User:JustAJar4/Native Tribes in Texas

For a more general overview and a full list of groups in Texas, see: Native American tribes in Texas

Native Tribes in Texas are a collection of Indigenous peoples who have ancestral ties to Texas or have been displaced to the state. Various groups are stated to have inhabited the area as far back as 13,000 or 14,000 years ago - perhaps even 37,000 years ago with the presence of Paleoindians - and reached upwards of 50 independent nations before 1900. These demographics changed drastically when the Spanish began exploring the area in the sixteenth century, colonial expansion

Today, there exists a plurality of Indigenous groups who live in the state whilst only three tribes are recognized federally. They inhabit the three Indian reservations located in Texas.

Demographics

Regions

The regions of Texas generally has two forms of categorization: one that includes only four regions (Great Plains, Central Plains, Mountains and Basins Region, and Coastal Plains; the Natural Regions of Texas) and another that includes seven. The labels of these regions have changed drastically since their foundation and the boundaries have been negotiated, but the number remains the same. The tribes are generally referred to by location using the latter, if not by linguistic styles, which offers its own complications due to the diversity of languages and dialects across tribes. Here is a delineation of general groupings:

• Coastal
  • Comecrudos
  • Karankawa
  • The Mariames
  • Akokisa
  • Bidai
  • Atakapan bands
  • Coahuiltecans
• Trans-Pecos
  • Jumano, which spanned into the plains of Texas and occupied more regions beyond the state (New Mexico and Nueva Vizcaya)
  • Patarabueyes
  • Chisos
  • Mansos
• Plains/South Texas Plains
  • Coahuiltecans
  • Comanche
  • Kiowa
  • Apache
  • Tonkawa
• Plateus and Canyonlands
  • Apache
  • Comanche
  • Kiowa
  • Gueiquesale

Many of these tribes have overlap, connection, and interaction with Central American indigenous cultures.

Additionally, linguistic classifications include:

• Caddoanes
• Tunicanes
• Coahuilteco
• Athapaskanes
• Uto-Azteques

Distinction Complications

Upon initial documentation of these groups by the Spanish in the late 1500s, collectives were made based off of linguistic similarities, but these are now understood as relative geographic labels due to the amount of diversity present within each faction. Coahuiltecan as a distinction included a plethora of tribes that may have roughly spoken the same language and had roughly similar ways of life, but varied in dialect, ways of life, and self definitions. The Jumano people face an identity conundrum referred to the "Jumano problem" in scholarship due to their disappearance from records circa the 1700s and a debate about what constitutes as a "true" Jumano. The Cado label has been susceptible to misuse due to the creation of the term Caddoan to denote both adjectival Cado description and a linguistic culture that includes groups beyond that of the Cado people.

Occupation

Pre-16th Century

Many of the tribes that have once settled in the area are now extinct due to a variety of factors, including extermination, re-identification, and assimilation into other tribes or social groups. However, it is believed that a plethora of groups roamed or settled in the area prior to European contact. These tribes have been documented and collectivized under categories that were first determined by a perceived difference of languages by European explorers, but is understood today as a variance in location.

One of the most prolific groups is the Coahuiltecans or the Tāp Pīlam Coahuiltecan, who inhabited the South Plains region of Texas and, at one point, consisted of hundreds of affiliated tribes, many of which only had minimal contact or even none at all.

16th - 20th Century

European arrival to the land drastically shifted Indigenous populations and logistics. The 1600s through to the early 1800s saw vast displacement, mass introduction of new groups to the area such as the Comanche and Apache people, the disappearance of several populations, and the cumulation of many peoples into the missionary endeavor begun by the Spanish. Throughout this time period, groups vanish, were redefined, or absorbed into other existing groups.

Ways of Life

Sustenance

Several groups, especially those inhabiting the South Plains region, lived as hunter-gatherer societies before and during the time of initial European interaction. Depending on the group, strategies and styles will change. For example, one of the tribes affiliated with the Coahuiltecan collective used a strategy of deer hunting in which the hunters would set fire to the grass surrounding the prey and direct them into a bay, ensuring that they remained in the water until they drowned. Additionally, tribes would collect an array of plants.