Historical Question

[inkaneer]

He’s referring to the burning of the library at Chapultapec, I believe. These weren’t books in the sense that we might think about them today. They were Codex. A type of heiragliphic writing for lack of a better term. It is said they contained 10,000 years of history regarding the Native people of the Americas. I think it is a great loss. My understanding is that the monks burned them when they discovered that the natives they had converted were still carrying on with the traditions and ostensibly beliefs. My understanding of Pre-columbian spirituality amongst these people is that there were many paralleles to Christianity. This at once made it easier for them to accept but also may have lead to their thinking that the two traditions could be melded together. Many of the traditions and rituals are still alive in Catholic ceremonies in Catholic Churches throughout South, Central America and parts of the southern USA.

If these books were burned as alkleged then how do we know they contain 10,000 years of history of anything? Seems to me there is a bit of exageration going on here.

 

[steve53]

Well, I’m from central Texas and it’s been often stated that one of my great gandparents was a native. My Dad always said this was hogwash and I haven’t gotten around to establishing it as fact. Wanna come by for dinner?

From the Round Rock historical web site- on the Tonkawas

Cannibalism
As American settlers pushed west into the Great Plains, they drove the Plains Indians east and south into Texas. The Comanches, a particularly hostile and warlike tribe, migrated into central Texas at approximately the same time as the Spanish. The Tonkawas, when first met by European explorers, numbered approximately 1500 (Scarbrough 38). Their enemies, the Comanches, were a tribe of 20,000 in the early nineteenth century. Caught between the Comanches to the north and west and land-seeking settlers to the east, the Tonkawa were destined for extinction. Further worsening their chances was their penchant for cannibalism, which made them unpopular with other Native American groups and the new Texans (Jones 69). Herman Lehmann who, as a child, was captured by the Comanches and became a warrior, described his tribe’s reaction to this Tonkawan custom. A group of Comanches attacked a Tonkawa settlement and drove residents out. Lehmann wrote, “We took possession of the camp, and what do you suppose we found on that fire, roasting? One of the legs of a Comanche! A warrior of our tribe! Our chief gave the cry for vengeance, and we all joined the chorus” (Kelley 157). After the ensuing battle, eight Comanches were dead and fifty “desperately wounded.” The Comanches, however, won the encounter, killing twenty-eight Tonkawa Indians and driving the rest off (Ibid. 158).

Noah Smithwick, author of an early Texas history and a resident of Williamson County, wrote about a Tonkawa ceremony during which a dead Comanche was eaten in order to transfer the courage of the warrior to the Tonkawas taking part in the ceremony:

The only [ceremony] I ever witnessed was in Webber's prairie, the occasion being the killing of a Comanche, one of a party that had been on a horse stealing trip down to Bastrop.  They were hotly pursued, and , reasoning2…that the biggest must naturally be the best…they mounted a warrior on Manlove's big horse, which was part of the booty, and left him behind as rear guard, while the balance hurried the stolen horses away.  The Tonkawas joined the pursuit and when the pursuers came in sight of the lone rear guardsman three of the most expert Tonks  were sent to dispatch him.  This they soon accomplished, his steed being a slow one.  After killing and scalping him they refused to continue the chase, saying they must return home to celebrate the event, which they did by a feast and a scalp dance.  Having fleeced off the flesh of the dead Comanche they borrowed a big wash kettle from Puss Webber, into which they put the Comanche meat, together with a lot of corn and potatoes…When the stew was sufficiently cooked to allow its being ladled out with their hands the whole tribe gathered round, dipping it up with their hands and eating it….  Having gorged themselves on the delectable feast they lay down and slept till night, when the entertainment was concluded with the scalp dance.

Gotten up in…war paint and best breechclouts,3 the warriors gathered round in a ring, each one armed with some ear-torturing instrument, which they operated in unison with a drum made of dried deer skin stretched tightly over a hoop, at the same time keeping up a monotonous Ha, ah, ha, raising and lowering their bodies in time that would have pleased a French dancing master, every muscle seeming to twitch in harmony.  Meanwhile…a squaw would present each in turn an arm or leg of the dead foe, which they would bite viciously, catching it their teeth and shaking it….  And high over all waved from the point of a lance the scalp, dressed and painted, held aloft by a patriotic squaw.  The orgies were kept up till the performers were forced to desist from sheer exhaustion (Smithwick 179-181).

In 1840, after a battle against the Comanche, the Tonkawas busied themselves in cutting up the Comanches, roasting and eating part of their flesh. In another account, headed “The question settled,” particulars are given of a Comanche having been killed by the Toncahuas on the Brushy River, his hands, arms, and thick parts of the thighs were cut off and carried to their camp as a feast for the women and children. The Toncahuas say that all the wild Indian tribes will eat of the flesh of their enemies. The Lipan Indians call the Toncahuas “Maneaters” (Quoted in Jones 69).

Decline of the Tonkawa
Even though this fascinating tribe was the most important in central Texas, its history in Williamson County was largely over when the first U.S. settlers began arriving in the 1830s (Hasskarl 221). At that time

The Tonkawa were…a poor, wandering remnant of a once larger tribe.  They grew no crops, owned few horses, and feared to hunt buffalo farther west lest they encounter the numerous and hostile Comanche.  Sometimes they suffered starvation in late winter (Ewers 9).

The tribe’s decline began in the eighteenth century when many of them contracted smallpox while living on a Spanish mission in 1779. The epidemic killed as much as half the tribe (Scarbrough 37). In 1778, there were an estimated three hundred warriors for a total of perhaps 1000 members of the tribe (Hasskarl 221). A year later, the Spanish reported only 150 warriors (Scarbrough 38). After this devastating loss and frequent warfare with the Spanish and the newly arrived Comanches and Witchitas, the number of Tonkawas dwindled rapidly. While confederating distinct groups into a single tribe in the late eighteenth century may have slowed their disappearance, in 1847 the official estimate of the Tonkawa population was only fifty warriors (Ibid.).