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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAncient Native American Foodways in Brazos ValleyHistorical and Archaeological Glimpses into Ancient Native American Foodways in Brazos Valley Alston V. Thoms, Anthropology, TAMU Some 75,000 American Indians live in Texas today, as per 2000 U.S. census Among those are descendants of well-known “Texas” tribes, including 1370 Comanche and 2971 Apache; their ancestors were among a multitude of tribes that lived or raided, at one time or another, in the Brazos River Valley Most Texas Indians live in D/FW, Houston, Austin, & San Antonio; 30,000 are from tribes (e.g., Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw) with ancestral homelands in Southeast North America (aka Old South) From a global perspective, the Brazos River of south-central North America traverses a diversity of grassland, savannah, and forest regions The College Station area of the Brazos Valley lies within the vast Oak Savannah vegetation belt that forms a boundary zone between eastern forests and western grasslands TAMU is in the heart of Texas’ Gulf Coastal Plain and Post Oak Savannah, with oaks, hickory, sycamore, pecan and pine forests within 30 km College Station & the Post Oak Savannah, from San Antonio to Tyler, are environmentally similar to the oak-hickory-pine forests of eastern North America and hence more like Atlanta, GA than Amarillo, TX San Antonio Tyler Gulf Coastal Plain Post Oak Savannah is food-rich with a comparative abundance of deer and a variety of root food, as well as nuts, fruits, and berries, and some fish B/CS & the Post Oak Savannah are also similar to the North America’s Southeast culture area; ancient Native American lifeways in this region were more like those in northern Louisiana than Amarillo, TX Native American Diversity in the Brazos Valley varied through time and across space Yerpibame Payaya Cantonae Mixcal Xarame Sijame Tejas Cocos Meyeye Jojuane Tancague Waco Apache Bidai Kickapoo Cherokee Choctaw Caddo The Post Oak Savannah is truly a cultural cross-roads and has been for thousands of years Anglo expansion from the SE & NE into TX in early 1800s pushed SE & NE tribes into E. TX and B/CS area Louis Berlandier described & Sanchez y Topia sketched (1828) Caddo, Wichita, Tonkawa, Comanche, Apache in B/CS vicinity Native American, Anglo- and African-American colonists encountered “native” Texas Indians everywhere they attempted to settle “Strings” of prairie vegetation within the Post Oaks/Coastal Plains formed a natural travel corridor (aka Gilmore Corridor, Camino Real, and Hwy 21) that linked central Mexico and the lower Mississippi River basin In early the 1800s, as Anglos and enslaved African-Americans moved to eastern Texas, new conflicts erupted and Indians were destined for removal Indians resisted white expansion by raiding & killing settlers; Texas militia responded by raiding & killing Indians Sketch from J. W. Wilbarger’s (1889) Indian Depravations in Texas; it accompanied a story about an Indian man beginning hunted down and killed by bear dogs as punishment for stealing from a settler in Gonzales, ca. 1842 Reservations were established for TX & SE Indians in 1854, but the white settlers coveted the land; 1859: Texas’ “Trail of Tears” to OK and more reservation life Long before Anglo- and African Americans arrived in Texas, Spanish and French expeditions of the late 1600s and early 1700s encountered Bedai and Tonkawa bison hunters in the Brazos River Valley near B/CS Tonkawa cosmology attests to their origin near confluence of the Little and Brazos rivers at La Tortuga (aka Sugarloaf) Left: Spanish expedition from Saltillo (NE Mexico) to South Texas (Nueces River) against the Cacaxtle Indians (Coahuiltecan): 1665 Right: French expedition (La Salle) from Matagorda Bay (TX coast) to east TX to obtain corn from Tejas Indians (Caddo): 1686 La Salle and company establish Ft. St. Louis on Matagorda Bay in 1684, and made trading forays to Caddo county La Salle encountered Caddos on bison hunting trips near Navasota, TX; while visiting E. TX Caddo villages, he also attempted to purchase corn & horses Ft. St. Louis Cabeza de Vaca’s trek across S-C. North America with two other Spaniards & Esteban, an enslaved African, in the early 1530s AND Moscoso’s (de Soto Expedition) fast trip to vicinity of Austin in 1542 There are, however, much earlier written accounts of Native Americans in Brazos Valley, including the B/CS area: Cabeza de Vaca & his cohorts, through their written accounts and testimonies of their long walk across south-central North America, provide a unique and informative perspective of native H&G folks of the Post Oaks & Texas’ Gulf Coastal Plain Gulf Coastal Plain Cabeza de Vaca wrote in his narrative of his fear that ingenious people he encountered in southern North America would become extinct from war with and enslavement by the Spanish and especially from diseases (e.g., influenzas, measles, small pox) Cabeza de Vaca described Indians of the Post Oak Savannah and vicinity as hunters & gatherers, dependent on wild roots and deer (i.e., not practicing any agriculture); bison were seldom encountered Cabeza de Vaca referred to some of the tribes by their primary foods: Fish and Blackberry people (e.g., Karankawa) inhabited the coastal region; Fig people (e.g., Coahuiltecans) lived in S. TX and NE. MX; “Roots people” (e.g., Bedai-like) occupied the Post Oak Savannah Three hundred years later—1828—Sanchez y Tapia sketched and Berlandier described people who were likely descendents of those encountered by Cabeza de Vaca and company Karankawa; Fish and Blackberry People Geographic Coahuiltecan; Fig People Atakapa (aka Bedis); “Roots” People Hunter-gatherers of the Gulf Coastal Plain, and everywhere else for that matter, tended to rely on wild food resources proportional to availability Cabeza de Vaca also described a variety of cooking techniques, including cooking in earth ovens, directly on/above hot coals, and by stone boiling Ethnographic and archaeological data reveal the widespread occurrence and importance of hot-rock cookery, especially in earth ovens, in the Post Oaks, throughout North America, and around the world Cabeza de Vaca did not say just what kinds of roots were most used by Indians in Post Oak Savannah, but he did tell us that most roots were cooked in earth ovens, some for only a few hours, others for 48 hours Kalispel Indians, past & present, cook roots in earth ovens Root-foods were staples in the Plateau are of NW N. Amer. Scenes that follow are from the great camas cook-off in the Calispell Valley, NE WA, ca. 1985 Ethnographic Account: C. Sternberg (1876) witnessed/described a Comanche family in south-central OK (Cross Timbers) cooking camas in an earth oven E. camas (a lily) does not grow densely in the Post Oaks today, although it does still occur there as well as in Blackland prairie. It likely grew densely in pre-Columbian times Camas density: ca. 100-300/m2 Onions (Allium spp.) are widespread, grow densely (ca. 50+/m2) False garlic (Northoscordum bivalve) is widespread, dense (ca. 50+/m2) throughout the Post Oaks and adjacent regions Spring beauty (Claytonia virginica) grows widely and densely (ca. 100 flowers/m2) Camas, onions, and false garlic have been recovered from ancient earth ovens, as have rain lily (above l.) & dog-tooth violet (above r.) onion false garlic eastern camas Albeit a small sample, radio-carbon ages on lily bulbs or hot-rock cooking features with bulbs indicate initial use in Texas’ savannahs by 9000-8000 years ago, with marked intensification occurring by 3000-1500 years ago Hundreds of ovens, probably dating to last 3000 years have been found near Lake Somerville; projectile points span 10,000 years or more Armstrong site, near San Marcos, Blackland Prairie adjacent to Post Oaks, yielded a small cook-stone feature & charred camas bulbs, ca 6780 years old Wilson-Leonard site, northeast of Austin along the Edwards Plateau/ Blackland boundary & near the Post Oaks, yielded large ovens & charred camas bulbs, ca 8200 years ago Richard Beene site, 15 miles south of San Antonio: contains remains of Pre-Columbian encampments with hot-rock cooking facilities from 750 to 8800 years old buried up to 35 ft. below modern surface Archaic period: ca. 9000-2500 B.P. Several families tended to live together in mat/hide-covered wickiups, large enough of 6-8 adults; they used the atlatl and dart to hunt and hot-rock cookery for roots and other foods Subsistence: Entirely by hunting and gathering; deer as primary animal food; also small game; roots & prickly-pear tunas & pads (nopalitos) as seasonal stables; pecans & river mussels too Paleoindian Period, pre-10,000 years ago, is well represented in the Brazos Valley: Duewall-Newberry site, remains of mammoth bones quarried by Paleoindians Mammoth bones from Duewall-Newberry site, TX, Brazos River terrace fill; Post Oak Savannah; inner Gulf Coastal Plain Re-articulated segments of fractured right femur Cortical flake (both faces) from femur diaphysis Close-up of impact point on second femur diaphysis flake (scales = 50, 10, 5 cm) At the Richard Beene site, south of San Antonio backhoe trenches exposed fauna-rich sediments, ca. 12-14,000 years old AND a mammoth bone was discovered there in 2001 after a major flood BHT with soils 6,7,81 Mid section of a chemically weathered mammoth bone, probably a Mammuthus columbi, tibia (showing opposite faces), with helical breakage patterns at both ends of a type associated with fracture of wet bone through dynamic loading that may have involved an anvil and a large (i.e., boulder) hammer stone For more than 10,000 years, however, the foodways of Indian people in the Brazos Valley were focused squarely on deer and wild roots Throughout much of Texas, Indian people, as shown here by Coahuiltecan descendants in San Antonio, TX, are active in maintaining elements of the cultural heritage and passing it along to their children Texas Indians have also endeavored, albeit unsuccessfully, to obtain legal protection for unmarked Indian graves in Texas, as our state is one of only 10 states without such legislation