Native American Nations
                   Your Source for Indian Research
                   Rolls ~ History ~ Treaties ~ Census ~ Books

Coahuiltecan Family

 Native American Nations | Linguistic Families                    

  • Coahuilteco, Orozco y Berra, Geografía de las Lenguas de México, map, 1864.
  • Tejano ó Coahuilteco, Pimentel, Cuadro Descriptivo y Comparativo de las Lenguas Indígenas de México, II, 409, 1865. (A preliminary notice with example from the language derived from Garcia’s Manual, 1760.)

Derivation: From the name of the Mexican State Coahuila.

This family appears to have included numerous tribes in southwestern Texas and in Mexico. They are chiefly known through the record of the Rev. Father Bartolomé Garcia (Manual para administrar, etc.), published in 1760. In the preface to the “Manual” he enumerates the tribes and sets forth some phonetic and grammatic differences between the dialects.

On page 63 of his Geografía de las Lenguas de México, 1864, Orozco y Berra gives a list of the languages of Mexico and includes Coahuilteco, indicating it as the language of Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas. He does not, however, indicate its extension into Texas. It would thus seem that he intended the name as a general designation for the language of all the cognate tribes.

Upon his colored ethnographic map, also, Orozco y Berra designates the Mexican portion of the area formerly occupied by the tribes of this family Coahuilteco.33 In his statement that the language and tribes are extinct this author was mistaken, as a few Indians still survive who speak one of the dialects of this family, and in 1886 Mr. Gatschet collected vocabularies of two tribes, the Comecrudo and Cotoname, who live on the Rio Grande, at Las Prietas, State of Tamaulipas. Of the Comecrudo some twenty-five still remain, of whom seven speak the language.

The Cotoname are practically extinct, although Mr. Gatschet obtained one hundred and twenty-five words from a man said to be of this blood. Besides the above, Mr. Gatschet obtained information of the existence of two women of the Pinto or Pakawá tribe who live at La Volsa, near Reynosa, Tamaulipas, on the Rio Grande, and who are said to speak their own language.


Principal Tribes

Alasapa.
Cachopostate.
Casa chiquita.
Chayopine.
Comecrudo.
Cotoname.
Mano de perro.
Mescal.
Miakan.
Orejone.
Pacuâche.
Pajalate.
Pakawá.
Pamaque.
Pampopa.
Pastancoya.
Patacale.
Pausane.
Payseya.
Sanipao.
Tâcame.
Venado.

Indian Linguistic Families of America North of Mexico, 1891

Linguistic Families

 

Copyright 2000-2019 by NaNations.com and/or their author(s). The webpages may be linked to but shall not be reproduced on another site without written permission from NaNations or their author. Images may not be linked to in any manner or method. Anyone may use the information provided here freely for personal use only. If you plan on publishing your personal information to the web please give proper credit to our site for providing this information. Thanks!!!