About the Texas Karankawa
The Texas Karankawa Indians, now extinct, were a nomadic tribe that lived along the Texas Gulf Coast from Galveston to Corpus Christi for many centuries. The first European encounter with the Karankawa Indians occurred in the 1520s, and observations by European explorers and American settlers to the area offer valuable insight into the Texas Karankawa and their culture. By the 1850s the Texas Karankawa ceased to exist as a tribe.
Other People Are Reading
-
History
-
The first contact between the Texas Karankawa and Europeans occurred when Cabeza de Vaca came upon the Karankawa near Galveston in 1528 after his expedition shipwrecked. After that the Texas Karankawa had no European contact until the French arrived in 1685. Karankawa territory then became a focal point of Spanish and French land acquisition. Eventually Spain took control of Texas and tried unsuccessfully to bring the Texas Karankawa into its missions. The Texas Karankawa refused to be brought into the missions, clinging to their nomadic lifestyle and culture until they were annihilated by disease and warfare in the 1850s.
Features
-
The Texas Karankawa relied primarily on fishing, hunting, and gathering to obtain their food supply. The Karankawa traveled back and forth between the mainland of the Texas coast and the barrier islands due to seasonal climate changes.
Historical records indicated that the Texas Karankawa never stayed for more than a few weeks at a time at any particular campsite, using portable wigwams as shelter. The Texas Karankawa traveled in small groups of up to forty people, all stopping to make camp when the chief deemed it necessary. Karankawa women often made cooking fires in their wigwams and cooked the meals with simple clay pots and dishes. Typical fare for the Texas Karankawa included a wide variety of seafood like fish, turtles, and oysters, along with deer and many native fruits and nuts.
The Texas Karankawa were strong swimmers, runners, and fierce warriors. For both hunting and warfare the Karankawa used the long bow as their primary weapon.
Texas Karankawa engaged in religious gatherings, known as mitotes. During these gatherings the Karankawa drank an intoxicating beverage made from yaupon leaves, played music, and danced. European observers also recorded that the Texas Karankawa engaged in cannibalism, eating pieces of enemy flesh in hopes of gaining strength and courage. -
Identification
-
The Texas Karankawa were tall and muscular, due to the physical strength needed to travel constantly over land and water and withstand the elements of the coast. Since the climate of the Texas coast is humid and warm for most of the year, the Texas Karankawa did not wear much clothing. Often the Karankawa men were observed in just a breech clout or completely naked. Karankawa women wore moss or animal skin skirts but no shirts. Both sexes were heavily tattooed and rubbed dirt mixed with alligator or shark grease on their bodies to repel mosquitoes.
Considerations
-
The Texas Karankawa lacked any central governing figure, and their constant travels made it difficult for them to grow or protect their territory. They had no horses or weaponry beyond the bow and arrow, and they were dependent upon ever-changing local food supplies to keep them fed. These factors of the Texas Karankawa lifestyle would all contribute to their eventual extinction by disease and the effects of European invasion.
Effects
-
Poorly armed and nomadic, the Texas Karankawa were no match against the onslaught of European expansionists, and then American settlers to Texas. Hostilities between the Spanish and the Texas Karankawa were constant for more than a century in the 1700s as the Spanish tried, unsuccessfully, to convert the Karankawa to Christianity. In the 1850s the remaining Texas Karankawa were made extinct by a Texas military force sent to defeat the tribe once and for all.
-
