If perhaps you are not aware of it or have heard it sometime, you will wonder why we shout Gerónimo when we jump from a height. And it is that sometimes we say expressions and we have no idea why, in this case, there is an explanation.
Apparently the origin of this name, more specifically, of shouting it, is due to the jump that was made in the 501st Parachute Regiment of the United States , when a group of soldiers was going to make their first parachute jump.
A day before this feat, and in order not to be nervous, they met for a few beers. And they also saw the movie that was titled “Gerónimo.” It’s the film, from 1939, about an Apache Indian chief.
In the film, the protagonist ran away, and to escape, he jumped in the different rivers and even on a cliff he said Geronimo! The day after seeing this movie, the American paratroopers remembered it and screamed the same as this Indian when they made their first jump.
So they believed that this would bring them luck and at the same time they would not be afraid. Since then the custom of shouting this name has endured over time.
Such was the importance of it that it even became a battle cry and was also said in other countries.
But who was Geronimo really?
The protagonist of the film was real and hence this is more important. Geronimo was an Apache shaman who was born in 1829. His real name is Goyahkla (the one who yawns).
His story is sad because he began a kind of revenge when he saw his wife and three children murdered in an attack by the Mexican military.
As the military did, Geronimo’s life is in the form of movies but this so-called Indian revenge went further and that is when it makes the most sense when the protagonist Indian jumps off a cliff to escape. And in doing so when he shouts the famous “Geronimo!”
For this reason and because the soldiers saw this movie is when we shouted Geronimo. As we have indicated, they did it to overcome fear by parachuting , after as the Indian had done in his day and in another way.
This name became an insignia for the army and then became a cry of bravery in half the world.
