Bush's grandfather 'stole Geronimo's bones'

New York: The activities of Skull and Bones, a secret student society at Yale University, have been kept sacrosanct by generations of "Bonesmen". But prominent among the legends surrounding the group has been a claim that George W Bush's grandfather and two other members stole the remains of the Apache warrior Geronimo during the First World War.

Now, the society's repeated refusal to comment on the story, or on rumours that new members have to kiss the chief's skull, have prompted an extraordinary lawsuit by Geronimo's descendants.

In a court action that names not only Yale and the society, but also Barack Obama and Robert Gates, his defence secretary, 20 descendants of the famous American Indian leader are seeking to recover his remains so his spirit can be laid to rest in his tribal homeland.

Their legal action, filed this week in a federal-district court in Washington DC on the 100th anniversary of his death, will seek to determine the truth of rumours that Geronimo's burial at Fort Sill in Oklahoma was not his final resting place.

Three Bonesmen, including Prescott Bush, served at Fort Sill during the First World War.

The trio were rumoured to have dug up Geronimo's remains in 1918 and taken some of them back to Yale where they are supposedly still kept in the society's hall - known as the "Tomb" - on the university campus.

The Skull and Bones, whose membership has numbered three American presidents including both Bushes, supposedly makes new members kiss the Chiricahua Apache's skull.

The lawsuit seeks "to free Geronimo, his remains, funerary objects and spirit from 100 years of imprisonment at Fort Sill, Oklahoma."

Obama and his colleagues were included in the action because Geronimo was initially buried on government land.

The remains would be returned to Geronimo's birthplace in the Gila Mountains of New Mexico for a traditional Apache burial, said his great-grandson, Harlyn.

- The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2009