While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Comanche, One of the southern tribes of the
Shoshonean stock, and the only one of that group living entirely on
the plains. Their language and traditions show that they are a
comparatively recent offshoot from the Shoshoni of Wyoming, both
tribes speaking practically the same dialect and, until very
recently, keeping up constant and friendly communication. Within the
traditionary period the 2 tribes lived adjacent to each other in
south Wyoming, since which time the Shoshoni have been beaten hack
into the mountains by the Sioux and other prairie tribes, while the
Comanche have been driven steadily southward by the same
pressure. In this southerly migration the Penateka seem to have
preceded the rest of the tribe. The Kiowa say that when they
themselves moved southward from the Black-hills region, the Arkansas
was the north boundary of the Comanche.
In 1719 the Comanche are mentioned under their Siouan
name of Padouca as living in what now is west Kansas. It must he
remembered that from 500 to 800 miles was an ordinary range for a
prairie tribe and that the Comanche were equally at home on the
Platte and in the Bolson de Mapimi of Chihuahua. As late as 1805 the
North Platte was still known as Padouca fork. At that time they
roamed over the country about the heads of tile Arkansas, Red,
Trinity, and Brazos rivers, in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and
Texas. For nearly 2 centuries they were at war with tile Spaniards
of Mexico and extended their raids far down into Durango. They were
friendly to the Americans generally, but became bitter enemies of
the Texans, by whom they were dispossessed of their best hunting
grounds, and carried on a relentless war against them for nearly 40
years. They have been close confederates of the
Kiowa since about 1795. In 1835
they made their first treaty with the Government, and by the treaty
of Medicine Lodge in 1867 agreed to go on their assigned reservation
between Washita and Red rivers, south west Oklahoma; but it was not
until after the last outbreak of the southern prairie tribes in
1874-75 that they and their allies, the Kiowa and
Apache, finally settled on
it. They were probably never a large tribe, although supposed to
bepopulous on account of their wide range.
Within the last 50 years they have been terribly wasted
by war and disease. They numbered 1,400 in 1904, attached to the
Kiowa agency, Okla.
The Comanche were nomad buffalo hunters, constantly on
the move, cultivating little from the ground, and living in skin
tipis. They were long noted as the finest horsemen of the plains and
bore a reputation for dash and courage. They have a high sense of
honor and hold themselves superior to the other tribes with which
they are associated. In person they are well built and rather
corpulent. Their language is the trade language of the region and is
more or less understood by all the neighboring tribes. It is
sonorous and flowing, its chief characteristic being a rolling r.
The language has several dialects.
The gentile system seems to be unknown among the
Comanche. They have, or still remember, 12 recognized divisions or
bands and may have had others in former times. Of these all but 5
are practically extinct. The Kwahari and Penateka are the most
important. Following, in alphabetic order, is the complete list as
given by their leading chiefs: Detsanayuka or Nokoni; Ditsakana,
Widyu, Yapa, or Yamparika; Kewatsana; Kotsai; Kotsoteka; Kwahari or
Kwahadi; Motsai; Pagatsu; Penateka or Penande; Pohoi (adopted
Shoshoni); Tanima; Tenawa or Tenahwit; Waaih. In addition to these
the following have also been mentioned by writers as Comanche
divisions: Guage-johe, Keaston, Kwashi, Muvinabore, Nauniem,
Parkeenaum. See Dotame.
Dotame. A tribe of which
Lewis and Clark learned from Indian informants. They were said to speak
the Comanche language and to number 30 warriors, or 120 souls, in 10
lodges. No traders had been among them; they trafficked usually with the
Arikara, were hostile toward the Sioux, but friendly with the Mandan, the
Arikara, and with their neighbors. From the use of the name in connection
with Cataka ( Kiowa Apache) and Nemousin (Comanche), the Dotame are
seemingly identifiable with the Kiowa.