Comanche

Tribes of Native America

THE COMANCHE
By Zack Y. and Ryan C.

The Comanche The Comanche were a Native North American tribe,
a southern branch of the Shoshone, of Uto-Aztecan language family, and of the Plains culture area. The Comanche left their original place west of the Rocky Mountains to move to
the southern Great Plains around the 15th century. They drove out the Apache people and rules a large area during the 18th and 19th centuries. The Comanche were the most skillful horsemen of the Plains.

The ponies that the Comanche had, were attained from the Spanish settlers who lived in the area.

They were very warlike and raided many other settlements, both European and Native American. They raided all the way to Mexico and kept settlers from their own territory for about a 100 years. They made agreement with the United States government in 1875. In the early 1800's there were about 30,000 Comanche, but shortly after that a huge plague reduced their population to fewer than 10,000.

	*FOOD* The Comanche had many different types of foods they commonly ate. The more northern Comanche ate buffalo most of the time. Over all, they ate roots, vegetables and fruits, and wild meat too. They were completely against cannibalism although they did eat horse meat at dire times, they were forbidden to eat dog flesh (as many tribes did.) One very famous recipe they had was fried corn. The ingredients are about 8 ears of corn, a half pound of bacon, one large onion, and salt and black pepper for taste. The corn is easily made.
	*CLOTHES* The Comanche clothes ranged from many different things. Men usually dressed in deerskin shirts, legging and moccasins. Women traditionally wore a one piece deerskin dress with knee boots and beads. Children wore deerskin "pouches" and rarely wore shirts. If any shoes were worn by Comanche they would usually be moccasins.
	*SHELTER* The Comanche lived in tee-pees like most plains indians, they were a nomadic people. Each band would mover around from place to place to hunt and trade. They would often cover hundreds of miles in a year of moving. When the Comanche moved they would load everything into a wooden frame made of two poles that many families had. This was called a travois. The poles came from the tee-pee and the horse would pull the travois as shown here: Before there were horses they used dogs to pull the travois.
	*CULTURE* The Comanche had a very interesting culture. There are four parts of their culture that we will tell you about. They are: entertainment, religion, arts, and family life. We will tell you about each one separately. *ENTERTAINMENT* The Comanche did lots of different things for entertainment. We will share a few. They stole horses quite often from neighboring people in the southwest. They did this for many years. After a while it became more of a game than an actual job. They were very skilled horsemen and new much about how to steal a horse. They would steal from European settlements in New Mexico, Texas and even Oklahoma. They would travel far and wide to do this and had a good time doing it too! Games were made up by the children too when they had time to play, which was not to often. *RELIGION* The Comanche were believers in both good and bad spirits, their religion was Meager. When the Comanche met up with each other for counsel or praying matters , they would start off with the pipe smoking ceremony. The first puff would be for the Great Spirit. The Comanche had their own form of the sun dance but it was performed at regular intervals throughout the year. When the ghost dance movement swept across the plains in 1890 the Comanche did not participate. *ARTS* Comanche art was not all that popular. Their art was widespread and pottery was famous throughout the area. Some Comanche tribes made art out of their favorite things, such as horses, buffalo, fruits, and vegetables. Sculptures were made by using the clay that was found down where they live. Art was not a major thing in the Comanche tribes. *FAMILY LIFE* The Comanche lived in small very scattered groups. They had few people in each tribe on average and met up with others rarely. So you would believe they had a strong family life because they lived in such small groups. Women did not have a choice of who they could marry. Men had tough times trying to find the women they wanted. They didn't have a voice in counsel either. They couldn't say much on how they wanted to run the tribe. The men decided upon that. Women had to put up and take down the tee-pees when the tribes moved after the buffalo. The dead of most families were buried right after he or she died, they rarely stayed out unless for certain reasons. The men mostly hunted for the families if they did hunt in the region. The women stayed and did most handy work around the tribal area. The children played often but also had to work every once in a while if they were needed or were forced to.

THE SOURCES
www.dogpile.com, www.yahoo.com, Warren Home Page-Junior High-Mr. Mann,
www.goto.com, www.lycos.com, www.search.com, www.ask.com