Jumano Indians
Encyclopedia
The Jumano Indians were a prominent Native American
tribe or several tribes who inhabited western Texas
and adjacent New Mexico
, especially near the La Junta
region. They were discovered by Spanish
explorers in the 16th century. but had nearly disappeared as a people by 1750.
, Tanoan
, and Athabascan
have been suggested. Were the Jumanos the pottery-using farmers who lived at La Junta? Or were the farmers a different people? Were the Jumanos instead a buffalo-hunting
plains Indian group who visited La Junta
frequently to trade meat and skins for agricultural products but lived on the Plains? Or were the Jumano both the farmers and the buffalo hunters?
Cabeza de Vaca may have encountered the Jumanos in 1535 near La Junta
, the junction of the Conchos and Rio Grande rivers at Presidio, Texas
He describes at length his visit to the "people of the cows" in one of the towns. They were people "with the best bodies that we saw and the greatest liveliness." He particularly focused on their manner of cooking in which, rather than using pottery, they cooked their food in gourds in which they dropped hot stones. This method of cooking is common among the nomads of the Great Plains
for whom pottery was too heavy to be carried and used extensively.
La Junta seems to have been a melting pot
of Indian tribes in which the Jumanos were only one group. The name "Jumano" was first used by Spanish explorer Antonio de Espejo
in 1582 to refer to the agricultural people living at La Junta. Among the other names the Spanish gave to the Indian groups near La Junta were the Cabris, Julimes, Passaguates, Patarabueyes, Amotomancos, Otomacos, Cholomes, Abriaches, and Caguates. A member of Espejo's expedition also called the buffalo-hunting people they encountered on the Pecos River
near Pecos, Texas
Jumanos. These people had close relations with the Indians at La Junta but it is uncertain whether they were full-time hunter-gatherer
s and bison
hunting nomads or lived part of each year in the agricultural settlements at La Junta. These were likely the same "people of the cows" that Cabeza de Vaca had encountered fifty years earlier. One answer to the question as to whether two people of different cultures—sedentary farmers and buffalo-hunting nomads—were both Jumanos has been suggested by scholars. Perhaps the sedentary people living at La Junta were Patarabueyes and the bison-hunters were Jumanos. Although the nomad
ic Jumanos maintained close relations—and possibly spoke a similar language to the people living at La Junta, they were a distinct people. From their homeland between the Pecos and Concho Rivers in Texas, the Jumanos traveled widely to trade meat and skins to the Patarabueyes and other Indians in exchange for agricultural products.
A third group of people called "Humanas" or "Ximenas" are associated with the Tompiro
pueblo villages of the "salines" about 50 miles east of the Rio Grande on the border of the Great Plains
. The ruins of the Pueblo later called Gran Quivira was the largest of several Jumano towns. This location enabled them to trade with the buffalo hunting Indians of the Great Plains and also to mine and trade the extensive salt deposits that gave the region its Spanish name -- "salines." The people living in the Tompiro pueblos were speakers of a Tanoan language. An intriguing speculation is that the Jumano associated with the Pueblo villages were the ancestors of the Kiowa
. The Tompiro towns were vacant by 1672, probably as a result of Apache
raids, burdensome Spanish levies of food and labor on them, and introduced European diseases.
A fourth group of people have also been proposed by scholars to have been Jumanos. In 1541, on the headwaters of the Brazos River
, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado
encountered a group of people he called Teyas
. The Teyas have been identified by authorities as Apaches, Wichita
, or Jumano. One theory is that they were the nomadic relatives of the Pueblo villagers of Gran Quivira and the salines.
Amidst this confusion about peoples who were called Jumanos, all scholars seem to agree that, at a minimum, the Jumanos comprised the nomadic bison-hunting people of the Pecos
and Concho River
valleys of Texas. As wanderers and traders they were often found far from their homeland which may account for the use of their name among Indians of different cultures and locations.
s advancing from the north and drought
apparently had adverse impact on agriculture and the buffalo herds in their territory. The Jumanos requested that Christian missions be established in their territory and tried to serve as intermediaries between the Spanish and other tribes. The Spanish visited them in the homeland on the Concho River
in 1629, 1650, and 1654. In 1654 the Spanish aided the Jumanos in a battle against the "Cuitaos" (probably the Wichita
) and gained a rich harvest of bison skins. In the 1680s, Jumano chief Juan Sabeata
was prominent in attempting to forge trade and religious ties with the Spaniards. The Spaniards seem to have lost interest in the Jumanos in the latter part of the 17th century, transferring their priorities to the Caddo
of east Texas who were both more numerous and of greater concern because the French were also trying to establish a foothold among the Caddo.
In the early eighteenth century, the Jumano seem to have despaired of Spanish support and turned instead to an alliance with their old enemies, the Apache. By 1729, the Spanish were referring to the two tribes in the same breath as the "Apache Jumanos." By 1750, the Jumanos had almost disappeared as a distinct people, absorbed by the Apache, Caddo, and Wichita, died of diseases, or among the detribalized Indians living at Spanish missions in Central Texas. If, however, the speculation that they were the ancestors of the Kiowa is correct, then they may also have migrated north to the Black Hills
region and reappeared on the southern Plains about 1800 as the Kiowa.
The Jumanos have long been considered extinct
. However, in the 21st century a few families in Presidio, Texas and Ojinaga, Mexico have claimed to be Jumanos and requested official recognition as an Indian tribe.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
tribe or several tribes who inhabited western Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
and adjacent New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, especially near the La Junta
La Junta Indians
La Junta Indians is a collective name for the Indians living near the junction of the Rio Grande and Conchos rivers on the borders of present day Texas and Mexico. These people were first visited by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca in 1535...
region. They were discovered by Spanish
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....
explorers in the 16th century. but had nearly disappeared as a people by 1750.
The Jumano enigma
Spanish records from the 16th to the 18th century frequently refer to the Jumano Indians. However scholars are uncertain whether the Jumanos were a single widely scattered people or whether Jumano was a generic term used to refer to several different groups. Nor can the language spoken by the Jumanos be determined. Uto-AztecanUto-Aztecan languages
Uto-Aztecan or Uto-Aztekan is a Native American language family consisting of over 30 languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found from the Great Basin of the Western United States , through western, central and southern Mexico Uto-Aztecan or Uto-Aztekan is a Native American language family...
, Tanoan
Tanoan languages
Tanoan is a family of languages spoken in New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.Most of the languages – Tiwa , Tewa, and Towa – are spoken in the Pueblos of New Mexico and were the ones first given the collective name Tanoan, while Kiowa is spoken mostly in southwestern...
, and Athabascan
Athabaskan languages
Athabaskan or Athabascan is a large group of indigenous peoples of North America, located in two main Southern and Northern groups in western North America, and of their language family...
have been suggested. Were the Jumanos the pottery-using farmers who lived at La Junta? Or were the farmers a different people? Were the Jumanos instead a buffalo-hunting
Bison hunting
Buffalo hunting was an activity fundamental to the Plains Indian tribes of the United States, which was later adopted by American professional hunters, leading to the near-extinction of the species.- Native hunting :...
plains Indian group who visited La Junta
La Junta Indians
La Junta Indians is a collective name for the Indians living near the junction of the Rio Grande and Conchos rivers on the borders of present day Texas and Mexico. These people were first visited by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca in 1535...
frequently to trade meat and skins for agricultural products but lived on the Plains? Or were the Jumano both the farmers and the buffalo hunters?
Cabeza de Vaca may have encountered the Jumanos in 1535 near La Junta
La Junta Indians
La Junta Indians is a collective name for the Indians living near the junction of the Rio Grande and Conchos rivers on the borders of present day Texas and Mexico. These people were first visited by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca in 1535...
, the junction of the Conchos and Rio Grande rivers at Presidio, Texas
Presidio, Texas
Presidio is a city in Presidio County, Texas, United States. It stands on the Rio Grande , on the opposite side of the U.S.-Mexico border from Ojinaga, Chihuahua. The population was 4,167 at the 2000 census....
He describes at length his visit to the "people of the cows" in one of the towns. They were people "with the best bodies that we saw and the greatest liveliness." He particularly focused on their manner of cooking in which, rather than using pottery, they cooked their food in gourds in which they dropped hot stones. This method of cooking is common among the nomads of the Great Plains
Great Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
for whom pottery was too heavy to be carried and used extensively.
La Junta seems to have been a melting pot
Melting pot
The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture...
of Indian tribes in which the Jumanos were only one group. The name "Jumano" was first used by Spanish explorer Antonio de Espejo
Antonio de Espejo
Antonio de Espejo was a Spanish explorer who led an expedition into New Mexico and Arizona in 1582-1583. The expedition created interest in establishing a Spanish colony among the Pueblo Indians of the Rio Grande valley.-Life:...
in 1582 to refer to the agricultural people living at La Junta. Among the other names the Spanish gave to the Indian groups near La Junta were the Cabris, Julimes, Passaguates, Patarabueyes, Amotomancos, Otomacos, Cholomes, Abriaches, and Caguates. A member of Espejo's expedition also called the buffalo-hunting people they encountered on the Pecos River
Pecos River
The headwaters of the Pecos River are located north of Pecos, New Mexico, United States, at an elevation of over 12,000 feet on the western slope of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range in Mora County. The river flows for through the eastern portion of that state and neighboring Texas before it...
near Pecos, Texas
Pecos, Texas
Pecos is the largest city in and the county seat of Reeves County, Texas, United States. It is situated in the river valley on the west bank of the Pecos River at the eastern edge of the Chihuahuan Desert and the Trans-Pecos region of west Texas and near the southern border of New Mexico...
Jumanos. These people had close relations with the Indians at La Junta but it is uncertain whether they were full-time hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
s and bison
Bison
Members of the genus Bison are large, even-toed ungulates within the subfamily Bovinae. Two extant and four extinct species are recognized...
hunting nomads or lived part of each year in the agricultural settlements at La Junta. These were likely the same "people of the cows" that Cabeza de Vaca had encountered fifty years earlier. One answer to the question as to whether two people of different cultures—sedentary farmers and buffalo-hunting nomads—were both Jumanos has been suggested by scholars. Perhaps the sedentary people living at La Junta were Patarabueyes and the bison-hunters were Jumanos. Although the nomad
Nomad
Nomadic people , commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but...
ic Jumanos maintained close relations—and possibly spoke a similar language to the people living at La Junta, they were a distinct people. From their homeland between the Pecos and Concho Rivers in Texas, the Jumanos traveled widely to trade meat and skins to the Patarabueyes and other Indians in exchange for agricultural products.
A third group of people called "Humanas" or "Ximenas" are associated with the Tompiro
Tompiro Indians
The Tompiro Indians were Pueblo Indians living in New Mexico. They lived in several adobe villages east of the Rio Grande River Valley in the Salinas region of New Mexico. Their settlements were abandoned and they were absorbed into other Indian tribes in the 1670s.-Origin and Language:Very...
pueblo villages of the "salines" about 50 miles east of the Rio Grande on the border of the Great Plains
Great Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
. The ruins of the Pueblo later called Gran Quivira was the largest of several Jumano towns. This location enabled them to trade with the buffalo hunting Indians of the Great Plains and also to mine and trade the extensive salt deposits that gave the region its Spanish name -- "salines." The people living in the Tompiro pueblos were speakers of a Tanoan language. An intriguing speculation is that the Jumano associated with the Pueblo villages were the ancestors of the Kiowa
Kiowa
The Kiowa are a nation of American Indians and indigenous people of the Great Plains. They migrated from the northern plains to the southern plains in the late 17th century. In 1867, the Kiowa moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma...
. The Tompiro towns were vacant by 1672, probably as a result of Apache
Apache
Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the Southwest United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan...
raids, burdensome Spanish levies of food and labor on them, and introduced European diseases.
A fourth group of people have also been proposed by scholars to have been Jumanos. In 1541, on the headwaters of the Brazos River
Brazos River
The Brazos River, called the Rio de los Brazos de Dios by early Spanish explorers , is the longest river in Texas and the 11th longest river in the United States at from its source at the head of Blackwater Draw, Curry County, New Mexico to its mouth at the Gulf of Mexico with a drainage...
, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado
Francisco Vásquez de Coronado
Francisco Vásquez de Coronado y Luján was a Spanish conquistador, who visited New Mexico and other parts of what are now the southwestern United States between 1540 and 1542...
encountered a group of people he called Teyas
Teyas
Teyas were a Native American people discovered near Lubbock, Texas by Francisco Vazquez de Coronado in 1541.The tribal affiliation and language of the Teyas is unknown, although many scholars believe they spoke a Caddoan language and were related to the Wichita tribe who Coronado found in Quivira...
. The Teyas have been identified by authorities as Apaches, Wichita
Wichita (tribe)
The Wichita people are indigenous inhabitants of North America, who traditionally spoke the Wichita language, a Caddoan language. They have lived in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas...
, or Jumano. One theory is that they were the nomadic relatives of the Pueblo villagers of Gran Quivira and the salines.
Amidst this confusion about peoples who were called Jumanos, all scholars seem to agree that, at a minimum, the Jumanos comprised the nomadic bison-hunting people of the Pecos
Pecos River
The headwaters of the Pecos River are located north of Pecos, New Mexico, United States, at an elevation of over 12,000 feet on the western slope of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range in Mora County. The river flows for through the eastern portion of that state and neighboring Texas before it...
and Concho River
Concho River
The Concho River is a river in the U.S. state of Texas. It has three primary feeds: the North, Middle, and South Concho rivers. The North Concho River is the longest fork, starting in Howard County and traveling southeast for until merging with the South and Middle forks near Goodfellow Air...
valleys of Texas. As wanderers and traders they were often found far from their homeland which may account for the use of their name among Indians of different cultures and locations.
History
The Jumanos of the 17th century sought an alliance with the Spanish. They were under pressure from the ApacheApache
Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the Southwest United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan...
s advancing from the north and drought
Drought
A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...
apparently had adverse impact on agriculture and the buffalo herds in their territory. The Jumanos requested that Christian missions be established in their territory and tried to serve as intermediaries between the Spanish and other tribes. The Spanish visited them in the homeland on the Concho River
Concho River
The Concho River is a river in the U.S. state of Texas. It has three primary feeds: the North, Middle, and South Concho rivers. The North Concho River is the longest fork, starting in Howard County and traveling southeast for until merging with the South and Middle forks near Goodfellow Air...
in 1629, 1650, and 1654. In 1654 the Spanish aided the Jumanos in a battle against the "Cuitaos" (probably the Wichita
Wichita (tribe)
The Wichita people are indigenous inhabitants of North America, who traditionally spoke the Wichita language, a Caddoan language. They have lived in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas...
) and gained a rich harvest of bison skins. In the 1680s, Jumano chief Juan Sabeata
Juan Sabeata
Juan Sabeata was a Jumano Indian leader in present day Texas who tried to forge an alliance with the Spanish or French to help his people fend off the encroachments of the Apaches on their territory. -Life:...
was prominent in attempting to forge trade and religious ties with the Spaniards. The Spaniards seem to have lost interest in the Jumanos in the latter part of the 17th century, transferring their priorities to the Caddo
Caddo
The Caddo Nation is a confederacy of several Southeastern Native American tribes, who traditionally inhabited much of what is now East Texas, northern Louisiana and portions of southern Arkansas and Oklahoma. Today the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma is a cohesive tribe with its capital at Binger, Oklahoma...
of east Texas who were both more numerous and of greater concern because the French were also trying to establish a foothold among the Caddo.
In the early eighteenth century, the Jumano seem to have despaired of Spanish support and turned instead to an alliance with their old enemies, the Apache. By 1729, the Spanish were referring to the two tribes in the same breath as the "Apache Jumanos." By 1750, the Jumanos had almost disappeared as a distinct people, absorbed by the Apache, Caddo, and Wichita, died of diseases, or among the detribalized Indians living at Spanish missions in Central Texas. If, however, the speculation that they were the ancestors of the Kiowa is correct, then they may also have migrated north to the Black Hills
Black Hills
The Black Hills are a small, isolated mountain range rising from the Great Plains of North America in western South Dakota and extending into Wyoming, USA. Set off from the main body of the Rocky Mountains, the region is something of a geological anomaly—accurately described as an "island of...
region and reappeared on the southern Plains about 1800 as the Kiowa.
The Jumanos have long been considered extinct
Extinction
In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...
. However, in the 21st century a few families in Presidio, Texas and Ojinaga, Mexico have claimed to be Jumanos and requested official recognition as an Indian tribe.