The Comanche tribe are a Native American people of the Great Plains fondly called “The Horsemen of the Plains.”
They earned their slogan from their historic territory, which covered the Southern Plains of the present-day United States.
The tribe’s historical accounts are packed with twists and turns of chronological events leading up to this day as a federally recognized nation in the U.S.
We will review the Comanche tribe’s history and unfold many of the tribe’s facts. Furthermore, you will learn about its history during the colonial period.
Comanche Tribe History
The Comanche nation was a part of the Shoshone family of the Great Plains, evidenced by their existence with the language family around the time the Europeans came into America in the late 15th century.
Before European arrival, the entire Shoshone Tribe practiced a nomadic lifestyle and hunted bison with large dogs.
However, all these changed in the late 1600s and early 1700s, when the Comanche tribe moved off from their Shoshone kinsmen and migrated south, searching for a new homeland.
As such, they moved across the Plains through Nebraska, Texas, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, and Oklahoma.
European Contact (16th -18th century)
The Europeans established settlements across the Great Plains region by the 16th century, but there is little information regarding the exact time the Comanche people contacted the settlers.
However, the Pueblo Revolt in the late 17th century marks a major timeline in the formation of the natives and how it affected their culture.
Reports regarding looming conflicts between the Utes and Comanches in 1706 were the earliest references to the latter.
The 1680 revolt introduced many Plains tribes to horse acquisition, which shaped the Comanche nation in later years.
During the early centuries of European colonization, the Comanche people executed large raids against settlements to seize horses, weapons, and supplies.
This move likely prompted their breakaway from the Shoshone as they migrated south to capture horses in the Kingdom of New Spain.
With horses, the natives became successful with raids against European settlements in Mexico and bison hunting. They raided as far as Mexico, thanks to their mobility and war tactics.
By the late 18th century, the tribe had delved into the horse trade, selling horses to Anglo-American merchants and later to other native peoples.
The Comanche were reliable trading partners but fierce warriors and raiders. They fought against the Spanish and later Mexicans and Americans.
Their military success helped them to establish the Comancheria empire, which they managed to defend until 1860.
19th century
In the mid-18th century, the Comanche nation identified two geographical groups, the Eastern and Western Comanche. Their territory stretched from the northern half of Texas through Nebraska.
These divisions transformed in several ways throughout the rest of the 18th century and into the 19th, primarily due to divisions.
As the 19th century tailed, the Comanche nation already had five geographical groups, the Northern, Middle, Southern, Eastern, and Western Comanche.
The Comanche nation suffered from the American expansion as they were forced into reservations via attacks like the Red River War and the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon in 1874.
Epidemics due to European contact and wars with other native tribes, which allowed political maneuvering from the growing U.S. and giant European colonial powers, curtailed the natives.
Exhausted and weakened from the wars and near extinction of bison, the last independent Comanche bands abdicated and settled in Oklahoma.
20th century
Assimilating the European-American culture and economy was challenging for the natives due to fraud on their lands and properties.
As a result, Oklahoma’s Comanche people had to move to other cities for greener pastures.
The Comanche tribe is currently federally recognized with a constitution and government that operates parallel to the legal institutions of Oklahoma.
Comanche Tribe Culture
Intertribal conflicts during the European era and the United States expansion afterward caused dispersion and cultural fluctuations across various locations.
Intertribal conflicts during the European era and the United States expansion afterward caused dispersion and cultural fluctuations across various locations.
The Comanche tribe had a progressive culture, which European contact modified. As such, we will largely discuss their culture after European contact.
Language
The Comanche tribe speak a Numic language of the Uto-Aztecan language group.
It is similar to the Shoshone language, but a few low-level sound alterations hinder mutual ease of understanding.
The earliest records of the Comanche language from 1786 indicate a Shoshone dialect, but these changes were more significant in the early 20th century.
Today, less than 1% of the entire Comanche tribe’s population can speak the native language, and most of the surviving speakers are elderly.
However, efforts are in place to ensure the language survives.
Settlement
The natives lived in conical tents made of hides or pelts, called tepees. They tied the poles at the top and stretched them wide at the bottom.
The typical Comanche tribe’s tepee featured an average of fourteen buffalo tan hides tied to a pole, wrapping the hides around the cone-shaped frame and pinning them with pencil-sized wooden skewers.
They made adjustable openings at the top to hold insulating air pockets and keep out moisture. The tepees had fire pits in the center of the earthen floor that helped them stay warm in winter.
In summer, they raised the bottom edges of the hides for ventilation.
Transportation
The people’s mode of transportation changed over time, starting with dog-drawn travois when they lived with the Shoshone.
Horse acquisition after European contact enhanced their mobility, improving their warfare, trade output, raids, and hunting success.
They could trail buffalo herds, raid farther inland tribes, and battle from horseback.
Horses also contributed to the natives’ social status, becoming a trade commodity and a measure of an individual’s wealth.
The Comanches were excellent equestrians, training horse riders from an early age, with both genders developing outstanding horse-riding skills.
Food
The Native Americans were originally hunter-gatherers, implying that they relied on meat and supplemented their diet with edibles from the wild.
They hunted elk, buffalo, deer, black bear, pronghorn, and, occasionally, wild mustangs for meat.
However, fruits, berries, nuts, seeds, tubers, and roots, including grapes, mulberries, juniper berries, plums, persimmons, acorns, pecans, radishes, and wild onions, were regular food items from the wild.
Grains like maize were gotten from trades and were featured on their menu.
They dined at family mealtimes, especially dinner, and socially whenever visitors arrived at the camp; nevertheless, they ate lunch informally whenever they were hungry.
They cooked stews, drank milk from the slashed udders of deer, buffalo, and elk, ate raw meat, especially liver flavored with gall, and enjoyed buffalo meat flavored with berries, nuts, honey, and fat.
Children ate pemmican, a mixture of dried meat, fat, and, occasionally, dried berries. However, pemmican was a tasty, calorie-rich meal reserved for war parties.
Clothing and Grooming
The natives had simple dressing styles, where men wore leather belts with breechcloths and loose-fitting deerskin leggings.
Men wore nothing on their upper bodies during summer and heavy robes made of animal hide, especially buffalo, during winter.
Boys wore nothing on their bodies until age eight or nine except during winter or cold weather.
Women wore long deerskin dresses and flared skirts, and women wore warm buffalo robes during winter.
They beautified their leggings, shirts, and moccasins with animal fur, deerskin, and human hair fringes.
Girls wore breech clothes until the age of twelve or thirteen when they would wear women’s clothing.
Except during winter, when they wore knee-length buffalo-hide boots, both genders wore moccasins on their feet like most Native Americans.
By the 19th century, the natives began wearing woven cloth, with women designing their clothes with beads and pieces of metal.
Men wore long or braided hair with center partings from the forehead to the back of the neck, which they painted with colored clay.
Men wore nothing on their heads until the 19th century when they adopted the Great Plains custom of wearing headdresses.
Traditionally, they decorated their heads with colored cloth and bead scraps and a single feather.
Buffalo hides hats and buffalo scalp headdresses sufficed in cold weather and war. Women wore braids but usually kept their hair short.
Both genders pierced their ears and adorned themselves with jewelry. Men had tattoos and wore strips of metal or bands of leather on their arms.
Activities, Gender Roles, and Division of Labor
Men were in charge of hunting and warfare, while women were left to care for children, cook, gather wild edibles, and process animal skins for dresses, moccasins, and tepees.
While men were involved in high-risk and physical activities like hunting, raiding, and warfare, women underwent a lot to prepare for childbirth and care for children.
They had to prepare the tepees for the childbearing process, which involved softening and digging the earth before birth and caring for the mother afterward.
Boys started taking horse riding lessons early, such that they were skilled equestrians at four or five years old.
Archery lessons follow, usually from a boy’s grandfather since his father and other active men were on hunting or raiding expeditions.
Boys started hunting birds as children and became warriors by fifteen or sixteen years. Girls learned to cook from their mothers and make clothing with the aid of a doll.
Beliefs
Traditionally, religion was a personal course, even though some common cultural elements existed.
Natives of the Comanche tribe did not believe in a creator but in an “origination myth” from animals, possibly wolves.
Natives could obtain personal power (puha) from the supernatural powers in rocks and animals and share it with a few others.
These powers were usually for protection and curing, the latter involving herbal cure knowledge.
Large religious ceremonies were uncommon but usually associated with well-being, curing, and foretelling.
Art and Material Culture
The Comanche tribe practiced a lifestyle that constantly kept them on journeys and tailored their art to fit this culture.
As such, they did not use pottery for utensils because it could break easily on long journeys.
They used buffalo horns, hide, and bones instead of clay as woven or carved wooden items and metalworking were unavailable.
Comanche Tribe Facts
1. The common native name for the Comanche tribe is nʉmʉnʉʉ.
The Comanche tribe’s native name “nʉmʉnʉʉ,” means “the human beings” or “the people.” “Comanche” is a Ute word kɨmantsi, meaning “enemy.”
2. Natives of the Comanche tribe gather annually to celebrate their cultural heritage.
Each July in Walters, Oklahoma, Comanche natives assemble at the annual Comanche Homecoming gathering with dances.
Other annual festive activities include the Comanche Nation Fair in September and the New Year’s Eve and May’s annual dances by the Comanche Little Ponies.
3. The present-day Comanche tribe is a federally recognized nation.
The Comanche tribe has earned federal recognition and is headquartered in Lawton, Oklahoma.
Oklahoma is a surprising headquarter as most natives occupied present-day northwestern Texas during the 18th and 19th centuries.
However, they have tribal jurisdictional areas in Tillman, Comanche, Caddo, Jackson, Cotton, Kiowa, Greer, and Harmon counties.
4. The Comanche tribe carries out various legal operations.
The nation issues tribal vehicle tags, has a housing administration, a Department of Higher Education, ten tribal smoke shops, and four casinos.
Wrap Up
The Comanche people established themselves during the European colonization of North America but currently sit among the most prominent and influential tribes of the era.
Despite their tragic account, they have obtained federal recognition, and their history is crucial for appreciating the American-Indian existence in North America.
However, conflicts with other Native American peoples, divisions, diseases for which they had no immunity, and the American expansion affected the Comanche tribe’s dominance.
