The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 1, July 1897 - April, 1898 Page: 32
334 p. : ill., ports., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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32 Texas Historical Association Quarterly.
any in the camp; and they all fasted alike in case of need, and none
went hungry if any of the tribe had provisions; and this rule ex-
tended to prisoners and enemies as well.
They were notoriously improvident and careless of the future.
But their wandering life is chargeable with much of their improvi-
dence; and, on the other hand, the fact that they hunted in parties,
and could of right claim a share of the game taken each day, ex-
plains some of their willingness to divide provisions, which in some
cases I saw were refused, and in others grudgingly given.
In the Comanche tribe, I think the children belonged to the clan
of the father. They may have changed from one plan to the other.
The clans would remain the same. It would favor the idea of prop-
erty, and a tendency to recognize superior families, which in time
might have progressed toward civilization. I do not know what the
rule was in the other tribes, but believe they all recognized descent
only from the mother.
It has been the commonly received theory that the Indian tribes
by some intuition recognized the Creator, whom they worshiped as
the Great Spirit. I could never verify this theory. In 1692, the
Texas worshiped a deity whom they called "Ayemat Caddi," Chief
Spirit, or Spirit of the Chief, Spirit of the Father of the Tribe -
some traditional and probably fabled hero from whom they claimed
descent. And such ancestor-worship existed wherever traces of it
have been sought.
All tribes believed in a man's other self, which left him in sleep
and wandered in the realm of dreams, returning when he awoke.
Hence the impression that the other self could be recalled; and the
custom in many tribes, among whom were th.e Tonkaways, to call
the name of one recently dead, begging him to return and inhabit
the body; which, in case of trance, must sometime have been veri-
fled after many hours of apparent death. So, also, they buried
provisions and weapons with the dead, believing that they took the
spirit of those things with them. The Comanche, when lighting
the pipe of peace at a treaty, blew the first puff of smoke towards
the sun, the second to the earth, and the third to the air and sky,
thus seeming to recognize spirits in those powerful elements.
It has been said that there was no moral element in their vague
religious beliefs, but this must be taken with grains of allowance.
The virtues of savages, courage and fidelity to the tribe, were, in
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 1, July 1897 - April, 1898, periodical, 1897/1898; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101009/m1/43/?rotate=90: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.