The Coahuiltecans were various small autonomous groups of Native Americans who inhabited the Rio Grande valley in what is now southern Texas and northeastern Mexico. Various Coahuiltec groups were hunter-gatherers.
First encountered by Europeans in the sixteenth century, their population declined due to disease of European imports, slavery, and various small-scale wars against the Spanish, criollo, Apache, and other Coahuiltecan groups.
See other Native American Tribe in the United States
After the separation of Texas from Mexico, the Coahuiltecan culture mainly forced into harsh living conditions. Because of this violent influence, most people in the United States and Texas are unfamiliar with Coahuiltecan or Tejano cultures outside of the major population groups located mostly in South Texas, West Texas, and San Antonio.
In 1886, ethnologist Albert Gatschet discovered the last known remains of the Coahuiltecan group: 25 Comecrudo, 1 Cotoname, and 2 Pakawa. They live near Reynosa, Mexico.
Brief Explanation
The name given to these Coahuiltecans comes from Coahuila, the state in New Spain where Europeans first encountered them. The name comes from the Spanish word Nahuatl.
The Coahuiltecans lived in the plain, scrubland, dry state of southern Texas, roughly south of the line from the Gulf Coast at the mouth of the Guadalupe River to San Antonio and west to around Del Rio. They live on both sides of the Rio Grande.
Their neighbour along the Texas coast is Karankawa, and inland to their northeast is Tonkawa. The two tribes probably related languages with some Coahuiltecans. To the north of them is Jumano. Then Apache Centipede and Comanche migrated to this area.
Their indefinite western boundary was around Monclova, Coahuila, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, and south to approximately the present location of Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, Sierra de Tamaulipas, and the Tropic of Cancer. People of similar hunting and gathering cultures live throughout northeastern Mexico and southeastern Tejas, which include Pastia, Payaya, Papopa, and Anxau.
Despite living near the Gulf of Mexico, most of the Coahuiltecans were inland people. Near the Bay, there is little fresh water for more than 70 miles (110 km) both north and south of the Rio Grande. Therefore, bands are limited in their ability to survive near the coast and lose other resources, such as fish and shellfish, which limit opportunities to live near and use coastal resources.
Language spoken
In the mid-20th century, linguists theorized that Coahuiltecan belonged to one language family and that the Coahuiltecan language was related to the Hokan languages of present-day California, Arizona, and Baja California.
However, most modern linguists dismiss this theory for lack of evidence; instead, they believe that the Coahuiltecans were diverse in culture and language. At least seven different languages are known to have been spoken, one of which is called Coahuiltecan or Pakawa, spoken by several bands near San Antonio.
The most famous languages are Comecrudo and Cotoname, both spoken by the people of the deltas of the Rio Grande and Pakawa. Catholic missionaries compiled the vocabularies of some of these languages in the 18th and 19th centuries, but the language's sample was too small to establish connections between them. (See Coahuiltecan language) Coahuiltecan
population
During the more than 300 years of Spanish colonial history, explorers and their missionary priests recorded the names of more than a thousand bands or ethnic groups. Band names and compositions change frequently and are often identified by geographic features or location.
Most bands turned out to be between 100 and 500 people. The total non-agricultural population of India, including the Coahuiltecan, in northeastern Mexico and neighbouring Texas at the time of first contact with Spain has been estimated by two scholars as 86,000 and 100,000. Probably 15,000 of them live in the delta of the Rio Grande, the most densely populated area. In 1757, a small group of black Africans was also recorded living in the delta, apparently refugees from slavery.
Smallpox and slavery devastated the Coahuiltecan in the Monterrey area in the mid-17th century. Because of their remoteness from the main areas of Spanish expansion, the Coahuiltecans of Texas probably suffered less from introduced European diseases and slave attacks than the natives of northern Mexico.
However, the disease spreads through contact between indigenous peoples and trade. After the Roman Catholic Franciscan Mission was founded in 1718 in San Antonio, the indigenous population declined rapidly, especially from the smallpox epidemic that began in 1739. Most of the group disappeared before 1825, with their survivors absorbed by the natives and other mestizos of Texas. or Mexico.
Culture and subsistence
In the words of one scholar, the Coahuiltec culture represents "the culmination of more than 11,000 years of a way of life that has successfully adapted to the climate and resources of south Texas." The people shared non-agricultural traits in common. And live in small, autonomous groups without political unity above the group and family level.
They are nomadic hunter-gatherers, carrying their few possessions on their backs as they move from place to place to exploit food sources that may only be available seasonally. They built small circular huts at each camp with a frame of four bent posts covered with woven mats.
They wear small clothes. Occasionally, they would gather in large groups of several groups and hundreds of people, but most of their camps were small, consisting of a few huts and a few dozen people. Along the Rio Grande, Coahuiltecans led a more sedentary life, perhaps building larger dwellings and using palm fronds as a building material.
In times of need, they also subsist on worms, lizards, ants, and unprocessed grain collected from deer droppings. They eat a lot of raw food but use open fires or fire pits for cooking. Most of their diet comes from plants.
Pecans are an important food, collected in the fall and stored for future use. In summer, many people congregate in large bushes of prickly pear cactus southeast of San Antonio, where they feast on fruit and pads and socially interact with other groups.
They cook the tubers and root crowns of maguey, sotol, and lechuguilla in pits, and the mesquite beans are ground to make flour. Most Coahuiltecans seem to have regular rounds of travel in their food gathering. Payaya Band near San Antonio has ten different summer campsites over 30 square miles. Some Indians live near the coast in winter.
In summer, they will travel 85 miles (140 km) inland to take advantage of prickly pear cactus bushes. Fish may be the primary source of protein for the ribbons that live in the delta of the Rio Grande.
Very little is known about the Coahuiltecan religion. They come together in large numbers on occasion for all-night dances called myths. During these occasions, they eat peyote to reach a trance-like state while dancing. The meagre resources of their homeland resulted in intense competition and frequent, albeit small-scale, wars.
Coahuiltecan History
In the early 1530s, lvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and his three companions, survivors of a failed Spanish expedition to Florida, were the first Europeans known to have lived between and through Coahuiltecan lands. In 1554, three Spanish ships sank on Padre Island.
Indians killed all but one. Perhaps a hundred survivors attempted to make their way south towards the Spanish settlements in Mexico. In the early 1570s, the Spaniard Luis de Carvajal y Cueva campaigned near the Rio Grande, ostensibly to punish the Indians for their 1554 attack on sunken sailors, more likely to capture enslaved people.
In 1580, Carvajal, governor of Nuevo Leon, and a group of "rebels who recognized neither God nor King" began conducting regular slave raids to capture the Coahuiltecans along the Rio Grande. The Coahuiltecan was helpless.
They frequently raided Spanish settlements and expelled the Spanish from Nuevo Leon in 1587. But they lacked the organization and political unity to build an effective defence when large numbers of Spanish settlers returned in 1596. The conflict between the Coahuiltecan people and the Spaniards continued throughout the 17th century. Spain replaced slavery by forcing Indians to move to the Encomienda system. While this was exploitative, it was less destructive to Indian society than slavery.
Outbreaks of smallpox and measles were common, resulting in many deaths among Indians, as they did not have acquired immunity. The first recorded epidemic in the region was 1636–39, which is regularly followed by other outbreaks every few years. A 17th-century historian from Nuevo Leon, Juan Bautista Chapa, predicted that all Indians and tribes would soon be "exterminated" by disease; he signed up for 161 bands that used to live near Monterrey but had disappeared.
Spanish expeditions continued to find large Coahuiltecan settlements in the Rio Grande delta and large multi-tribal campgrounds along the south Texas rivers, especially near San Antonio. The Spaniards founded the San Antonio de Valero (Alamo) Mission in 1718 to evangelize among the Coahuiltecans and other Indians in the region, especially the Jumano. They immediately set up four additional missions.
The Coahuiltecan supported the Mission to some extent, seeking refuge with Spain from a new threat, the Apache, Comanche raiders from the north. , and Wichita. The five missions have about 1,200 Coahuiltecans and other Indians living during their most prosperous period from 1720 to 1772. That Indians were often dissatisfied with their lives on missions is shown by frequent "runs" and desertions.
Spain and mestizos in decades. Spanish settlement in the lower reaches of the Rio Grande Valley and delta, the remaining demographic stronghold of the Coahuiltecan, began in 1748. The Spaniards identified fourteen different bands living in the delta in 1757. Overwhelmed by Spanish settlers, most of the Coahuiltecans were absorbed by the people.
After a long decline, the Mission near San Antonio was secularized in 1824. The Coahuiltecans appear to have become extinct as a nation, integrated into the Spanish-speaking mestizo community. In 1827 only four property owners in San Antonio were listed in the census as "Indians". A man identified as "Mission Indian," possibly a Coahuiltecan, fought on the side of Texas in the Texas Revolution of 1836.
In the community of Berg's Mill, near the former San Juan Capistrano Mission, several families retain memories and elements of their Coahuiltecan heritage. In the words of scholar Alston V. Thoms, they "become easily seen as the resurgent Coahuiltecans." in the late 20th century, they united in public opposition to exhuming the remains of Indians buried in the tombs of the former Mission. Archaeologists conducted investigations on the Mission to prepare for the building's preservation project.
See other Native American Tribe in the United States
The Heritage Group
Some unknown organization in Texas claims of descended from the Coahitecan people. These organizations are not federally or state recognized as Native American.
Reference:
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