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Political

Each band led by an elected chief

Warriors elected a war chief for each campaign

Economic

Hunted buffalo, elk and bear

Collected wild plants, but did not farm

Geographic

Central Plains and Great Plains regions

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The Kiowa lived in and around the Texas panhandle. This includes western Oklahoma and northeast New Mexico. They were nomadic buffalo hunters. That makes them hunter gatherers. They were famous for their long distance raids. Some of these raids went all the way down into Mexico and way up almost to Canada. They were friends and close allies with the Comanche who lived in the same region.Like the Comanche, they lived in tee-pees. Tee-pees are easy to move and being nomads the Kiowa moved all the time. They moved to follow buffalo herds. Buffalo meat was their most important food. They also gathered plants, roots and berries to eat when they could find them. The women did this gathering. The men hunted.They organized themselves by age. This is called age grade social organization. This means people of certain age ranges would belong to social organizations. As a person got older he or she would move from one social organization to the next. The boys and young men's organizations were the most important.

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Political

Small bands that moved loosely to find food

No overall chief

Economic

Fish, hunters and gatherers, trade

Geographic

East Texas, West Louisiana

Social

Lived in small lodges made out of grass and reeds

Oyster legend: man said to have been cast up from sea in an oyster shell

European diseases led to extinction

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Political

Led by a chief who also served as a medicine man

Chief settled problems

Chief advised by a governor, war chief, and four captains

Economic

Farmed vegetables

Hunted small game

Geographic

El Paso area

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The Karankawa Indians lived along the Texas coast of the Gulf of Mexico.Their territory was from the west end of Galveston Island down the coast to where Corpus Christie is today. There were several bands, or maybe even several tribes. We are not sure, because much of the history of the Karankawa is lost.false myth is that they were cannibals.When Cabeza de Vaca told the Karankawa his starving companions had eaten the bodies of other expedition members the Karankawa were shocked. Why would so-called cannibals be shocked if they really were cannibals?They were pretty good fighters and European settlers feared them. The Europeans also wanted the Karankawa's land. This may be why they made up so many bad myths about them. Many of the Karankawa warriors were over 6 feet tall. People were shorter back then and 6 foot tall Indians were really big. They had bows almost as tall as they were and shot long arrows made from slender shoots of cane.When the Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca was shipwrecked on Galveston Island in 1528, the Karankawa treated him very well. They gave de Vaca and his companions food, shelter, and support. Cabeza de Vaca gives us the first recorded, and one of the better, accounts about the Karankawa. De Vaca lived with one of the Karankawa bands for several years and joined the band.Mrs. Alice Oliver, as a child in the 1830s, spent so much time with the Karankawa she learned their language. Her father owned a ranch near the coast and was friendly to the Karankawa. He let them camp on and pass through his land. While they were camped on his land he let his daughter, Mrs. Oliver, hang around the camp with them. That is how she learned their language. They never tried to kidnap or hurt her, they were very friendly.During the winter large schools of several kinds of fish would come into the shallow water of the bays. These bays are shallow enough to wade around in. This made the fish easy to catch and there were lots and lots of them. They would catch fish like red fish and drum. There are also lots of easy to get shell fish like oysters and clams near the shore in the bays. These can only be safely eaten during the winter months.During the summer the schools of fish moved back into deep water off shore in the Gulf where the Karankawa could not reach them. The oysters and clams are not safe to eat in hot weather. So, to find food the Karankawa would break up into smaller groups or bands and go inland to hunt and gather. In the summer there are lots of berries and edible plants and plant roots. Early accounts, like de Vaca's, tell that the Karankawa seem to like a certain root that grew in shallow water. They would wade into the shallow water and collect lots of these roots.

All credit for this sticky is at this website,
http://www.texasindians.com/karank.htm

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Political

Led by an inherited chief (caddi)

Made political decisions such as when to go to war or share ceremonial peace pipe

Kin-based groups or bands organized into confederacies

Councils

Economic

Farm, tanners, and trade

Geographic

Northeast Texas (around

the Red River), Oklahoma, Louisiana

Social

Traced family line through the mother (matriarchal)

Tejas confederacy is where we got our state’s name, which means “those who are friends”

Beehive grass huts

Ceremonies and rituals included giant burial mounds and spiritual temples

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Political:

One big tribe was broken up into small nomadic tribes

Shaman as their medical and spiritual leader

Economic

Hunt and forage

Geographic

Gulf Coast, Southern Texas, Northern Mexico

One of the poorest regions

Social

Runners

Nomadic

Women worked a lot because men were constantly in search of food

Huts made out of mud, animal skins and brush

Became extinct at an early date