T lie Field and I ts Workers
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road near an eminence known to the natives as the Turtle." 11 The group included the Tonkawa, the Yojuane, the Mayeye, and the Yerbipiame or Ervipiame. In 1719 Du Rivage found Tonkawas and Yojuanes living on the Red River, some seventy miles above the Cadodachos. At the same time there were tribes of this group living in central Texas near the Colorado. The entire group seems to have been forced to move slowly to the southwest, but they cannot truly be called a southwest Texas tribe. By 1770 they ranged mainly between the Trinity and the Colorado Rivers, with the exception of the highly mixed band of the Ervipiames, who were found below the Camino Real along the Colorado and the Brazos. It was for these Indians that the San Xavier missions were founded in part. Among the tribes gathered in these establishments by the faithful Franciscans were listed the Tonkawa, the Mayeye, and the Yojuane. While living in these missions they were often molested by the raids ma.de by Apaches. Discouraged by this circumstance and a severe epidemic of smallpox, they deserted the missions and joined the Hasinais in a raid against the Apaches. As a result of this, they almost got the Spaniards into serious trouble by selling Apache captives to the Hasinais. \Vhen the San Xavier missions were discontinued and a new one estab- lished on the San Saba River for the Apaches, the Tonkawa group naturally joined the Hasinai and other traditional enemies of the hated Lipan-Apaches and took part in the sanguinary destruction of the San Saba Mission in 1758. Speaking of the character and customs of these Indians, Morfi says: "They are thieves, determined, vigorous, audacious, and the principal aggressors in the destruction of the Mission of San Saba, in the death of its ministers, in the hostilities against the presidio, and in the greater part of all the Indian attacks." 19 They were cruel and warlike wanderers, who planted few or no crops, and who depended on game, particularly the buffalo for their livelihood. "Their general reputation as cannibals is borne out by concurrent tradition and history, by their designation in the sign language, and by the names applied to them by other tribes." 20 They lived in scattered villages of skin tipis, which were easily moved at will to follow the buffalo or the whim of the chief. Their weapons 18 Bolton, article on "Tonkawa," in Hodge, Handbook of the American Indians, part II, 780. 19 Chabot, iYorfi's Indian Excerpts, 6. 20 Bolton, "Tonkawas," in Hodge, op. cit., part II, 780.
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