Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico

Hodge, Frederick Webb, Compiler. The Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico. Bureau of American Ethnology, Government Printing Office. 1906.

Coosa Tribe

Coosa Indians. A small tribe, now extinct, which lived about the mouth of Edisto or Combahee River, South Carolina. Its name is preserved in Coosaw and Coosaw-hatchee rivers. According to Rivers they lived northeast of Combahee River, which separated them from the Combahee tribe. They appear to be identical with the Couexi of the Huguenot colonists (1562) and with the Coçao of Juan de la Vandera s narrative of 1569. They were hostile to the English in 1671; in 1675 the “great and lesser Casor” sold to the colonists a tract lying on Kiawah, Stono, and Edisto rivers; there is … Read more

Conoy Tribe

Conoy Indians. An Algonquian tribe, related to the Delawares, from whose ancestral stem they apparently sprang, but their closest relations were with the Nanticoke, with whom it is probable they were in late prehistoric times united, the two forming a single tribe, while their language is supposed to have been somewhat closely allied to that spoken in Virginia by the Powhatan. Heckewelder believed them to be identical with the Kanawha, who gave the name to the chief river of West Virginia. Although Brinton calls this “a loose guess,” the names Conoy, Ganawese, etc., seem to be forms of Kanawha Conoy … Read more

Congaree Tribe

Congaree Indians. A small tribe, supposed to be Siouan, formerly living in South Carolina. The grounds for including this tribe in the Siouan family are its location and its intimate relation with known Siouan tribes, especially the Catawba, with which it was ultimately incorporated; but according to Adair and Lawson the Congaree spoke a dialect different from that of the Catawba, which they preserved even after their incorporation. In 1693 the Cherokee complained that the Shawnee, Catawba, and Congaree took prisoners from among them and sold them as slaves in Charleston. They were visited in 1701 by Lawson, who found … Read more

Comeya Tribe

Comeya Indians. Apparently a collective name indefinitely applied to the Yuman tribes from San Diego eastward to the lower Rio Colorado. By many authors it has been assumed to be synonymous with Diegueno, which doubtless it was in part. Just what tribes it included can not now be told, but the term is here applied only to interior tribes, the Diegueno about San Diego being excluded. When visited by Anza, Garcés, and Font, in 1775, the “Quemayá” wore sandals of maguey fiber and descended from their own territory (which began at the mountains, in lat. 33 08 , some 100 … Read more

Comanche Tribe

Comanche Indians. One of the southern tribes of the Shoshonean stock, and the only one of that group living entirely on the plains. Their language and traditions show that they are a comparatively recent offshoot from the Shoshoni of Wyoming, both tribes speaking practically the same dialect and, until very recently, keeping up constant and friendly communication. Within the traditionary period the two tribes lived adjacent to each other in south Wyoming, since which time the Shoshoni have been beaten back into the mountains by the Sioux and other prairie tribes, while the Comanche have been driven steadily southward by … Read more

Comanche Indian Bands, Gens and Clans

Many tribes have sub-tribes, bands, gens, clans and phratry.  Often very little information is known or they no longer exist.  We have included them here to provide more information about the tribes. Detsanayuka (Detsanayuka, bad campers). A division of the Comanche, formerly called Nokoni (wanderers), but on the death of a chief bearing the latter name their designation was changed. In 1847 they were said to number 1,750, in 250 lodges, evidently a gross exaggeration; in 1869 their number was 312, and in 1872 they were reported at 250. Their present population is unknown, as no official ac count is … Read more

Colville Tribe

Colville Indians. A division of Salish between Kettle falls and Spokane River, east Washington; said by Gibbs to have been one of the largest of the Salish tribes.  Lewis and Clark estimated their number at 2,500, in 130 houses, in 1806. There were 321 under the Coville agency in 1904.

Columbians

Columbians. Applied by Bancroft to the Indians of north west America dwelling between lat 42º and 55º and stated by him to be synonymous with the Nootka-Columbians of Scouler and others.  The term Columbians, however, is evidently broader in its scope, as it includes all the tribes west of the Rockies from the Skittagetan group, in the north to south boundary of Oregon, while Scouler’s term comprises a group of languages extending from the mouth of Salomon River to the south of Columbia River, now known to belong to several linguistic stocks.

Cojoya Tribe

Cojoya Indians. An unidentified people, described by Fray Geronimo de Zarate-Salmeron, about 1629 , as living in a fertile and well watered country “80 leagues before reaching New Mexico from the west side, separated by 2 days of travel from the Rio del Norte (Rio Grande) and the King’s highway.” They raised cotton, corn, and other vegetables, and wove very fine, thin mantas. Their neighbors to the east were the Gorretas (Mansos), and on the south were their enemies, the Conchas, or Conchos, who lived about the junction of the Rio Conchas and the Rio Grande, in Chihuahua, Mexico. Zarate-Salmeron … Read more

Coconoon Tribe

Coconoon Indians. A Yokuts tribe of California, said by Johnston in 1851 to live on the Merced River, with other bands, under their chief Nuella. There are the remnants of 3 distinct bands residing together

Cochiti Tribe

Cochiti Indians (Ko-chi-ti’). A Keresan tribe and its pueblo on the west bank of the Rio Grande, 27 miles south west of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Before moving to their present location the inhabitants occupied the Tyuonyi, or Rito de los Frijoles, the Potrero de las Vacas, the pueblo of Haatze on Potrero San Miguel or Potrero del Capulin, and the pueblo of Kuapa in the Cañada de Cochiti. Up to this time, which was still before the earliest Spanish explorations, the ancestors of the present San Felipe inhabitants and those of Cochiti formed one tribe speaking a single dialect, … Read more

Coaque Tribe

Coaque Indians. A tribe formerly living on Malhado Island, off the coast of Texas, where Cabeza de Vaca suffered shipwreck in 1527. This was almost certainly Galveston Island. Cabeza de Vaca found two tribes, each with its own language, living there, one the Han, the other the Coaque. The people subsisted from November to February on a root taken from the shoal water and on fish which they caught in weirs; they visited the mainland for berries and oysters. They displayed much affection toward their children and greatly mourned their death. For a year after the loss of a son … Read more

Coanopa Tribe

Coanopa Indians. A tribe, apparently Yuman, residing probably on or in the vicinity of the lower Rio Colorado early in the 18th century. They visited Father Nino while he was among the Quigyuma and are mentioned by him in connection with the Cuchan (Yuma) and other tribes . Possibly the Cocopa.

Coahuiltecan Tribe

Coahuiltecan Indians, Coahuila Indians, Coahuila Tribe, Cahuilla Tribe, Cahuilla Indians. A name adopted by Powell from the tribal naive Coahuilteco used by Pimentel and Orozco y Berra to include a group of small, supposedly cognate tribes on both sides of the lower Rio Grande in Texas and Coahuila. The family is founded on a slender basis, and the name is geographic rather than ethnic, as it is not applied to any tribe of the group, while most of the tribes included therein are extinct, only meager remnants of some two or three dialects being preserved. Pimentel says: “I call this … Read more

Coahuiltecan Indian Clans, Bands and Gens

Many tribes have sub-tribes, bands, gens, clans and phratry.  Often very little information is known or they no longer exist.  We have included them here to provide more information about the tribes. Guisoles. A tribe of Coahuila or Texas, probably Coahuiltecan, noted in a manuscript quoted by Orozco y Berra, Geog., 306, 1864. It may be identical with the Gueiquesales, or with the Quitoles of Cabeza de Vaca.