Winnetou, Last Chief of the Mescalero Apaches and his friend Old Shatterhand; winnetou, pierre brice, lex barker, old shatterhand, schatz, silbersee, treasure, silver lake, apache, apaches, gold, warrior, battle, old shatterhand, renegades, unter geiern, vultures, frontier hellcat, desperado, trail, ölprinz, olprinz, rampage, wells, oil prince, old surehand, flaming frontier, halbblut, apanatschi, half-breed, old firehand, thunder, border, tal, toten, valley, death, schuh, manitu, manitou, shoe, mescalero, mescaleros, winnetous, rückkehr, return, spuren, harald reinl, ralf wolter, sam hawkens, stewart granger, rod cameron, terence hill, mario girotti, marie versini, nscho-tschi, dunja rajter, eddi arent, götz george, mescal people, tribe, new mexico, chief, subchief
Mescaleros (Spanish: 'mescal people', from their custom of eating mescal). An Apache tribe which formed a part of the Faraones and Vaqueros of different periods of the Spanish history of the southwest. Their principal range was between the Rio Grande and the Pecos in New Mexico, but it extended also into the Staked plains and southward into Coahuila, Mexico.
They were never regarded as so warlike as the Apache of Arizona, otherwise they were generally similar. Mooney (field notes, B. A. E., 1897) records the following divisions: Nataina, Tuetinini, Tsihlinainde, Guhlkainde and Tahuunde.
These bands intermarry, and each had its chief and subchief. The Guhlkainde are apparently identical with the "Cuelcajenne" of Orozco y Berra and others, who classed them as a division of the Llaneros; the "Natages" are probably the same as the Nataina rather than the Lipan or the Kiowa Apache, while the Tsihlinainde seem to be identifiable with the "Chilpaines." In addition Orozco y Berra gives the Lipillanes as a Llanero division.
The Mescaleros are now on a reservation of 474,240 acres in southern New Mexico, set apart for them in 1873. Population 460 in 1905, including about a score of Lipan, q. v.
Pierre Brice (born Baron Pierre Louis de Bris) is a French actor, mainly known to the audience for his role as Winnetou in German Karl May movies. With 19 he enlisted as volunteer to the French army and was fighting in the war at Indochina. From 1962 to 1968 Brice acted in, at all, eleven German western-movies after novels by German author Karl May, where he played the fictional red Indian Chief Winnetou of the Mescalero Apaches, aside to Lex Barker, Stewart Granger and Red Cameron as the white heroes. After the movies he also acted in this role at the open-air-theatre of Bad Segeberg, Germany, from 1988 to 1991. He stayed on till 1999 as director of several open-air theatre-productions (the open-air-theatre in Bad Segeberg is dedicated only to productions of Karl May-shows).
Besides the theatre-productions he was mainly to be seen in various TV-series, like "Ein Schloss am Wörthersee" (A Castle on the Woerthersee) or "Die Hütte am See" (The Shack at the Lake). In 1979 he was again playing Winnetou in a 14-part TV-series called "Mein Freund Winnetou" (My friend Winnetou - Winnetou le Mescalero), that did not originate in Karl May-material. In 1997 he again acted in a 2part-TV-miniseries "Winnetous Rückkehr" (The return of Winnetou), that earned devastating critics by the fans, as the Winnetou-character died in the movie Winnetou III and now suddenly returned to the living (of course, this one also didn't originate in a story by Karl May).
Pierre Brice tried to escape the Winnetou-character in several movies for the big screen, e.g. as Zorro in the Italian "Zorro contro Maciste" (1963). He also worked with Terence Hill (there still called Mario Girotti) in "Schüsse im Dreivierteltakt" (Shots in 3/4 Time, 1965), again with Lex Barker in a non-Karl May-movie "Die Hölle von Manitoba" (A Place Called Glory City, 1965), in "Gern hab' ich die Frauen gekillt" (Killer's Carnival, 1966) and the 1976 TV-series "Die Mädchen aus dem Weltraum" (Star Maidens).