The Karankawa ( ) were an Indigenous group concentrated in southern Texas along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, largely in the lower Colorado River and Brazos River valleys."Karankawa." In Cassell's Peoples, Nations and Cultures, edited by John Mackenzie. Cassell, 2005. They consisted of several independent, seasonal semi-nomadic groups who shared a language and some culture.
From the onset of European colonization, the Karankawa had violent encounters with the Spanish. After one attack by the Spanish, who ambushed the Karankawa after the establishment of Presidio La Bahía in 1722, the Karankawa allegedly felt "deeply betrayed [and] viewed Spanish colonial settlement with hostility."
In the 19th century, European-American colonists arrived in their land under the leadership of Stephen Austin. He commissioned a captain to expel the Karankawa from the Austin land grant, leading to multiple attacks, including the Skull Creek massacre of 19 Karankawa.
In 1824, Stephen F. Austin sent Captain Randal Jones with a group of 23 Army soldiers to what is now Brazoria County to fight and disperse the Karankawa Indians from their encampment. Fifteen Indians were killed, and the remaining fled the area. This event is known as the Battle of Jones Creek.
By the 1840s, the Karankawa, now exiled, split into two groups, one of which settled on Padre Island while the other fled into the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. In 1858, Mexican rancher Juan Nepomuceno Cortina led a group of Mexicans and Texan colonists against what was believed to be the Karankawa's last known refuge, killing many. By 1891, the Karankawa ceased to exist as a functioning tribe. Today, however, there are unrecognized tribes who claim Karankawa descent.
Name The name Karakawa has numerous spellings in Spanish, French, and English.
Swiss-American ethnologist Albert S. Gatschet wrote that the name Karakawa may have come from the Comecrudo terms klam or glám, meaning "dog", and kawa, meaning "to love, like, to be fond of." The plural form of kawa is kakáwa, so the term would mean "dog-lovers" or "dog-raisers."
The Tonkawa called them Wrestlers ("Keles" or "Killis"). They alternatively called them the barefooted or those without moccasins ("Yakokon kapa-i"), but this name was also applied to other groups with which the Tonkawe were acquainted. The Lipan Apache called the Karankawa the "people who walk in the water" ("Nda Kun dadehe"), possibly referring to their mode of fishing and catching turtles, or simply their location near the swampy coast. The Karankawa called themselves "Karankawa" as well.
Later speculation placed the Karankawa language in the Cariban linguistic stock. Linguistic data suggests that the Karankawa name originated from the old Spanish Main, "Kalina," and a suffix from a Northern Carib tribe, "kxura, "meaning "people." A compound emerges: Karinxkxura, meaning "Carib people." But this theory is disputed, and ultimately, the origins of the name "Karankawa" remain unknown.
Alternate spellings of the name Karankawa have historically included: Carancahua, Carancagua, Carancaguase, Carancahuare, Caranchuasye, Carancahuase, Carancahuaye, Carancahuaze, Carancohuace, Caray, Carrai, Carray, Saray.
Origins According to some contemporary sources, the migrations of their ancestors were entirely unknown to the Karankawa of the early 19th century.
Linguist Herbert Landar argues that linguistic evidence suggests that the Karankawa language and people originated from a Carib subgroup. He suggested that they may have migrated from the south into Tamaulipas and Texas during the late 15th century and was probably done over a long period of time by short bursts of migration. Scholars also have speculated that the Karankawa were descended from a group of Carib Indians who arrived by sea from the Caribbean basin. This is partially based on the similarity of their physical appearance to Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, but no ethnographic or archaeological evidence has confirmed this speculation.Rickliss, Robert. The Karankawa Indians of Texas: An Ecological Study of Cultural Tradition and Change, University of Texas Press. Austin: 1996. p. vii
Recent archaeological records that used radiocarbon dating for artefacts indicated that these Native groups had been in the area of Texas as early as the fifth millennium BCE.
Lifestyle
Seasonal nomadic lifestyle The Karankawa voyaged from place to place on a seasonal basis in their dugouts, made from large trees with the bark left intact. They travelled in groups of thirty to forty people and remained in each place for about four weeks. After European contact, canoes were of two kinds, both being called "awa'n": the original dugout and old skiffs obtained from the whites. Neither was used for fishing but for transportation only, and their travels were limited to the waters close to the land. The women, children, and possessions travelled in the hold while the men stood on the stern and poled the canoe. Upon landing at their next destination, the women set up wigwams (called ba'ak in their native language) and the men hauled the boats on the shore. Their campsites were always close to the shoreline of the nearby body of water.
They constructed houses by arranging willow branches in a circle, bending the tops of the branches toward the centre, and interlocking them in wickerwork. This wickerwork was fastened with deerskin. Upon this framework, the Karankawa lay deer, wildcat, panther or bear skins, again fastened with deer hide thongs.
The next step was to make a fire. After European contact, the Karankawa sought matches or tinderboxes from settlers; otherwise, they resorted to the traditional method of using their firesticks, which they always carried in a package of deerhide thongs. The fire was always made in the centre of their dwellings and kept burning day and night. They used animal hides and pelts to sit and sleep on within their dwellings. Their household goods and utensils included wooden spoons, ceramic vessels, fishbone needles, and fine deer sinew.
Environment The Karankawa travelled to the coastal region. They hunted and gathered food from rivers and by the shore.
In the region that the Karankawa inhabited, numerous small chunks of asphaltum have been found along the coast from oil seepage beneath the Gulf of Mexico. These chunks were used to bind arrowheads to their shafts; as a coating for pottery such as ollas, jars, and bowls; and as a way to waterproof woven baskets.
Cuisine Karankawa cuisine included venison, rabbit, fowl, fish, turtles, oysters, and other shellfish. Their cuisine also included food gathered from the wild, such as berries, persimmons, wild grapes, sea-bird eggs, tuna and nopales (prickly pear cactus fruit and paddles, respectively), and nuts. They boiled food in ceramic pots or roasted entrés and seasoned their dishes with chile.
After European contact, the Karankawa made bread from imported wheat flour. They laid the dough on a flat stone and then baked it on an open fire. They also enjoyed imported sweet coffee.
The Karankawa were skilled at obtaining pure, fresh water. White settlers did not know where they obtained it, because the wells of the whites had a brackish taste.
Historical perspectives on anthropophagy and the cannibalism myth Colonial literature and 19th-century Texan historiography frequently depicted the Karankawa people as practicing cannibalism, relying on European chronicles dating back to René-Robert Cavelier de La Salle's establishment of Fort Saint Louis in 1685. In contrast, modern anthropology, ethnohistory, and archaeology generally characterize widespread or dietary cannibalism among the Karankawa as a colonial trope or misconception. Scholars argue that these narratives were utilized by historical actors to delegitimize the indigenous population, providing a rationale for their forced displacement and removal.
Analysis of 17th-century primary sources French and Spanish colonial accounts from the late 17th century document instances of anthropophagy, describing it as a restricted, ritualistic warfare practice. The testimony of Jean-Baptiste Talon—who was adopted by the Karankawa following the destruction of the French fort—provides a direct account of these boundaries:
"We all went naked like them... The only food that horrified them was that prepared with human flesh, because they were cannibals, but only toward their savage enemies. They never ate a single Frenchman they killed because, as they said, they simply did not eat them."
Archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence Archaeological research along the Texas Gulf Coast has provided data regarding Karankawa subsistence patterns that counter the narratives of habitual cannibalism. Excavations of seasonal campsites have recovered faunal remains and kitchen middens indicating a specialized coastal diet based on fishing, shellfish harvesting, and the seasonal hunting of deer and bison. Archaeological surveys of human skeletal remains associated with Karankawa sites have not documented physical evidence of dietary anthropophagy, such as uniform cut marks, scraping, or intentional thermal alteration.
According to ethnohistorical analyses, the depiction of the Karankawa as cannibals became more prevalent during the 1820s under Stephen F. Austin and Anglo-American colonization efforts. Documentation indicates that branding the population as cannibals lowered legal and moral barriers for settlers, which facilitated military campaigns and land appropriation. Additionally, earlier historical sources, such as Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca's 1528 narrative, record that the Karankawa expressed distress upon discovering that a group of stranded Spanish survivors had practiced cannibalism to avoid starvation.
Culture Language and communication
Little is known of the extinct Karankawa language, which may have been a language isolate. The Karankawa also possessed a gesture language for conversing with people from other Native American tribes.
The Karankawa were noted for their skill in communicating with each other over long distances using smoke signals. The Karankawa could make the smoke of a small fire ascend toward the sky in many different ways, and it was as intelligible to them across long distances as their language. Their methods are unknown.
Manners and customs The Karankawa had a specific way of conversing. They carefully repressed their breath while speaking; at the end of their sentences, they exhaled heavily, releasing the air they held back during speaking. Moreover, their expression was interpreted by Europeans as impassive, especially because they never looked at the person to whom they were speaking. Their pronunciation was very exact, and they ridiculed poor elocution by the whites who tried to learn their language. The Europeans described their general demeanour as surly and fatigued.
They did not have a regular sleep schedule, but slept whenever they wished. They also ate and drank at all times of the day.
Karankawa never communicated their native names to the whites. However, they all adopted English or Spanish names. Many men adopted American military epithets and Christian names, and they would change these frequently.
Among the Karankawa existed an in-law taboo. Once a man and his wife had become, in the Karankawa sense, married, the husband and his children were no longer allowed to enter the residence of his wife's parents, nor could his wife's parents enter his or his children's home. These two groups were also no longer allowed to talk with one another and never came face to face with one another. If a situation of coming face to face with one another arose, both parties averted their eyes and moved away from each other. This taboo only seemed to apply to the husbands and their children, most likely due to the inconvenience on the wife's part, as Karankawans were typically patrilocal.
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