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NATIVE AMERICANS OF TEXAS. I. THE ANCIENT TEXANS The first person to call North Americans “Indians” was Christopher Columbus. He did this by mistake, since he thought he had landed on one of the islands in the East Indies. Christopher Columbus.
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I. THE ANCIENT TEXANSThe first person to call North Americans “Indians” was Christopher Columbus. He did this by mistake, since he thought he had landed on one of the islands in the East Indies.
Actually, his voyage across the Atlantic had brought him to one of the islands off the coast of Central America, now called the West Indies.
Only later did Columbus realize that he had discovered entirely new land. However, his mistaken name “Indians” for the inhabitants of his newfound island was later used for all of North and South America’s native peoples, and is still in use today.
The first inhabitants of North America came across from Asia thousands of years ago. (Scientists think anytime from about 40,000 to 13,000 years ago.) In those days, most of Northern Asia and North America were covered by layers of ice thousands of feet thick in places.
Because so much of the earth’s water was taken up by ice sheets, the oceans were lower. This drop in sea level exposed a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska.
The little band of ancient hunters crept along cautiously, stopping often to listen for the sounds of the game lumbering through the underbrush ahead. An icy wind swept down from the slowly melting glacier, but the sun was warmer than it had been for a long time.
The hunters moved on, carrying sharp, pointed stone spears to bring down the fleeing mammoth- or was it a mastodon? The elephant-like mammal pushed forward blindly, trying to escape its pursuers.
The hunters themselves did not realize that every step was taking them farther and farther east into a land where no human being had ever walked before.
The men did not know that, pursuing their prey, they were stepping off a broad land bridge that then connected Asia with what is now Alaska. The hunting band was composed of the first humans to set foot on the continent of North America.
THE FIRST AMERICANSWhen ice blankets you call glaciers were moving, slowly moving,We found an open passagebetween their frozen walls.And we took that rich, green passage,in small bands we took that passage, following the bison, following the game, Finding as we followed, nuts and berries, elk and deer.
Mother Earth and Father Sun,hear the voices of your children,thankful voices of your childrenfor the gifts you made appear.Ours were the first voices,The first voices were the people. Now we whisperwhen the winds flow.Remember we were here.
Evidence indicates that humans first reached regions of Texas approximately 11,500 years ago.
How do we knowabout these early Indian cultures?Artifacts such as tools, artwork, pottery, bones, baskets, and shells provide glimpses of how ancient people viewed themselves and how they lived.
For several thousand years, Indians livedin caves and overhangs like this one in Seminole Canyon near Lake Amistad.
The Indians had no letters as we do, so they wrote their stories by drawing pictures. These are pictures of shaman.
A shaman is a person who is believed to have the power to cure the sick and forecast and control the future. The shaman in the middle has wings like an eagle.
The ledges above became black from the soot of their fires. The walls below became red from generations of “over painting.”
This was a “table” upon which plants and bones were ground into food.
Even though these early Texans were much smaller and slower than the animals they hunted, they had other advantages. The people had tools and had developed a notched throwing stick called an atlatl which could make their spears fly farther and faster. Strategy was another advantage. In the “surround,” hunters encircled a herd of animals and then moved in and killed the animals as they tried to escape.
Pits of bones have been found in Texas where ancient Texans encircled and drove herds of bison and other animals off cliffs in mass hunts. Many animals in the lower pits, like the ancient camel, are now extinct.
People who lived in Texas before Europeans arrived shared many similarities. • Most lived in small groups and shared responsibility for decision making. • Most believed that animals, plants, and humans once understood each other’s languages. • Most believed that spirits walked the earth and interacted with human beings. • Each culture had a creation story, or explanation of how the earth and people were created.
But these Native Americans also were different from one another. • They did not speak the same language. • Some were peaceful, but some were warlike. • While many lived in communities, others moved frequently as nomads.
II. EARLY PEOPLE OF TEXASThe early people of Texas had developed into four distinct cultures by the time the first Europeans arrived in the 1500’s. These were: 1. Forest Culture2. Gulf Culture3. Plains Culture4. Pueblo Culture
The Caddo Indians made up this group. The Texas Caddos were one part of a larger group called a confederacy. Each Caddo group had its own government, headed by two leaders.One leader handled matters of war and peace. The other directed affairsof religions.
For hundreds of years, the Caddos lived and farmed in the East Texas timberlands. They cultivated crops of squash, beans, pumpkins, melons, sunflowers, plums, and two crops of corn, their main source of food. The women and children also gathered fruit andberries, while the men hunted for turkeys, bears, and deer.
Most Caddos lived in permanent villages. They built dome-shaped houses of mud, poles, and straw. Carefully made, these structures would last for twenty years.
The Caddo Indians were usually on good terms with people,like the French, who wished to trade with them. But other Indian nations and European groups such as the Spanish wished to take Caddo land. With these groups, the Caddo often engaged in warfare.
The Karankawa Indians lived along the Gulf coast. They were nomads who roamed the area in search of food.
In fall and winter they lived near the coast where they would catch fish, turtles, shellfish, and gather sea plants. Their dugout canoes were their most prized possessions.
In spring and summer, the Karankawas would camp near the forests where they could gather nuts and berries and hunt deer, bears, and stray buffalo.
Karankawa homes were long poles tied together with a skin to cover the side from which the wind came. Thenthe hut was covered over withmarsh reeds and grasses. These dwellingswere called wickiups. Because they moved about a great deal, they didn’t need permanent shelter and never lackedresources to makea shelter.
Members of the Karankawa family worked together to make the tools necessary for their existence. They made pottery and wove baskets. These were coated with tar to make them waterproof. Seashells were used to make their tools.
By the mid-1800’s, Karankawas no longer lived in Texas. When North American settlers moved on to the coastal plains in the 1820’s, fighting broke out between the settlers and the Karankawas. By 1850, almost all Karankawas were killed, displaced,or had died of European diseases.
A second gulf people, the Coahuiltecan,is not a tribe at all, but many small bands of hunter/gatherers that live in the same region. The bands did not always speak the same languages and rarely had anything to do with each other.
Though the Coahuiltecans had access to the south Texas coast, they had little to do with the water. These nomadic bands camped in wickiups on the dry, brushy plains hunting and gathering anything they could to stay alive.
