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The Indians of Texas: From Prehistoric to Modern Times

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Using the basic cultural aspects of each tribe, Newcomb provides the definitive reference on the Indians of Texas. Each chapter uses parallel structure providing ease of use...food, clothing, housing, warfare, social structure, religion, education, transportation---, and the information is dependable. This book should be considered a standard purchase for every school in Texas, 7 up,or a must for any Native American collection!

This book is a long-needed survey of the ethnography of the Indian tribes who lived in Texas since the beginning of recorded history. Newcomb's work is a scholarly and authoritative account covering all the tribes in Texas and is an invaluable reference for students of Texas history, cultures, and Indian lore. Newcomb is a professor of anthropology at the University of Texas and former director of the Texas Memorial Museum.

Newcomb does, it is true, use the words "savage" and "barbaric." However, in his forward, he explicitly says that these words refer to levels of technological development only and are not a moral assessment.

That said, this book provides a great overview of all the Indian tribes of a large and diverse state, not just headline grabbing Comanches or Apaches. Relatively peaceful Caddoans and Wichitans are here, as are bloodthirsty Karankawa.

The other way this book is dated is simply the passage of 40-plus years. A number of archaeological studies, plus linguistic analysis, have provided new information on Texas Indians since this was written.

But, especially used, this is still a great buy.

W.W. Newcomb, Jr.'s book "The Indians of Texas" (10th printing in 1993) brings and responsible and informed voice to Native American studies. This University of Texas printing provides 13-pages of photos, several drawing (including a figure about arrowheads/spearheads entitled "projectile points"), and a thorough 12-page bibliography.

Even with 404-pages (paperback) one feels Newcomb's frustration with the scant facts and sources available for the Indians of Texas. His research and presentation take the reader from prehistoric times (about 5,000 BC) to the period he entitles "the era of extermination" (of the late 1890s). With precision, and an eye to detail, he explains native tribal life through the centuries. By dividing geographically Texas' Indian populations he categorizes each native group and tribal confederation.

One learns language groups persisted, through the centuries, among the various tribal groups (i.e. Mexican Coahuiltecans spoke similarly to the Texas coastal Karankawas and Tonkawas while the northern Athapaskan shared their language with the west and central Texas Apaches and the western and central Texas Comanche were linguistic relatives of the western Utes). Newcomb suggests that much of the pre European arrival warfare and confederations among the tribes were based in language groups.

Newcomb carefully delineates tribal alliances as he speaks to ancient Texas Indian warfare. He explains that with the 16th century European encroachment the tribal way of life became only more difficult. The French (aided with the Comanche, Utes and Wichita/Pawnee) fought the Spanish (who were allies with the Apache, Jicarilla, Lipan, and Kiowa) for control of Texas and northern New Spain. Spain ultimately won and many Texas Indians died in land hungry Europeans' wars. Even Spanish abolishment of slavery in Louisiana in 1769 did not shield the natives from disastrous futures.

Newcomb also speaks to native life. He informs about tribal societal expectations, religions, farming techniques, male and female power positions, family and marriage requirements, and management of individuals' age advancement. He offers an entire chapter on the Caddo Confederacy (many tribes including the Caddo, Nacona, Anadarko, Neches and Nacogdoches, and the distantly related linguistically Pawnee) suggesting to one's mind that these well established tribes were likely Texas' greatest, and most advanced, Native American culture.

Newcomb closes his book by tracing each trail that tribes took into the history of Texas. Some (like the Apache, Comanche, and Ute) were exterminated by warfare. Others (the Wichita) were relocated to distant "reservations". Still others (like most of the Caddo) simply disappeared (perhaps being absorbed into the European society around them).

It seems certain that this book will assist in positioning the various tribes of Texas into history's permanent memory. General and specialty readers will find it interesting. "The Indians of Texas" is recommended to Native American students, students of the southwest, tribal studiers, and Texas history buffs.

W.W. Newcomb's volume on the Indians of Texas covers all of the bases with regards to the tribes that either were native to Texas or migrated from various parts of the Great Plains and east of the Sabine River to settle in what was to become the Lone Star State. After a short introduction, the author goes into describing the cultures of the tribes. The first group of tribes covered in the book consisted of the coastal Indians which ranged from what is now deep south Texas to Matagorda Bay to the north. The Coahuiltecans and the Karankawas lived on the outer margins of starvation with the former eking out a squalid existence in the semi-arid, mesquite-filled coastal plains with food consisting of small animals and mesquite seeds and even eating their own dung; Karankawas fared somewhat better by surviving on seafood gathered by primitive methods. No members of these tribes exist today as they either starved to death, killed by outsiders or assimilated with other peoples in Mexico. The next group consists of the nomadic tribes that included the notorious Comanches. Sentient tribes are covered next with the Jumanos, living in the Trans-Pecos region, disappearing in the mid part of the 19th Century and the Caddo Confederacy of east Texas which according to the author was the most civilized of the tribes and built significant temple mounds as part of their ceremonies.

Each tribe is described in detail with emphasis placed on the tribe's physical descriptions, their ways of life including food gathered by hunting or growing crops, marriage customs and their religious beliefs with some fearing the spirits more than others. The author does a good job in writing this book and despite what other reviewers of this book said the tome was fair in describing the conflicts among the tribes and between the tribes and the encroaching Anglo-American settlers which led to much misery on both sides during the 19th Century. The author, for example, contends that while the Indians were indeed savage, he blasted Texas President Mirabeau Lamar for his hostile treatment of the Natives. The conflict between the two cultures was a forgone conclusion and the author lamented that "the dynamism of the new America, then as now, swept up willy-nilly its inhabitants, white and Indians, as a spring torrent sweeps up leaves and twigs for a journey to an unknown fate."

The book covers 370 pages with a substantial bibliography, index and numerous maps of tribal locations in Texas and pictures of Indians (mostly Comanches, Tonkawas, Kiowas and Caddos) from the 19th Century. A well-researched book that I heartedly recommend as an introductory volume to the tribes of Texas.

While presenting an impressive collection of information about Texas natives, Newcomb's work is flawed by an air of cultural superiority. The author seems to accept the notion that Indian culture in times past was less advanced than that of the European conquorers. Thus, Indian houses were hovels, Indian religions superstition, and Indian diets barbarian. Such bias calls into question the accuracy of Newcomb's observations, not to mention his conclusions.