Coahuiltec

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Former residential area (purple)

The Coahuiltec or Coahuiltecan , also known as the Tejano , are a group of several hundred small, autonomous Indian tribes or groups that lived in southern Texas and adjacent northeastern Mexico . The exact number of the individual ethnic groups that shared a common language and culture has not been established because they are relatively unexplored and the delimitation from other tribes, for example the Karankawa and Tonkawa , has not been clarified.

Coahuiltec groups

These are a few selected groups that are either mentioned in this article or for which there is sufficient information about their way of life and culture. However, all groups either died out or gave up their identity at an early stage.

Records from over 350 years of history contain the names of over 1,000 ethnic groups. Scientific studies have shown, however, that the number of names mentioned exceeds the number of ethnic units by at least 25 percent because the names or reports are imprecise. Some names come from a single document; others appear in a dozen or hundreds of records. Two or more similar names often refer to the same ethnic group. A considerable number refer to Indians who fled adjacent areas. Some groups died out very early or later became known by other names. The best information comes from Nuevo León documents. More than 60% of these names refer to landscape or vegetable features, while others refer to animals or body paint. Less than 10% come from physical characteristics or relate to cultural particularities. Names of Spanish origin are rare or denote previously named groups.

Language and ethnic identification

There is a language called Coahuilteco , but it is impossible to assign its speakers to specific groups. The best information on Coahuilteco-speaking groups comes from two missionaries Damián Massanet and Bartolomé Gareta . In 1690 and 1691 Massanet made two trips from a mission at Candela in eastern Coahuila to San Antonio , Texas, reporting 39 Indian groups. He also noticed that the same language was used by all the Indians on his way. This language was obviously Coahuilteco because some place names could be assigned to this idiom. However, it is possible that some Apache groups in this area used Coahuilteco as a second language. Massanet referred to these groups as Jumano and Hape.

In 1760 the monk Garcia created a manual for worship in Coahuilteco. He listed 18 Indian groups in the San Antonio and Guerrero missions who spoke Coahuilteco. He also identified some little-known groups from the Texas Gulf Coast as Coahuilteco spokesmen. Some scholars assume that all the indigenous people of the coastal area spoke Coahuiteco when they were not Karankawa or Tonkawa.

The Spaniards had little interest in describing the indigenous people or dividing them into ethnic units. There were no clear characteristics or cultural differences to the classification and so tribal organizations went unnoticed, as well as similarities or differences in the language of the indigenous people. The Spaniards referred to an Indian group as a nation (span. Nación) and named them after certain landscape features or after locations and missions. Only in Nuevo León were Indian groups named after cultural peculiarities, such as hairstyle or body painting. It is therefore extremely difficult for today's ethnologists to identify this multitude of Indian groups based on their language or culture.

The first attempt at a classification on the basis of language was only made when most of these groups were already extinct. In the mid-19th century, Mexican linguists referred to some Native American groups as Coahuiltec on the assumption that these Native Americans spoke similar dialects of a language common in Coahuila and Texas. In the course of time, groups in other languages ​​came into the missions and learned Coahuiltec as the dominant language, so that linguists believed that these groups were linguistically related to the Coahuiltec. However, it is still unclear whether all ethnic groups in this region actually belong to the same language group.

Name and area of ​​residence

The name comes from the Mexican state Coahuila, whose eastern half they inhabited. Their residential area once stretched across the coastal plains and adjacent land in northeast Mexico and southern Texas. It was on the east by the Gulf of Mexico , in the northeast of the San Antonio River and Cibolo Creek , north of the steep slopes of the Edwards Plateau , west of the mountains of the Sierra Madre Oriental and south of Rio San Fernando in what is now the Mexican state of Tamaulipas limited . The region is either flat or slightly wavy, especially in Texas, while in Nuevo Léon and Tamaulipas the mountains rise to the Sierra Nevada in the west. The Rio Grande flows through the middle of the area , with a relatively narrow catchment area, and flows into a delta in the Gulf of Mexico. The coastline from the San Antonio River in Texas south to central Tamaulipas is a chain of elongated islands (English barrier islands), which are separated from the mainland by shallow bays and lagoons. The climate in this area is very hot and mostly dry. Although precipitation decreases with distance from the coast, the region is not really dry. The first reports of the area come from Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca , and around 1590 the first Spanish colonists came via an inland route that led over mountain passes south of Monterrey . Nuevo León, Tamaulipas and also southern Texas were settled in the 18th century.

Way of life and culture

It can be assumed that all Coahuiltec groups living in southern Texas shared a similar language and culture, while certain differences were observed among the ethnic groups in Mexico. For example, the Comecrudo had a different language that linguists consider to be a special branch of Coahuilteco.

The Coahuiltec lived mainly by gathering and hunting , in southern Tamaulipas there was also some horticulture. A large number of fruits from wild plants and trees, such as mesquite beans (genus Prosopis), agaves (genus Furcraea), cactus flowers and fruits, pecans , acorns, as well as some roots and tubers were part of the vegetable diet. The introduction of the European herds of cattle changed the vegetation and the original grassland was overgrown by thorny bushes. The main big game was the bison , which came from the north to southern Texas and northeastern Coahuila, and deer. The smaller of the wild species were Pekaris (Nabel pig; Tayassuidae) and the armadillo (Armadillo; Dasypodidae), rabbits, rats and mice, many birds and countless types of snakes, lizards, toads and snails. Fish were caught in the rivers, while in the salt water of the Gulf there were fish, mussels and other shellfish all year round.

There are very few reports by Spanish colonists of Indian summer camps, while their whereabouts in winter are completely unknown. Two or more groups shared a summer camp, each apparently not having a separate area for foraging. The Mariame, for example, were spread over two areas, the outer boundaries of which were at least 130 km apart, while the papaya hunting area in southern Texas stretched over 50 km between 1690 and 1709, according to Spanish travelers, and contained ten Indian camps. The Pampopa and Pastia had an area of ​​135 km in length, because the search for food required a correspondingly large area.

There are only two descriptions of the Coahuiltec's way of life, dating from two different centuries. The first is by Cabeza de Vaca and describes his time with the Mariame in southern Texas, with whom he lived for 18 months between 1533 and 1534. The second source is Alonso De León's general description of the Indian groups he met before 1649 as a soldier in Nuevo León. These are Indians whose residential area was between Monterrey and Cadereyta in the south and Cerralvo in the northeast. These two sources contain similar information on technology but also differences in culture that can be explained by the spatial distance of 240 kilometers.

The Mariame lived for nine months from fall to spring on the Guadelupe River in Texas, above the confluence of the San Antonio River, while they migrated 140 km southwest in the summer. Many groups in the area followed this seasonal cycle, which led them to harvest cactus fruits (Prickley pears; Genus Opuntia) west of Corpus Christi Bay . Around 1534, the Mariame numbered around 200 people who lived in a settlement of forty houses. The houses were dome-shaped, round and consisted of a framework of four flexible rods that were stuck into the ground, bent, tied together at the top and covered with mats. The poles and mats were taken away when the group moved. The preferred game were deer. On the Guadelupe River, the Indians went on two-day hunting trips, which took place two or three times a year, and took them out of the wooded river valley into the neighboring grasslands. Here they staged a driven hunt by driving the game to them by burning the grass.

The Indians also killed rats, mice and snakes and ate snails, frogs, lizards, spiders and insects. Occasionally, during times of hunger, they ate soil, wood and deer excrement. After the floods in April and May, they caught fish in the shallow waters when the floods had drained. In autumn they collected pecans (Carya illinoensis) on the Guadelupe River, which were pounded and mixed with seeds from other plants, and in summer they harvested large quantities of cactus fruits (prickly pears), some of which were pressed and processed into fruit juice were. Roots of certain plants were the main source of food in winter, but they were scarce and difficult to find and the women gathered them within 8 to 12 kilometers of the camp.

The Indians used bows and arrows as an offensive weapon and had small shields covered with bison skin. No man in the Mariames had two or more wives. Divorce was allowed, but no cause other than sexual dissatisfaction was recognized. The Mariame practiced female infanticide and sometimes killed male children as well when bad dreams demanded. This was to prevent overpopulation.

In Alonso De León's description, the names of various Indian groups appear, for example Borrado, Pinto, Rayado and Pelone, all of which could be counted among the hunters and gatherers. Most of their settlements were small and their locations were changed frequently. A settlement consisted of about 15 houses, which were arranged in a semicircle and in each house 8 to 10 people lived, so that the settlement had about 150 inhabitants. The houses were round, covered with grass or cane, and had a low entrance. Each house had a small hearth in the middle, the fire of which was mainly used for lighting. The fire was lit with a wooden drill and the residents slept on grass or animal skins.

Deer, rabbits, rats, birds and snakes were hunted. When a hunter had killed a deer, he would mark the path from the animal back to the camp so that women could carry the carcass into the camp. The hunter only received the animal's fur, while the rest was cut up and distributed. The hunting weapons were a bow and arrow and a curved wooden club that served as a walking stick, weapon and tool and was always within reach at night. By torchlight in the night men and women shot fish with bows and arrows, they also used nets and caught fish by hand on the overhanging river bank. In winter they ate different types of tubers and roots, especially the roots of the agave (genus Furcrea). The Indians also ate the flowers of cacti and their fruits, which were eaten fresh or dried. They ground the mequite beans in a wooden mortar and stored the flour in bags. They also knew about salt and at least one plant whose ashes they used as a salt substitute.

The men were barely dressed and sandals were only worn when hiking over thorny terrain. Women covered the abdomen with grass and over it two slit animal skins over the chest and back. A third one was attached to the back of the skin, which reached the floor and was provided with a hem. Inside were pearls, shells, animal teeth, seeds and hard fruits that made noises when dragged across the ground. Both men and women had long hair that fell to their waist and was fastened there with leather straps. The pelons combed their hair from their foreheads and tied it on top of their heads to tuck feathers into them. Sticks and bones were put through the ears, nose and chest as decorations. The ethnic identity could be recognized by the type of tattoos on the face and body. In the face, straight lines ran from the bridge of the nose up over the forehead, while the entire body was covered with wide, straight or wavy stripes, probably the reason for Spanish names such as Pinto (painted), Borrado (beaten) or Rayado (outlined) .

history

The indigenous people in this area died out at an early stage, so only documents from before that can provide information. European drawings and pictures, artifacts in museums and archaeological excavations in limited numbers provide little information about certain groups. Very little is known about their displacement, population decline, and eventual extinction. Because the remains of some groups gathered in Spanish missions, the mission registers and counts could reveal a lot. The territorial extent and population size before and after the displacement is uncertain.

expulsion

During the Spanish colonial period, the majority of Coahuiltec were driven from their traditional habitat, from the south by the Spanish colonists and from the north by the Lipan Apache. When the Spaniards arrived, they pushed the Coahuiltec northward, some of them also dodged east and west. These groups, in turn, displaced other Indians who had previously been driven out. The Coahuiltec also suffered from diseases brought in by Europeans, such as smallpox and measles , which often hurried ahead of the colonists on the settlement border. The preferred settlement area of ​​the Spanish colonists were Indian camps. The white herds grazed the pastures so that the wild animals could no longer find enough food and either migrated or starved. As a result, the Indians stole the settlers' cattle to replace them and raided ranches or Spanish supply transports. Badly organized Indian uprisings were brutally suppressed by the Spaniards and the Indians fled the affected area.

To the north of the Spanish border, the Apaches invaded Texas southwards. In the first half of the 17th century, the Apaches took over the horse from Spanish colonists in New Mexico and became the dominant power of the southern plains. In the years 1683-84 Dominguez de Mendoza traveled from El Paso to the Edwards Plateau and reported about the Apaches. He named numerous Indian groups that had been driven by the Apaches to the area east of the lower Pecos River. The expansion of the Apaches increased when the Pueblo Rebellion broke out in 1680 and the Apaches lost their source of new horses. In the mid-18th century, the Apaches reached the coastal plains of Texas and became known as the Lipan Apaches. The Lipan in turn expelled the last remaining indigenous people from South Texas, the majority of whom fled to the Spanish missions in the San Antonio area. Around 1790 the Spaniards turned their main attention from the Coahuitec and Karankawa groups to the invading Apaches. In Coahuila and neighboring Texas, the Indians expelled by the Spaniards and Apaches lived together in and with the missions, and an unusual ethnic mixture developed. The local groups mingled with displaced people from Coahuila, Chihuahua, and Texas. Some of them even fled north to the Texan highlands from the pressure of the white settlers.

Mission Indians

The numerous Spanish missions provided refuge for the displaced and endangered native Indian population. The early missions were set up on the settlement border, but when this shifted, the missions were moved too. Because they lived from agriculture, they could only exist if there were enough Indian labor available. The missions were unevenly distributed. Some were far apart, while others were grouped together, often two to five in number. A larger number of displaced Indians gathered in these mission groups, also because they generally had a garrison (Spanish Presidio ) as protection. Some missions lasted less than a decade, others lasted a century.

The number of different Indian groups varied from less than twenty to more than a hundred groups. Many groups consisted of less than 10 people. In the older missions, especially in the north, there were generally more groups to be found. On average, around 100 members of various groups lived in the villages of the Mission Indians, who came from a large area around the mission, some of whom came from far away areas. Although the survivors of a group usually came to a mission as one group, there were also individuals or families of one ethnic group who were spread over several missions.

Loss of identity

The majority of Coahuiltec lost their identity as early as the 17th and 18th centuries. Their names disappeared from the surviving documents because epidemics, wars, migration and deportation to work in remote Spanish plantations and mines, high child mortality and general demoralization took their toll. By 1800 there were only a few ethnic groups, known by name, but by 1900 they had all disappeared. Missions and refugee villages were the last bastions of ethnic identity. These Indians made few problems and preferred simple jobs. At the end of the 18th century, many missions were closed and the Indian families were given a small piece of mission land. Albert S. Gatschet found the descendants of two or three groups on the south side of the Rio Grande in 1886, but they no longer knew their old language. Gradually the survivors integrated into the lower stratum of the Mexican population and around 1981 some descendants of these indigenous people were still living scattered in communities in Mexico and Texas.

Demographics

The former number of the total Indian population, as well as the size and number of the individual ethnic groups in the region, is difficult to estimate. Population numbers are plentiful, but they mostly relate to remnants of displaced groups living together in missions or neighboring villages. Most of the numbers come from the northern part of the region, which became the center of the displaced Indians. In order to find out about population figures before European immigration, one has to refer to the scant information from Cabeza de Vacas documents from 1542. The largest group was 512 people, as a missionary reported in 1674 from the Gueiquesal in northeast Coahuila. In 1727, another missionary estimated the Paquache on the central Nueces River in southern Texas to be 350. Documents from the period from 1747 to 1772 state that the Comecrudo from northeastern Tamaulipas had around 400 members, while other groups that were not named individually numbered from 100 to 300 people.

Estimates of the total population of 1690 vary widely. One scientist estimates the total population of northeast Mexico, including the desert west of the Rio Concho in Chihuahua, at 100,000 Indians. Another, who compiled a list of 614 Coahuiltec group names, came up with a total of 86,000 members, calculating each group with an average of 140 people.

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