KARANKAWA INDIANS
It is worth noting that a lot of the Native American Tribes that De Vaca encountered
weren’t very well orginized. No where in De Vaca’s account does he ever mention the
word: Karankawa. What most people don’t understand is that the word is actually a
catch-all for a cluster of tribes (actually, ‘Bands’ would be more proper than ‘Tribes’)
that spoke a similar dialect. These included: the Coaques, the Cocos (Capoques) , the
Kohanis, the Copanes (where the word ‘Copano’ came from), and the Carancaquacas,
which almost sounds like Karankawa. So what this means is that Karankawa is a language and was never a proper tribe - a bunch of small and scattered bands at best.
The Indians De Vaca encountered on Galveston Island (we assume the ‘Ilse of Ill Fate’
is Galveston Island - it seems likely) spoke two different languages. One language they
called ‘Capoques’ (which we can associate with the Cocos and their Karankawa dialect),
and the other was called ‘Han’.
The Karankawas are described as tall (6 to 7 feet), heavily tattooed, covered with sea
shells, and they were usually greased down with shark liver oil or just some good ol’
rancid alligator fat, which was great for keeping the mosquitoes away.
They were formidable warriors, and their arch enemy were the Comanches, but as fierce
as they may have been, their immune systems weren’t ready for the bombardment of diseases the Europeans brought with them from the Old World. By 1840 there were about
a hundred left.
LORE: It is believed that the word: KARANKAWA means ‘Dog Lover’.
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