The Comecrudo people were an Indigenous people of Mexico, who lived in the northern state of Tamaulipas. They were a Coahuiltecan people.

Territory

The Comecrudo lived in northern Tamaulipas in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the late 18th century, they lived on the southern bank of the

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( and ), known in Mexico as the Río Bravo del Norte or simply the Río Bravo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The length of the Rio G ...

, not far from Reynosa.

Language

They spoke the Comecrudo language, one of the Pakawan languages. Swiss-American ethnologist

Albert S. Gatschet Albert Samuel Gatschet (October 3, 1832, Beatenberg, Canton of Bern – March 16, 1907, Washington, D.C.) was a Swiss-American ethnologist who trained as a linguist in the universities of Bern and Berlin. He later moved to the United States an ...

worked with eight Comecrudo elders who remembered some of the language to record vocabulary words in 1886.

Name

The name ''Comecrudo'' means "raw meat eaters" in Spanish. Spanish colonists also called them the Carrizo, meaning "reed." In 1886, they told Gaschet they preferred the name Comecrudo over Carrizo. The Tonkawa and Kiowa called them the "shoeless people."

History

In 1886, about 30 to 35 Comecrudo lived near Charco Escondido in Tamaulipas. Their last elected chief, Marcelino, died in 1856. The Kiowa took some Comecrudo captive.

Heritage group

An organization in Floresville, Texas, claims descent from the Comecrudo and formed the

Carrizo Comecrudo Nation of Texas Inc. The Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, Inc., is a cultural heritage organization of individuals who identify as descendants of the Comecrudo people. Also known as the Carrizo people, the Comecrudo were a historic Coahuiltecan tribe who lived in ...

As an unrecognized organization, they are neither a

federally recognized tribe This is a list of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States of America. There are also federally recognized Alaska Native tribes. , 574 Indian tribes were legally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the United ...

nor a state-recognized tribe.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Comecrudo People Coahuiltecan Ethnic groups in Mexico Indigenous peoples of Aridoamerica Indigenous peoples in Mexico Native American tribes in Texas Pre-statehood history of Texas