Living Off the Land Apache Makes Home in Barbour County Woods

American civilization may have become considerably more fast-paced since the days Litefoot's ancestors hunted buffalo in the Southwest.
But the Native American who has made his home in a clearing in the woods in Barbour County, will leave the fast food restaurants, super centers and even air-conditioning to others. After all, Litefoot, a member of the Native American tribe Chiricahua but more popularly known as Apache, lives in what he calls "the biggest den in the world."
His only neighbors are his animals: two full-grown cougars, Dakota and Tacoma, along with three bobcats, a wolf and the animals that run free in the woods surrounding the hand-made village he built after moving from a similar dwelling in Cullman 18 months ago.
Litefoot sleeps in a teepee he said has been tested to withstand winds up to 200 mph. He bathes in a creek less than 25 yards away. He lives as he believes man was intended - to sleep on the ground.
"People who come down here and spend two or three hours say it's time to go back to the real world when they get ready to leave," he said. "This is the real world. This is what the Creator intended for me."
Rails made from pine tree branches lead the way past the cats' cages down a 100-foot trail to Litefoot's home, a 25-foot teepee. Next to it is a similar teepee, where his guests, including his 9-year-old son, James Blake Riggins, sleep.
Yucca and aloe plants, a log table and swings, made by Litefoot himself, surround the fire area, with its stone stove and clay oven. Nearby is his herb garden.
About the only objects not made from hand are the pots and pans by the stone stove and the cellular phone inside Litefoot's tent. But also inside the tent is a virtual Native American craft museum.
There are buffalo and skunk skins, jewelry, flat knives, a cochina doll, rain stick, a picture of a deer drawn on pieces of buckskin leather, and numerous other crafts Litefoot has made.
"Everything is made from the woods," he said. "What irritates me most is a man that sells plastic beads, rubber tomahawks and dyed feathers because that ain't Indian crafts.
"If you want to keep Indian tradition alive, make traditional Indian crafts. And if it doesn't come out of the woods, it's not true, traditional Indian crafts," he said.
"I'm not downing anybody's art, but when I'm set up with my real stuff next to somebody's plastic and dyed feathers, I might want $25 for mine and he might want $10 for his and people want to know why. It's because I handmade the beads, I hand-select the feathers and hand-cut and tanned the leather. It's because it's real."
Charlie Steward drove from Columbia to become one of those people who spend time in Litefoot's world. So Steward went to Eufaula to find the Chiricahua, although she found his teepees before she found him.
They've become fast friends - he's going to train one of her horses and teach her how to track animals, and she's volunteered to help him care for some of his orphan animal offspring.
"The first time I went there, it was like stepping back in time," Steward said. "I was so interested because my grandmother is half-Sioux, and I really wanted to learn her way of life.
"In my visits with him, I found a lot more peace with myself. He's taught me things about the native way that I didn't know before."
Litefoot was born on an Arizona reservation in 1964 and given his original name, Chadleth Chiera Tauskoe. He was later brought to Alabama, where he was adopted by a couple at Redstone Arsenal, a military base in north Alabama. He grew up in the infamous Gate City section of Birmingham, an area where "cops don't even go anymore," he said.
"I've done it all and seen it all," he said. "That's why I can reach kids in the schools I go to."
At the age of 20, Litefoot began searching for his natural parents. The investigation led him to the White Mountain River Reservation in Arizona seven years later, but he was told they left the reservation in 1974.
Native American children were traditionally named for their personality traits and Litefoot was no exception. Friends gave him the name because of his hunting prowess.
A bear claw and teeth, from a 500-pound black bear Litefoot killed with a bow and arrow and flint knife, hang around his neck, beneath his flowing black hair, which is usually kept tucked behind his bandana.
"I killed over 47 big bucks with a bow and arrow just by sneaking up on them in their bed," he said. "They said, 'It takes a light foot to sneak up on an animal that big."
Life in the woods is the only life Litefoot wants, and he believes quite strongly that there will be a time when it will be all there is. And he has confidence in the fact that any major calamity can hit the world and his lifestyle won't be affected.
"If some major disaster happens to the world tomorrow to where there ain't nothing, it won't bother me," he said. "But I'll be hiding from man because man's going to be seeking me out. He won't know how to live. All he knows is the light switch, stove and refrigerator.
"I look at the earth like a dog with fleas. That dog will get so many fleas, and if you don't do something about it, it's gonna kill the dog. If we don't fix it, it's gonna die. People who live like I do are the keepers of the future."