Texas Highways, Volume 70, Number 2, February 2023 Page: 36
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seems we started toward the end, and the older I get the
more curious I become about all that came before.
In The Indians of Texas: From Prehistoric to Modern
Times, historian William W. Newcomb Jr. wrote, "In trans-
Pecos Texas... lived a people at the beginning of historywho
are known variously as the Patarabueye, Jumano, Suma, and
by some other names. This culture type is the least known
and the most enigmatic of all the far-flung Texas natives."
Newcomb noted that eventually the Jumanos, along with
many other tribes, were "irrevocably, finally, extinguished."
This is not exactly accurate.
"Every author thinks they know everything about the
Jumanos," said Felix Salmeron, a Jumano Nation elder and
historian. "The problem is, there is hardly any documen-
tation out there written or interpreted by Jumanos. The
only kind of written history about [the Trans-Pecos region]
was done by the Spanish and the friars. So the authors get
information about the Jumanos from somebody else, and if
there'sagap,theytakethelibertytofillitwiththeirthoughts."
Salmeron,likehisancestors,wasbornintheTrans-Pecos,
defined in 1887 by Texas geologist Robert T. Hill as the por-
tion of Texas west of the Pecos River. In Pecos, Salmeron
grew up in the 1950s with his family in a two-room cottage
with a dirt floor and afire pit where his mother cooked. They
raised chickens and grew corn, and they had access to fruit
trees and a river where they fished. There were plentiful
deer in the area, just one of which could provide meat for
a month. The women took care of the gardens, homes, and
children while the men traded wares and the hides of deer
and buffalo.
As a young boy, Salmeron asked his grandmother in
Spanish, "What am I?" She responded, "Eres Jumano." But
jumano, in Spanish, also means human. "It took me a long
time to figure out what she meant," Salmeron said.
ThefirstknownuseofthewordJumanotodescribeaspe-
cificgroupwasin1581,whenSpanishconquistadorAntonio
de Espejo referred to villagers at La junta de los Rios, where
the Rio Grande and the Rio Conchos meet at the present-day
cities of Presidio and Ojinaga, Chihuahua.
In early1583, the Espejo-Beltran Expedition followed the
Pecos River south to the present-day town of Pecos, where
they encountered, according to Newcomb, three nomadic
Jumanos. They guided Espejo and his men along Toyah
Creek, through Balmorhea and toward the area where Fort
Davis and Marfa are now located, and down Alamito Creek
toward the Rio Grande.
"The only Jumanos that were nomadic in the early days
were the ones that went hunting and trading," Salmeron
said. "The families built rancherfas, which were apartment-
style complexes."
According to Salmeron, the Jumanos lived in Ojinaga,
Chihuahua, up north through Presidio, and around the San
Solomon Springs area-where Balmorhea is now located-
all the way up to New Mexico. Each settlement was chosen
for its access to water, which was honored, along with thesun, Earth, and wind, as one of the Jumanos' life sources.
"Solomon Springs gave quite a bit to the natives," Salmeron said. "It was
a great place to be able to grow corn and other vegetables. They captured a
lot of fish and even buffalo. The Easterners are given credit for some of the
technology to bring water to the vegetation, but that was being done many,
many, many years before they came out there."
Gradually, incursions from the Apaches, Comanches, and Spanish forced
the Jumanostoabandonthe Trans-Pecosregion,assimilatewithothertribes,
or absorb and accept a Mexican identity-particularly, Salmeron noted, to
avoid forced relocation during the Indian Removal Act in the 1830s. By then,
Mexico had won its independence from Spain. In1836, the Republic of Texas
won its independence from Mexico, becoming its own country until 1845,36 texashighways.com
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Texas. Department of Transportation. Texas Highways, Volume 70, Number 2, February 2023, periodical, February 2023; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1623752/m1/38/?rotate=180: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.