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 1 says: “I call this language Tejano or Coahuilteco, because, according to the missionaries, it was the one most in use in the provinces of Coahuila and Texas, being spoken from La Candela to the Rio San Antonio.” The tribes speaking this language were known under the names of Pajalates, Orejones, Pacaos, Pacoas, Tilijayos, Alasapas, Pausanes, Pacuaches,Mescales, Pampopas, Tacames, Venados, Pamaques, Pihuiques, Borrados, Sanipaos, and Manos de Perro. The only book known to treat of their language is the Manual para administrar los santos sacramentos, by Fray Bartholome Garcia, Mexico, 1760. Other names have been mentioned as possibly those of tribes belonging to the same family group, chiefly because they resided in the same general region: Aguastayas, Cachopostales, Carrizos (generic), Casas Chiquitas, Comecrudo, Cotonam, Pacaruja, Pakawa, Pastancoya, Patacal, Payaya, Pihuique, Tejones, and Tilijaes. In addition to these the following may possibly belong to the family, as the names where mentioned are given in connection with those of some of the preceding tribes: Mesquites, Parchinas, Pastias, Pelones, and Salinas. How many of the names given are applicable to distinct tribes and how many are synonyms is not known on account of the insufficiency of data.
Citations:
- Pimentel, Lenguas, ii, 409, 1865[↩]
