The indigenous people of the Coastal Bend closest to us in time are the people of the late prehistoric period; people like the Karankawa, Aranama, and Tamique.
They had no written records, so our knowledge of them comes from archaeology and from observations made by European colonists. We know that they hunted with bows and arrows, and that their trade networks stretched for hundreds of miles—to what’s now eastern Texas, western Texas, northern Mexico...and possibly beyond.
What was everyday life like for the indigenous people of the Texas Coastal Bend? They didn’t plant crops or have farms, so they could move around, following the seasons and the food. Instead of farming, they lived off the animals that lived here already, such as oysters, clams, fish, bison, and deer. Many of the groups who lived in this area also drank a strong tea made from the yaupon holly—the only North American plant that has caffeine.
European visitors wrote that indigenous people here lived in circular houses. Complete full-sized houses might have been ten to twelve feet in diameter, or only large enough for one or two people. Instead of taking houses like this with them when they moved, local indigenous people would have had several houses that they could move into during different seasons.
When Europeans arrived in Texas, there were many different groups of people living along the Coastal Bend. Along this part of the coast, most of the people were part of several groups that together are called “Karankawa.”
Before bow and arrow technology was known to the early people of this region, Coastal Bend natives used a throwing stick called an atlatl. An atlatl is a wooden shaft with a hook on one end and a handle on the other. The non-pointy end of a spear fit into the hook, and using a forward-and down motion, the atlatl helped propel the spear through the air further and with more force than could be managed bare-handed. An atlatl is essentially a lever that extends the arm length of the person throwing the dart, delivering 200 times the power and six times the range as a dart thrown by hand.