Native Americans in the Hill Country
Have you or someone in your family ever found an arrowhead in this area? Let’s find out which group of Native Americans it may have belonged to.
Lipan Apache camp in the Hill Country
Lipan Apaches
The Lipan Apaches lived close to nature and hunted for food and skins for clothing. They used plants for food and medicine. The Lipan Apaches were deeply spiritual and regarded the natural world with great respect.
Lipan Apaches lived in teepees made of buffalo hides in cold weather and shelters called wickiups which were made of sticks and branches in warmer weather. Everything that they used in their daily life had to be light and easy to transport as they roamed the hills. The Lipan Apaches were skillful warriors and expert hunters and trappers. Their clothing was made of leather decorated with beadwork.
By the end of the 1800s, the way of life that the Lipan Apache had lived for hundreds of years was forced to come to an end by the increasing number of incoming settlers. The Lipan Apache were pushed west and finally moved into the Mescalero Reservation in New Mexico.
Tonkawa
The Tonkawa also lived in the Hill Country although many had already been pushed out of the area by the Apaches and Comanche when the German settlers arrived. The Tonkawa were friendly with tribes to the south and east of them and often shared their land and traded with each other. This meant that the Tonkawa were able to get along better with the incoming settlers better than any of the other Native American tribes.
Tonkawa means “People of the Wolf” and they believed that they were descended from a magical wolf who was also their protector. They hunted game, gathered plants, and also ate fish, crawfish, clams and mussels from the local rivers. Pecans and blackberry roots were also in their diet.
The Tonkawa decorated their bodies and faces with tattoos. The Comanche and Apaches were their enemies. Because of this, they acted as scouts for the Texas Rangers and the US Army against the Comanche and Apaches. In about 1880, they were moved to a reservation area in North Texas and later to a reservation in Oklahoma.
Comanche - Penatekas (Honey Eaters)
The Comanche Indians arrived in the Texas Hill Country around 1740. Comanche Indians were organized into bands; each band had its own name and leader. The bands would sometimes join together to fight common enemies.
The Comanche were skilled with horses and lived in teepees. They moved from place to place and could travel hundreds of miles in one year.