THE KARANKAWA INDIANS

'Extinct' Native American tribe alive and well on Texas Gulf Coast

 

By Myrian Orea 

 

The Galveston County Daily News

Nov 17, 2023

 

Chiara Sunshine Beaumont was taught Karankawa traditions by her mother, who took her to powwows and didn’t allow her to cut her hair until she was 15. Beaumont is shown in ceremonial attire at the Circle Acres Nature Preserve in Austin.

 

GALVESTON -- The Karankawa tribe, the original occupants of the land on the Gulf Coast, was thought to be extinct after its removal from the area in the late 1850s.

But descendants of those original residents are alive and growing as more people learn about their native roots, tribe members said.

Before the 20th century, various Karankawa clans lived between Galveston Bay and Corpus Christi Bay. Together, the tribe likely numbered more than 8,000 people, according to the tribe’s website.

Europeans forcibly removed the Karankawas from the Gulf Coast, scattering them across what is now known as the United States. Tribe members were hunted and killed or compelled to integrate into Mexican and Anglo-American society, according to tribal archives.

Many believe the tribe to be extinct. Some Karankawa people survived, however, and passed down their culture through generations.

 

Love Sanchez, a Karankawa Kadla woman who co-founded the nonprofit group Indigenous Peoples of the Coastal Bend, participates in a ceremony on McGee Beach to protest industrial expansion in Corpus Christi Bay.

 

COYOTE CLAN

People who identify as Karankawa organized the Karankawa Kadla, which means mixed Karankawas. Among the two existing clans is the Coyotes of Galveston Bay.

The Five Rivers Council represents the tribe and oversees its activities. Council members run intertribal educational programs, work on environmental preservation and are redefining the Karankawa narrative, among other projects.

MYTH BUSTERS

“Education is very important because there are a lot of myths written about the Karankawa tribe,” Absolem Yetzirah, Five Rivers Council member, said. “Those myths need to be expelled through proper education.”

European settlers described the Karankawa as the “most savage First Peoples,” which the council said is a myth still believed today.

“The state of Texas, through smear campaigns, really did a number on the tribe and described the tribe to be very savage, very ruthless,” Yetzirah said.

Parts of a Texas State Historical Marker at Jamaica Beach state: “In this area is one of several known Karankawa campsites or burial grounds, now extinct, the nomadic Indians lived along the Texas coast. Known for tall tribesmen and alleged practices of ceremonial cannibalism, they had virtually disappeared from Texas by the 1840s.”

Tim Seiter, a member of the Five Rivers Council, heads efforts to change the language associated with the tribe, such as extinct, savage and cannibalism.

“Cannibalism is something they teach and preach throughout Texas on our tribe as if we were just sitting around eating people all day,” Yetzirah said. “That is one of the biggest lies that history and the education system teach.”

BIG TASK, FEW PEOPLE

The council combats the teachings of the Karankawa with what is fact-based on their history and traditions. Yetzirah held a presentation Wednesday at Houston Community College on cooking techniques of the Karankawa Kadla Tribe in Texas for Native American Heritage Month. Through similar events, the council hopes to change the tribe’s perception.

“The responsibilities of the council are very wide, and the members of the council are very few,” Yetzirah said. “We have to select what are the battles that we will fight and win.”

Over the past two years, the council’s primary goal has been to locate tribal artifacts and remains scattered within and outside of Texas from various developers, universities and historical institutions, Yetzirah said.

“Since the council has made that its focus, we have been successful in locating and returning artifacts and remains,” Yetzirah said. “Any museum that has our artifacts or remains has to give it back.

“Luckily, we haven’t really run into any issues with people, and they have been very good at giving pieces back.”

The returned artifacts and remains are in the care of the Five Rivers Council at an undisclosed location. Temperature-controlled rooms house the artifacts, with the remains reinterred.

“We don’t put our people on display,” Yetzirah said.

FINDING THE WORDS

Above all, the purpose of the council is to help Karankawa descendants find their tribe and learn their culture, members said.

“It is very important for individual tribal members to understand history and timelines and what was going on in the state of Texas,” Yetzirah said. “The language program is the restoration of the tribe’s language to tribal members.”

Alex “Strongwind” Perez is the Language and Cultural advisor for the tribe and teaches the Karankawa language to tribe members and others interested in learning it.

The Karankawa language is spoken and written.

“In Texas, the closest thing that they know to a ‘foreign’ language is Spanish,” Perez said. “So I go slow and establish a person’s desire for the language.”

Perez said teaching is his passion.

“The language reflects the spirit of the people,” Perez said. “Taking that away is like taking away the spirit of the people.”

The Karankawa are not a blood quantum tribe, which means they do not conduct blood tests to confirm tribe members, Yetzirah said. Rather, the council relies on oral tradition passed down through family members.

Unlike many Native American tribes, chiefs did not govern the Karankawa people.

“Karankawa people had a head of the family, but that’s it,” Yetzirah said.

“The tribe has come from a people who have been displaced and separated from each other over history and time to the modern days where a lot of families have preserved their culture of being Karankawa to their oral tradition.”

Learning about family history leads people to search for their tribe. The council hopes to be easily accessible to the isolated Karankawa people so they can see that the tribe exists.

The tribe has a Karankawa reconnection statement on its website, which is the backbone of the council’s responsibility as tribe leaders.

OFFERING HOME

“The message is on top of that page because a lot of people end up searching and discovering, ‘I’m actually Native American, and the tribe I find out I belong to is Karankawa,’ and they start doing research, and that webpage pops up,” Yetzirah said. “When they see that message, that’s their first sign to call or text.”

The tribe is growing as more people rediscover the clans.

“Because of that disenfranchisement of our language primarily and our culture secondarily, we have basically been stripped of everything,” Perez said. “A byproduct of that is a lot of insecurity or a lot of egotism and dysfunction. Those are the bad sides of being assimilated into the larger culture. Then it’s like, ‘What do you have left to establish that you’re Native?’ Most people draw a blank because they have never had that question asked.”

Reviving traditions is necessary for people to become connected to the tribe. Educating the public about tribal cultures and their existence has proven more difficult, Yetzirah said.

“For the rest of the people to know that we’re here is a good message,” Yetzirah said. “Will they listen? Would it affect their lives at all after hearing our story? I don’t know, and most likely not. The reality is that most Texans do not care about the Karankawan people, if we’re here or if we’re not.