VII. THE TEJAS: THEIR HABITS, GOVERNMENT, AND

SUPERSTITIONS.

By Mrs. LEE C. HARBY.

Among the various accounts of the North American Indians none is found dealing with a nation which possessed the distinguishing excellence of having been always friendly to the white man, a people recorded in the diaries of the priests who went among them as courteous and docile and with a natural inclination toward all that was good.

That the historian has neglected the Tejas Indian will be perceived by whomsoever attempts to search for data upon which to build a narrative of these tribes, agricultural in their habits, living in houses, and banded together in a confedera tion. The contrast they present when compared with "the wild tribes" which surrounded them makes this neglect the more marked, rendering most valuable and important any light which can be thrown upon their peculiar traits, their location, and the boundaries of their domain.

Bancroft, in his Native Races of the Pacific, follows the Apaches and Comanches, with their various tribal offshoots, down into Texas, yet does not name the Tejas Indians, although his many other histories mention them constantly. With the object of writing an account which can hereafter be referred to as authority, I have searched out my data in various old manuscripts, diaries, and reports made to the church, corroborating the matter so found by the allusions of many authors scattered through their different works.

The name Tejas had existence long before the time of the generally accepted account of how Texas received its appellation. True, the Indians cried "Tejas! Tejas!" upon seeing De Leon and his soldiers, and Father Manzanet, the priest who accompanied the expedition, says in his narrative that it. meant "Friends! friends!" But Salmeron tells us that the

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Aixos and their kindred tribes "have much gold, which they call Tejas." So the natives may have intended to convey a very different idea from that with which they are accredited. The origin of the name has not been ascertained, but the first mention of it which I can trace is where it is said that Nuno de Guzman in 1530 had as a slave one of the Tejas Indians.2 From that time on every account of every expedition made to the east of the Rio Grande del Norte mentioned them.

Cabeza de Vaca in 1535 passed up through what is now Texas and traversed the very part where the Tejas Indians dwelt. He does not give the names of the tribes in his narrative, translated by Buckingham Smith, but relates many things of the natives with whom he was thrown which apply directly to the Tejas and harmonize entirely with the very full account which I find in the manuscript of Father Francisco de Jesus Maria, translated by Professor Wipprecht, then of the Agricultural and Mechanical College at Bryan, Tex., which translation is now deposited in the library of the State at Austin, its capital.

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Bandelier, in his papers of the Archæological Institute, mentions that the Tejas were known to Coronado, who journeyed through a part of their country during his expedition in 1540. In 1606 Ornate penetrated to their domain. In 1626 Benevides, writing of what Mother Maria de Jesus Agreda had done among the different nations, speaks of "the Theas Indians," saying that was not their exact name, but it had that sound, and Manzanet, in his report to Don Carlos de Siguenza y Congera concerning the Tejas, mentions having a letter in his possession which tells of this. 5 In 1650 Diego del Castille penetrated "far beyond the Nueces to the country of the Tejas, where he found pearls;" and in 1654 a similar expedition went out under Diego del Guadeljara. In 1683 a Jumana Indian from the Nueces came into the mission of El Paso with a request that the friars there would send priests to teach Chris

1 Bancroft's Northern Mexican States, page 383.

2 Relacion de Castaneda, in Ternaux Compans Voyages, IX, I.

3❝Y otra nacion de gente se llaman los Tejas, todos lobrados los cuerpos y rostros."

'Shea's translation, Lenox Library, New York.

5 Wipprecht's translation, State library, Austin, Tex.

6 Bancroft's Northern Mexican States. This must have been in the Llano or San Saba River, where pearls are still found.

tianity to his tribe and to the Tejas, giving a report of that province, which was represented "as one of the richest and most fertile in America." Paredes, writing of them in 1686, speaks of their living by agriculture and of their being far superior to the roaming Indians. We now come to the manuscripts of Manzanet, written in 1690, giving an account of receiving reports concerning the Tejas in 1685 and alluding to the work which had already been done among them by Mother Maria Agreda, the date of which Benevides puts at 1620. It was, perhaps, due to her ministrations that all the writers, from Benevides on, speak of these tribes as being ready and anxious for Christian teaching and of finding them so tractable.

LOCATION.

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It is said that Capt. Herbert Martin left the Nueces and went "50 leagues southeast to the land of the Tejas."1 Manzanet locates them in all that territory about the San Antonio, Guadalupe, and San Marcos rivers, speaking of them as being scattered over enormous tracts of land. He mentions them as being where it is mountainous and again almost to the seacoast, near Espiritu Santo Bay. This is carried out later by Father Francisco de Jesus Maria, who tells of their mountainous country and of their plains stretching nearly to the Gulf. He says that three great rivers crossed their land, one of which was the Trinidad-the Trinity. They were settled on the banks of the Neches and on the San Miguel, where this priest established the second mission built in that immediate neighborhood-the Mission of the Most Holy Name of Mary. The first nine tribes he mentions occupied 35 leagues of land. He then tells of twenty-one more tribes of the Tejas, the last five of which constitute "a very large province which is toward the north," about 505 leagues' distant from the first nine named, and with all the rest of the twenty-one scattered "between north and east." He names eight more tribes in the direction of south and west from the first named, about 80 leagues, and still farther south and west he tells of ten more, giving all their names. Here, then, are forty-eight distinct tribes which formed the nation of the Tejas, or "friendly Indians," for the

1 Bancroft's Northern Mexican States, page 383.

2 Shea's translation, Lenox Library, New York.

3 The translator must have written leagues, but ineant miles; the first is impossible.

H. Mis. 91- -5

same authority says: "I observe that by the name of Tejas afl of the friendly tribes are to be understood; the name belongs to all of them, though their language may be different. This is a general term, and because of the old friendship which they entertain toward each other; it is in this way that Tejas' means 'friend."" He says, too, that the proper name of the province is Aseney, "though not one of all the tribes has that name," while Bancroft writes that the Tejas and the "Cenis" or "Asenais" of the French were the same people.

Lieutenant Bonilla, writing in 1772, says: "From the Medina River, where the Government of Coahuila terminates, Tejas begins, and ends at the fort of our Senora del Pilar de los Adaes. The length is adjusted at about 240 leagues and her breadth at about 800."3 This territory must have taken in even more than the priest has ascribed to the nation of the Tejas.

GOVERNMENT.

The forty-eight tribes were not all united under the rule of one man; they were in leagues of from five to nine, and all these leagues made a confederation. Hence, they did not comprise a kingdom, but several provinces linked together, and having one head, for Manzanet speaks of "the chief of the Tejas" in such a way as leads one to think he means the chief over all the leagues of tribes; while Father Maria writes of "the great xinesi" as though he were higher than the ordinary ruler over the several leagues, who was called simply xinesi or ineci.

By common consent a certain number of tribes came together and allowed themselves to be governed in a certain way. We have no record of how this was first brought about, but Father Maria, who lived long in their midst, gives a full and very interesting account of the manner in which their government was administered.

Each tribe had a caddi or governor who ruled over a district in size according to the numbers of the tribe beneath his dominion. Under every caddi were certain officials who promulgated his orders; these were called canahas. If the tribe was large,

Fr. Jesus Maria; Wipprecht's translation.

2 A Short Summary of Events.

3 The length is impossible, not the breadth. The translator, or copyist who worked for him, must have confused miles with leagues.