Comanche

Category: Tribe

Culture area: Southwestern Plains

Language group: Shoshonean

Primary location: Oklahoma

Population size:10,059 (2014 US Census)

The Comanche tribe arose as an offshoot of the Shoshone tribe. Comanches refer to themselves as the Nemena, or “the real people.” The name Comanche is believed to come from the Ute word komanticia (“an enemy,” or “one who fights all the time”). Comanches were also referred by other Native American tribes as the Paducah (or Padouca, by the Sioux ) by the French and Americans, who mistakenly believed they were an Apache tribe that had once inhabited the region. The Comanches were active throughout the southwestern plains area in the United States until the mid-nineteenth century. Members of this tribe were constantly engaged in warfare to maintain dominancy. The Comanche habituated parts of modern Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Colorado. Today, most Comanches live on Oklahoma reservation lands.

Tribal History

Tribal legends suggest that the Comanches and the Shoshones split into separate tribes because of disagreements about the fair division of game or in the aftermath of a disastrous disease epidemic. The pre-1700 tribal split led the Comanches into the southwestern Plains and kept the Shoshones in the Wyoming and Montana mountains. The Comanches soon controlled 24,000 square miles and defeated all those who contested their control. This success was attributable to their being one of the first tribes who had horses and to their superb military horsemanship.

At first bitter enemies, the Kiowas and the Comanches became military allies in the eighteenth century. The close alliance continued until the pacification of the Plains tribes placed them all on reservations. The main enemies of the Comanches were the Apaches, the Navajos, the Osages, the Pawnees, and the Utes. The Comanches ranged far into Texas and Mexico in raids seeking horses and other plunder.

Traditional Lifeways

The Comanche tribe was divided into thirteen autonomous bands that often cooperated in war but had no political consensus, no tribal chief, and no tribal council. Most numerous was the Penateka band (the Honey Eaters or Wasps). Other prominent Comanche bands were the Quahadi (the Antelopes), the Nokoni (the Wanderers), the Kutsueka (the Buffalo Eaters), and the Yamparika (the Yamp, or potato, Eaters). The Comanche tribal organization was so loose that any warrior could enter or leave a band at will. In battle, a war chief was in charge of all of a band’s warriors. In time of peace, however, he had no power, and the tribespeople were autonomous, although they often listened to the advice of peace chiefs and of a council of elders.

Comanche men did not often marry until they were well-established warriors, usually at about the age of twenty-five. Men were polygamous, particularly in marrying Native American womenwho were the sisters or the widows of their brothers. Men could marry as many women as they were able to support, although most had only one wife. Each wife was given a separate dwelling, but extended families shared most homemaking activities. Divorce was simple and favored the Comanche man. Female adultery was punished by beatings or nose-clipping. Children were loved and doted upon by all Comanches.

The Comanche religion is not well documented. Important deities were a Creator (the Great Spirit), the Sun, the Earth, and the Moon. Comanches revered Coyote, the boisterous trickster; hence, they did not eat coyotes or dogs. The young Comanche men, like those of most Plains tribes, went on vision quests to achieve their adult names and to obtain their medicine power. It was believed by the Comanches that all “the real people” who died went on to an afterlife unless they had been scalped, died in the dark, or had been strangled.

Funerals included dressing the deceased in the finest clothing they owned, painting their faces, and interring them in caves or in shallow graves along with their finest possessions. Before 1850, a warrior’s favorite wife was often killed to accompany him to the afterlife. During mourning, both family and friends gashed clothing and bodies, burned the dwellings of the deceased, and destroyed horses and other wealth in their honor. Afterward, the names of the deceased were never again mentioned by any tribe member.

Comanche bands had secret societies for men, which involved ritual dances, and medicinal ceremonies. Their rituals were so secretive that relatively little is known about them as compared with those of many other tribes. The Sun Dance—very important to most other Plains Indian tribes—was not celebrated by the Comanches until the late nineteenth century.

Comanches lived in well-designed, finely decorated buffalo-hide tipis, made by women, and moved when new campgrounds were sought (sometimes because of the need for fresh forage for their horse herds). The buffalo provided most Comanche needs, including food. Comanches were nomad hunter-gatherers who neither farmed nor fished. Their plant foods, such as potatoes, nuts, and various fruits, were all gathered by women’s foraging expeditions. In contrast, the Comanches were expert horse breeders, fine horse trainers, and excellent primitive veterinarians. Their horse herds were tremendous and contained exceptionally fine animals.

Comanche men’s personal adornment included painting their faces and the heads and tails of their mounts before battle. Buffalo-hide shirts, leggings, and boots, as well as very elaborate headdresses, were also worn. Long hair was desired by all Comanche men, and they acquired it both via natural hair growth and interwoven horse hair. Prior to the use of firearms, Comanche weapons were buffalo-hide battle shields so strong that arrows and bullets did not easily pierce them, long war lances, heavy war clubs, and bows and arrows. The chief decorations of all Comanche weapons were feathers, bear teeth, and scalps of enemies. Native American warfare was the main occupation of Comanche men, providing them with sport, horses, and other plunder. The Comanches were viewed as exceptionally fierce warriors.

Comanche cooking consisted mostly of the roasting of meat on sticks over open fires and of boiling it, with other foods, in skin pouches into which hot stones were dropped. Comanche eating utensils were very simple. Their weapons and shields, on the other hand, were very well-crafted and attractively adorned. Comanche bows, arrows, and lances were most often made of the very tough wood called bois d’arc (Osage orange) by the French explorers of North America.

Movement to Reservations

In the 1850s, the Penatekas were the first Comanche group to move to a reservation. After the Medicine Lodge Treaty and the Battle of the Washita, in the 1860s, most Comanche bands moved onto reservations. Comanche resistance ended in 1875, when Quanah Parker and his Quahadi band, the last Comanche warrior holdouts, surrendered. Slowly changing their ways but retaining their heritage, the Comanches have acclimatized themselves to mainstream American life. The 1930s passage of the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act remedied some tribal grievances, and a Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Business Committee aimed at improving the conditions of the three tribes. In the 1960s the Comanche Business Council began to seek to improve Comanche life. Today’s Comanches have opened businesses, entered the general workforce in many professions, and are well-represented in the American armed forces. At the same time they continue to fight to keep tribal traditions alive both in their homes and in the schools where their children are taught.

Comanche Code Talkers

During World War II, the United States armed forces employed Native American military personnel to transmit radio messages in their indigenous languages. In the days before encryption devices were widespread, transmitting and receiving radio traffic in native languages offered measures of security similar to encoding devices. This practice allowed sensitive information to be more freely transmitted without enemy forces deciphering and taking countermeasures. The Comanche language and code talkers were employed for this mission. In December 2019, Highway 5, located near Walters, Oklahoma, was renamed Comanche Cole Talker Trailway.

Bibliography

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Hamalainen, Pekka. The Comanche Empire. New Haven: Yale UP, 2008. Print.

Kavanaugh, Thomas W. "Comanche (Tribe)." Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Oklahoma Hist. Soc., 2009. Web. 30 June 2016.

Lipscomb, Carol. "Comanche Indians." Texas State Historical Association, 9 Oct. 2020, www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/comanche-indians. Accessed 26 Mar. 2023.

McDonnell, Brandy. "Five Oklahoma Places to Visit to Learn About Native American Cultures." The Oklahoman, 22 Apr. 2021, www.oklahoman.com/story/entertainment/2021/04/22/5-places-oklahoma-where-you-can-learn-native-american-cultures/4697217001. Accessed 26 Mar. 2023.

Richardson, Rupert N. The Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement. Glendale: Clark, 1933. Print.

Schronchin, Jolene. "Comanche Code Talker Trailway." The Comanche Nation News, Dec. 2019, comanchenation.com/sites/comanchenation.com/files/2019-12‗TCNN.pdf. Accessed 26 Mar. 2023.

Wallace, Ernest, and E. Adamson Hoebel. The Comanches: Lords of the South Plains. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1952. Print.

Weiser, Kath. "The Comanche —Horsemen of the Plains." Legends of America, July 2021, www.legendsofamerica.com/na-comanche. Accessed 26 Mar. 2023.