Tribe: The Comanche, which included or includes the Yamparitas, the Jutes, the Kotsotekas, the Nonowas, the Kwahades, the Tenewas, and the Penatekas. Many Kiowa and Apache also joined the Comanches.
Meaning of Name: The word "Comanche" comes from the Ute word "Kimantsi" which means "enemy." The Comanche called themselves the Numinu, which means "the people."
Location: Originally, the Comanche were part of the Shoshone tribe and the dominant force in the Great Plains. They were located in New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas in an area they called the "Comancheria," or "Comanche Earth." They currently live in Oklahoma, Texas, California and New Mexico.
Original Language: A Shoshone/Numic dialect of the Uto-Aztecan linguistic family.
Tribal Affiliations: The French, the Germans, the Wichita, the Osage, some of the Kiowa, the Apache and some of the Utes.
Traditional Enemies: The other Utes, the other Kiowa, the other Apache, and the Spanish, the Mexicans and the Americans, especially the Texans.
Traditional Style of Housing: Teepees, constructed, toted around and owned by the Comanche women. Comanche villages also probably had large teepees for tribal meetings, and smaller ones for sweat-lodges and menstrual-lodges.
Traditional Attire: Like most of the People of the Plains, the Comanche women wore long buckskin, deerskin or elkskin dresses with long fringes or trailing ribbons, and Comanche men wore buckskin, deerskin or elk-skin breech-clothes, leggings and tunics with fringes and trailing ribbons. The men also wore, on occasion, headdresses with a circle of eagle feathers that stuck straight up in the air and had ermine tails trailing down the back. Men wore their hair in two long braids and women wore their hair loose. For war and for ceremonies, some of the male dancers wore very large woolly buffalo scalps with the horns attached. They were one of the few Plains people who wore buffalo heads.
Traditional Foods: Mostly, buffalo, with some rabbit, birds, fish, pronghorn antelope, and black bears. They ate wild mustang, armadillos, skunks, snakes, rats, lizards frogs and grasshoppers when times were lean, and Texas Longhorn cattle when they could get them. The women gathered plums, grapes, juniper berries, persimmons, mulberries, wild grapes, acorns, pecans, wild onions, radishes, prickly pear fruit, blackberries and wild potatoes. The Comanche were unusual in that they drank milk, as long as it was from buffalo, deer and elk. (Native Americans, like Asians, are lactose-intolerant, at least when it comes to cow's milk.) They also made pemmican out of pulverized dried meat and rendered animal fat. For sweet pemmican, they added dried berries (blackberries, mulberries, raisins) pecans and honey. For savory pemmican, they added small chili peppers or maybe juniper berries. Pemmican, once prepared, could last for years in a saddlebag or parfleche.
Position of Women: Like most of the nomadic People of the Plains, Comanche society was male-dominant. Men were the hunters, the warriors and the chiefs. Women took care of the home, cooking, skinning, clothing preparation, and putting up and taking down the teepees, which they owned. Descent was patrilineal.
Comanche Courtship: Similar to that of the Sioux except for the following: If a young Comanche man wanted to marry a specific young Comanche woman, he would get his uncle or a friend to take one or more of his horses to his beloved's father's house. Then the uncle or friend would speak to the father of the prospective bride about his nephew or friend, and then leave. If the father approved, the horses were added to the father's herd, but if not, they were released and driven back to the groom's herd. On the other hand, if the girl didn't want to marry that particular young Comanche man because she had another husband in mind, the lovers would elope.
Interesting Tidbits: As soon as the Pueblo gave Spanish horses to the Shoshone who were living in the Yellowstone Valley in Wyoming at the time, some of the Shoshone grabbed those horses, broke off with their parent tribe, and took off south for form their own tribe, the Comanche. Some say that they were following the buffalo, and others say that they found horses so invaluable that they took off for white settlements so that they could obtain more... They were very skilled at making silver and copper jewelry.... Comanche midwives hung umbilical cords from the hackberry tree and if the umbilical cord was left undisturbed, the child would have a long and healthy life... When boy infants were born, a flap might be painted by the door of the tent to indicate the birth of a new warrior.... Boys were named after their grandfather or paternal uncle and girls were named after a relative in the father's family.... Comanche of either gender painted the parts of their hair with colored pigments or clays .... The Comanche were known for their brutality against their enemies.....Some of the code-talkers during WWII were Comanche.
Traditional Religion: Native American Church, Christianity, traditional tribal religion.
Slavery and the Comanche: The Comanche commonly took prisoners during their wars and raids, and sold them to the Spanish and the Mexicans. Although, to be fair, they also captured the Spanish, the Mexicans and the Americans as slaves and sold them to other tribes, kept them or killed them outright.
Current Population: There are more than 15,200 registered Comanche.
Current Sources of Tribal Revenue: A college, four casinos, at least one of which is in Oklahoma, and ten smoke shops.
Famous Comanche: Sorry, although the list is long, no one that I have heard of.
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