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DIET DEBATE --- Which is the best diet? |
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DIET DEBATE --- Your choice: |
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Of all Texas natives the Coahuiltecans lived the harshest, most difficult life. They led a roving life, starved in winter, and there seems to be very little they failed to eat that could be eaten. Large animals were scarce - there were occasional deer, antelope, javelina pigs - plus rabbits, rodents, reptiles, birds and bugs. Some tribes had access to pecans, some mesquite beans, others fish. "Few living creatures were overlooked as source of food .... spiders, ant eggs, worms, lizards, snakes (incl. rattle snakes), earth, rotten wood, deer dung. Second harvest ... removing seeds and the like from human feces, grinding them up, roasting and eating them." "Fish were ... set aside for eight days .... until larvae and other insects had developed in the rotting flesh ... then consumed as an epicure's delight, as also the remaining flesh." The principal food was vegetables: agave bulbs, mountain laurel beans, peyote cactus, prickly pears, mesquite beans. Wars between Coahuiltecan peoples were common, dead captives were often roasted and eaten (ceremoniously), powdered bones from own tribe members were eaten (with hallucination-inducing peyote). Tools were made from wood and flint. " The men could run after a deer for an entire day without resting and without apparent fatigue." "De Vaca was impressed by the fact that they were so difficult to kill .... traversed by an arrow ... he does not die but recovers from his wound." (After Spanish missions were established from the 1670's diseases rapidly diminished the native population. In 1800 most had disappeared.) |
From the gulf waters - using dugout canoes - they took oysters, clams, scallops, mollusks, turtles, fish, porpoises, alligators and underwater plants. Deer were hunted, occasional buffalo, bear, peccary, smaller mammals, ducks. Berries, nuts, seeds and other plants were gathered. No foods were continously plentiful, when the harvest was good they gorged at repletion. "unique in their gluttony .... they eat locusts, lice, even human flesh ... raw meat, bear's fat .... passion for spoiled food ...". In spring they might subsist exclusively on oysters, "then for a month they ate blackberries". Fires for cooking were built in willow pole shelters. Trade with the inland tribes: conch shells in exchange for skins, red ocher, flint, and deer hair (for tassels). A sidenote about atrocities like cannibalism attributed (by European immigrants) to the Karankawas: "... it is much easier to slaughter men and appropriate their land if you can convince yourself that they are despicable, inferior and barely human ..." (The first Spanish mission was built 1726, but the proud Karankawas resisted and preferred their own culture and religion. Introduced diseases and other by-products of the European invasion reduced the Karankawas to a remnant, and they were finally exterminated. Some of the last were killed by a party of Texas ranchers in 1858.) |
inhabited the central Texas' plains, along streams and rivers on the bison-poor Edwards' Plateau. The Tonkawas wore clothing as protection and not to indicate status - but were painted, tattooed, had earrings and braided hair. They used bison hide tepees, small, squat and crude in typical southern plains fashion, and used dogs as pack animals. Deer, bison, rabbits, skunk, rats, tortoises, rattlesnakes, turkey were hunted with bow and arrow. Unlike typical Plains indians, the Tonkawas ate fish and oysters. Wolves and coyotes were avoided for religious reasons - but dogs might be eaten. Most meat was roasted, the surplus preserved as jerky or pemmican (= ground meat and pecan meal). It is alleged that they ritually consumed the flesh of their enemies, probably to acquire the enemy's courage, braveness and spirit. (Introduced diseases was probably the major cause of their decline. Scattered remains of Tonkawas survived into the 19th century.) |
With the horse, the buffalo became the main source of food. Large-scale communal hunts (using bow and arrow, and lances) were common, with dances before the hunts.
Elk, antelope and bears were also killed for food - as well as long-horn cattle and mustang ponies. Comanches did not eat fish, fowl, dogs or coyotes - unless starving when they ate anything - rats, skunks, lizards, grasshoppers, decayed meat. They collected a considerable number of wild plants - plums, grapes, currants, juniper berries, mulberries, persimmons, tunas (cactus) - berries and nuts were mainly used to flavor the meat. Meat was often eaten raw, else roasted to some degree. Pemmican (dehydrated ground meat) was popular. Delicacies were: bone marrow, raw liver flavored with gallbladder contents, warm fresh blood, milk and blood sucked from slashed udders of buffalo, antelope, bear, deer, elk.Comanches ate a light meal in the morning and a heavier meal in the evening and during the day when they felt hungry. Men tattoed face and body, wore silver and brass ear rings, had the hair in two braids and a top scalp lock, but all other body hair was plucked out, even eye brows and lashes. Knee-high bison skin boots, leggings, breech clouts, skin shirts and robes were worn in winter - a small apron in summer. (The destruction of the Comanches parallells that of the Kiowas. Harried mercilessly by troops until 1875, when the survivors were settled on an Oklahoma reservation. This in 1892 was divided into private lots.) |
Buffalo-hunting took place from fall to spring. Deer, antelope, rats, javelinas were hunted to a lesser degree. Wild turkeys were eaten, but other birds were not considered edible. As soon as a big animal had been killed, the hunters ate the raw bloody liver. Other intestines, heads and marrow bones were roasted in pits and eaten. In the women's gardens the raising of maize, beans, squash and pumpkins was an important, if secondary, subsistence, until the 18th century when warfare from Comanches and Spaniards wreaked destruction on any gardens. Some apaches traded meat and salt for maize, pottery and blankets from the pueblos in New Mexico.(The eastern Apaches were fragmented and dispersed from the 18th century on when their traditional enemies acquired firearms, and they were unable to. Some sought refuge among the Pueblo peoples and the Kiowas, some disappeared into Mexico.) |
Kiowas hunted mainly buffalo, sometimes with the age old driving-animals-over-cliff method. Deer, antelope and small game hunting was minor. They did not eat bears, birds or fish. Wild fruits, berries, roots and nuts were used to break the monotony of the largely meat diet. About Kiowa's hunting skills: "one man near seven feet in stature ... runs down a buffalo on foot, and slays it with his knife or lance, as he runs by its side." Their bison hide tepees were often decorated with paintings of remarkable artistry. All little Kiowa boys were automatically members of "The Rabbits", and were instructed and drilled in their duties by two grown-up men. Rabbits wore on the back of their head a piece of elk-hide with an erect feather. Later they were invited to join one of the adult warrior societies. (The Kiowas fought and resisted until 1875, when they were settled on a Oklahoma reservation. In 1892, this land was divided into private lots, and the Kiowas finally disappeared.) |
(1) the settled gardeners in the Rio Grande valley raised corn, beans, squash, vegetables and cotton, and gathered wild mesquite beans, agave bulbs, and cactus fruits like the tuna. Men went on seasonal hunting expeditions, even far away to hunt bison. (2) The nomadic hunters to the east beyond the Chisos and Davis mountains hunted buffalo and other animals on the southern plains. Jumanos built flat-roofed stand-alone houses of timber and mud. Putting hot stones in calabashes with water was a common method to boil the food. Men cut their hair very short up to the middle of the head - from there left it two inches long and curled it with paint to resemble a small cap. (Pushed from the north and south, the Jumanos finally had to abandon their villages and culture. Some became wageworking Mexicans, others merged into the Apache population.) |
Garden produce - corn, pumpkins, melons, beans, squashes - was more important than meat - bison and other wild game. The gardens were extensive and produced bumper crops, allowing the Wichitas to aggregate in large villages - well fortified with stockade and moat, and forcing even Spanish soldiers to withdraw. The circular houses were erected using cedar posts, willow poles and grass bundles and were surrounded by arbors and platforms for drying meat and vegetables.The Wichitas outdid most other native Americans in tattoing face and body. Men were e.g. tattoed on the eyelids, and a horizontal line extended from the outside corner of the eye - and short lines downward from the corners of the mouth. Their name for themselves was "racoon-eyed people". Women were tattoed with numerous zig-zag lines and triangles, and had concentric circles around breasts and mouth. Clothing was loincloth and moccasins for men - prettily garnished skin skirts for women. (Tremendous population reduction was caused by ravaging epidemics and 'difficulties' with the Europeans. Survivors ended up in the Oklahoma Wichita reservation from the 1850's.) |
The coastal tribes lived similar to Karankawas from fishing, hunting, beach-combing and gathering - e.g. shellfish, bird eggs, alligators, oysters, lotus/chinquapin seeds and rhizomes. To kill fish, bone-tipped darts and spears were flung from dug-out canoes, or poisons were sprinkled on the lagoons. Fish were baked in pits or smoked. The more inland Atakapans were agricultural with maize as the main crop. Hunting was also important inland, together with gardening - mostly deer was hunted, and a number of smaller animals were trapped. Bears were killed for the skin and fat, the flesh was not eaten. Atakapans made conical huts from poles and interwoven vines. Some tribes practised ritualistic cannibalism of killed enemies, and some had deformed heads, possibly from cradle-binding. (Epidemics and Spanish agents reduced the Atakapans from 1770, a few intermarried with the Koasatis who are still at the Alabama-Coushatta reservation north of Houston, a few escaped to Oklahoma.) |
In the river valleys in the dense forests the Caddoes raised corn, two crops per year, many varieties of beans, squash, sunflower seeds, tobacco. Coarse corn meal was used for soups and gruel - fine corn meal for bread and tortillas. In season in the hardwood forests, nuts were collected - pecans, acorns, chestnuts, etc. - and wild fruits - plums, cherries, mulberries, blackberries, grapes, etc. - and roots and tubers. The only domesticated animal were dogs, and these were used to hunt buffalo and bears. But meat was a subsidiary part of the food supply. Deer were hunted by attracting them through imitation. They hunted wild hogs, prairie chickens, ducks, turkeys, other birds, rabbits, mice, snakes - and fished using trot-lines, very similar to today's trot-lines. The Caddoes had elongated heads, tapered off towards the top, by cranial deformation - and were tattoed using charcoal, and painted. They used breech clouts and moccasins from deer skins, and women made dresses from grass and straw. The Caddoes are well known for their fascinating and varied pottery. They had elaborate war preparations, and allegedly practised ritualistic cannibalism of dead enemies. Many sports and games were played for amusement. Women could be tribal chiefs. (Epidemics in the 19th century caused such a rapid collapse of these once rich splendid theocracies, that the onrushing American frontier hardly took notice of the remaining Caddoes. Some survivors ended up in the Oklahoma Wichita reservation.) |
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INHS - International Natural Hygiene Society |
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