Americans Indians of Texas

Vocabulary Word Definition Illustration

tribes Several bands that share the same language and have the same leaders.

bands Several small family groups that live and work together.

culture A way of life shared by a group of people

scarce Hard to find.

maize corn

religion A set of beliefs about God or gods.

confederation A large group of tribes that join together to help one another.

nomad A person who moves from place to place and has no permanent home.

shaman A Native American religious leader and healer

specialize To work at one kind of job and do it well.

tepee A cone-shaped shelter used by Native Americans

council A group of leaders who make decisions.

adobe Mud mixed with a small amount of straw or grass. 

irrigation Use of canals, ditches or pipes to carry water to dry places.

Tribes of Texas

Karankawas The Karankawas were found mostly

between the cities of Galveston and Corpus Christi along the coast.

The hot and humid climate made life difficult for these native people. They had sandy, wet soil that was not good for growing food.

They also had holy men and women called Shaman.

Karankawa Shelters

Brush Lodge

Lean-To

These natives didn’t build much of a house, because they were always moving in search of food. That meant they were Nomads.

They mainly lived in brush lodges and lean-tos.

Food They spent much of their time moving from

place to place to find food. They traveled in small groups of 30 to 40

people. A single leader headed each group. Mostly they ate fish, alligators, and other

animals found in the marshes and swamps and wild fruits and berries, roots, nuts.

When the season changed and the coast didn’t provide enough food for the bands, they would move inland and hunt for food, such as opossum, raccoon, rabbits, deer.

Clothing The men mainly wore

breechcloth. Women wore short skirts made

of soft skins. Some had shawls made of Spanish Moss.

Fiber sandals and also had cloaks made of coyote hides or blankets from rabbit skins.

Coahuiltecan These Indians were nomadic hunters. They spoke many different languages because

they weren’t one tribe, but many grouped together.

They got their name from the location where many of the bands or groups were found.

Many of these Indians moved to the Spanish missions for survival from the Spanish moving in the south and the Apache coming from the north.

Food This group constantly was moving and

looking/hunting for food. There weren’t any large game in the area so

they relied on small game such as rabbits, small rodents, reptiles, birds, bugs and plants cacti, mesquite beans, nuts, sotol, and agave.

Besides the small game that the Coahuiltecans ate, they ate ant eggs, spiders, worms, lizards, snakes (including rattlesnakes), dirt, rotten wood, and deer dung.

Shelter Coahuiltecans used brush lodges

sometimes when weather and hunting were good in one place.

When they camped at one place for only a day or two they might build simple windbreaks or lean-tos of brush and tree limbs.

Usually they lived and slept in the open. The climate in South Texas is fairly warm year round so living without a shelter is practical.

Brush lodge

Lean-to

Clothing Before the Spanish built missions,

the Coahuiltecan didn’t wear much clothing because of the climate.

The men mainly wore the breechcloths and fiber sandals.

In cold weather they would wear cloaks made out of rabbit hides or whatever they could find.

Once in the missions, the indians would wear clothing given to them by missionaries.

Before Spanish built missions

After Spanish built missions.

The Caddos The name Caddo comes from the

Indian word Kadohadacho, which means "true chiefs".

The Caddo Nation is a confederation of several Southeastern Native American tribes the USA.

The Caddo lived in the Piney Woods of East Texas.

A Caddo

Food The Caddo were very intelligent

and advanced. They became farmers and learned

to trade for those items they needed.

They farmed maize, squash, beans, nuts, and berries

The Caddos hunted for the game found in the Piney Woods area.

Shelter

Since the Caddo didn’t travel much for food,

they lived in tall cone shaped grass huts. To build a hut, they made a wood frame and

covered it with cut cane and long grasses. These huts were nicely furnished inside with

furniture and were quite comfortable. The inside of the huts had woven grass and

split cane mats on the floors. Mats were hung up as partitions inside the

hut for other families.

Clothing Caddo Indian men wore breechcloths,

sometimes with leather leggings to protect their legs. Caddo men did not usually wear shirts, but in cold weather they wore cloaks.

Caddo women wore wraparound skirts and poncho tops made of woven fiber and deerskin.

Both genders wore earrings and moccasins.

Both men and women wore buffalo robes.

The Plains Indians – Lipan Apache

There were lots of plains natives. They are the most famous of all the natives because they were fierce warriors and hunters. One tribe was called the Lipan Apache.

All plains tribes were Nomadic. They traveled around in search of the buffalo.

Lipan Apache Clothing Breechcloth and deerskin

moccasins and deerskin shirts, hip-high leggings.

Women wore dresses, knee-high leggings and moccasins.

Decorated with elk teeth, bones, shells and porcupine quills.

Robes worn in winter.

Lipan Apache. Pushed onto the Edwards Plateau by Comanche, the Lipan sought protection temporarily in Spanish missions. Friendly at first to settlers, they became feared raiders as more Anglos moved onto the Plateau

Lipan Apache Shelter

Apaches lived in tipis so they could take them up and down quickly to chase after the buffalo.

The women put them up in only 20 minutes!! The tipis were made from buffalo or deer hides

and wrapped around long poles made from trees.

Comanche The Comanche were once part of the Shoshone

Indians. By around 1740 they first showed up in the Texas

panhandle. The Comanche were fierce warriors who lived on

the Southern Plains. In order to settle they had to run off the current Apache, Jumano and some other Pueblo Indians.

The Comanche were organized as bands. They are not really a tribe. They would come together in 2 to 3 bands to create a tribe when they would need to fight an enemy.

Food The men hunted buffalo as their

main source of food they also trapped deer, antelope, quail and jackrabbits

The women gathered fruits, nuts, berries, bananas and the prickly-pear cactus.

The traditional cooking pouch was made from the lining of a buffalo's stomach.

Berries

Buffalo

Prickly Pear Tunas

Shelter

Because the Comanche were always on the move and nomadic, they lived in tepees.

These dwellings offered a wonderful combination of utility and portability. Tipis could be raised and lowered within minutes.

Two women alone could erect a tipi in less than an hour. Tipis were more desirable as shelter than brush lodges.

Clothing

Everyday clothing for men included a breechcloth, leggings, and moccasins.

In the winter they wore boots of buffalo hide that reached to the knee.

Men’s shirts worn in cold weather were made from deer or antelope skins.

The buffalo robe was also an important item.

• The women wore buckskin dresses with fringe on the sleeves and hems and beaded designs.

• The blouse was made like a pouch and was high necked with beading across the shoulders to the sleeves.

Horses The horse was a key element in

Comanche culture, who are thought to have been the first of the Plains Indians to have horses. The horses were introduced to the Comanche by the Spanish.

With horses, they became more daring and aggressive and were soon considered as the best buffalo hunters on the plains.

The horse trade quickly became a large part of their culture, breeding, stealing, and trading horses to other plains Indians, allowing them also to become more productive buffalo hunters.

Jumano

The Jumanos lived in the desert part of the Mountains and Basins Region by West Texas and New Mexico.

The Rio Grande branch of the Jumanos were Puebloan Indians and they lived in Puebloan style villages.

Each Jumano village had its own leader and government.

Shelter – Adobe Homes• Since the Jumano were farmers,

they had homes that were immovable and made with thick walls of mud.

• They were called adobe homes.

• The walls kept the house cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

• They had many floors and the ladders could be pulled up when they were attacked so they could hide inside.

Food The Puebloan Jumanos were farmers

and were able to grow corn, squash and beans in the hot, dry climate.

They irrigated their crops with water from streams.

The Jumano also traded goods with other tribes. They traded dried vegetables for buffalo hides, meat, cloth, salt, shells, and other goods they could not make or grow.

They even traded with tribes as far as the Caddo in Eastern Texas.

Clothing Jumano also grew cotton on their

land and tried to weave cotton into cloth for clothing and blankets.

Jumano men wore breechcloths during the hot climate and usually tattooed their upper torso.

Women wore deerskin ponchos and skirts with cloaks of cattle skins.