's story, dressed up in their clothes.
And I think knowing that makes for a truer, richer thing to carry out of these mountains than any Thunder God. Because the real "curse" of the Superstitions was never a spirit at all. It was the gold fever itself — the greed and the desperation and the reckless hope that drove men to walk alone into killing country after a treasure that most likely was never there. That's what took them. Not a god in the peaks. The gold in their own heads. Look up at that mountain one more time. It doesn't guard anything. It doesn't have to. Roll on, and drive safe.
Photo: CWanamaker · CC BY 3.0
