Transcript Tonkawa - Belton Independent School District

Tonkawa
By
Nick Williams and Abigail Morgan
I. Location
• The Tonkawa’s original home was the hill
country of central Texas.
• As there enemies, the Comanche and
Apache, pushed them further away from
the buffalo, so they ended up on the edges
of Edwards plateau and the coastal plains.
II. Homes
• Two strange things were different about
the Tonkawa homes. They used all the
grass, bush, and all the poles they could
make their cone shaped homes.
III. Government
• Even though they lived in small nomadic
bands, all Tonkawa’s were members of a
larger clan. Each clan had a chief, but
there was also an overall Tonkawa chief.
Iv. Dress
• The Tonkawa’s painted their body’s with
tattoos.
• Tonkawa men wore very long breech
cloths and men kept their hair long.
• Tonkawa women wore very short shirts.
• When winter came, they wore buffalo
robes and earrings and necklaces made of
bones and shells.
v. How they Lived
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The Tonkawa’s were hunter-gathers.
They believed that they began with a wolf.
The buffalo was the source of everything they needed.
Every single part of the animal was used.
The Tonkawa’s also hunted smaller animals like deer.
They were lucky they lived in a area that had rivers with
fish, nuts, berries, and roots.
• Tonkawa’s traded for things they needed.
• They traded with Caddo for pottery.
• They traded for houses too. If they didn’t get the horse
than they would steal the horse.
VI. Weapons and Warfare
• The bow and arrow was the best and most
favored of the Tonkawa.
• The Tonkawa’s believed that their arrow
points were poisoned by putting the liquid
from the mistletoe leaf on them.
• Laces were also used during war and
sometimes for hunting.
• When they were at war they carried bison
hide shields and wore jackets and helmets
made of tough hide for protection.
V Beliefs
• We know that Tonkawa’s had shaman, but we don’t know a lot
about what they did. Death was a very complicated ceremony.
• The hair was cut from the person who died.
• His face was painted yellow, and body wrapped.
• He was also buried with all of his belonging’s.
• Anything that he had with him when he died was destroyed.
• His band mourned for a longer time. When the mourning period was
over the chief talked to the band and the person’s name was never
used again. They did not want to call the spirit back to this world.
• They had a dance called the wolf dance. It honored their beinnings
with the great wolf.
IV Summary
• The Tonkawa’s had a lot of things in common with the
other Texas Natives like warning tattoos and hunting
buffalo and painting.
• The Tonkawa’s believed that the owed their existence to
a great wolf.
• They also owed tattoos designs which linked them to
their band.
• They lived in a cone shaped huts and traded for things
they could not get on their own.
• This made them very friendly toward the Spanish and
Anglo settlers that came later to Texas.