The Suma (also Zuma and Zumana) were an

indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

who lived in northern part of the Mexican state of

Chihuahua Chihuahua may refer to: Places *Chihuahua (state), a Mexican state **Chihuahua (dog), a breed of dog named after the state **Chihuahua cheese, a type of cheese originating in the state **Chihuahua City, the capital city of the state **Chihuahua Mun ...

and western part of the U.S. state of Texas. They were nomadic

hunter gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...

s who practiced little or no agriculture. The Suma merged with

Apache The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or Carrizaleño an ...

groups and the

Mestizo (; ; fem. ) is a term used for racial classification to refer to a person of mixed Ethnic groups in Europe, European and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous American ancestry. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also r ...

population of northern Mexico, and are extinct as a distinct people.

Identity and livelihood

Confusion is rife concerning the complex mix of

indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

who lived near the Rio Grande in west Texas. They are often collectively called

Jumanos Jumanos were a tribe or several tribes, who inhabited a large area of western Texas, New Mexico, and northern Mexico, especially near the Junta de los Rios region with its large settled Indigenous population. They lived in the Big Bend area in th ...

, a name which probably should only be applied to the

Plains Indians Plains Indians or Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies are the Native American tribes and First Nation band governments who have historically lived on the Interior Plains (the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies) of N ...

who lived in the

Pecos River The Pecos River ( es, Río Pecos) originates in north-central New Mexico and flows into Texas, emptying into the Rio Grande. Its headwaters are on the eastern slope of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range in Mora County north of Pecos, New Mexico ...

and

Concho River The Concho River is a river in the U.S. state of Texas. ''Concho'' is Spanish for "shell"; the river was so named due to its abundance of freshwater mussels, such as the Tampico pearly mussel (''Cyrtonaias tampicoensis''). Geography The Conch ...

valleys of Texas but traveled to and traded with the people in the Rio Grande Valley. Near La Junta de los Rios, the junction of the Rio Grande and the

Rio Conchos The Río Conchos (Conchos River) is a large river in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. It joins the Río Bravo del Norte (known in the United States as the Rio Grande) at the town of Ojinaga, Chihuahua. Description The Rio Conchos is the main rive ...

, were a large number of farming villages whose inhabitants were given more than a dozen names by the Spanish. It is unclear whether the

La Junta Indians La Junta Indians is a collective name for the various Indians living in the area known as ''La Junta de los Rios'' ("the confluence of the rivers": the Rio Grande and the Conchos River) on the borders of present-day West Texas and Mexico. In 1535 ...

belonged to a single ethnic group and spoke the same language or were instead a mixture of languages and peoples. Also unclear is whether they were related to the more nomadic Jumano. West Texas Indian Tribes1 -- 1600

Upstream on the Rio Grande from La Junta were the people who came to be called the Suma, and further upstream from

El Paso El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the seat of El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the 23rd-largest city in the U.S., the s ...

northward were the

Manso Indians The Manso Indians were an indigenous people who lived along the Rio Grande,Reynolds 1 from the 16th to the 17th century. Present-day Las Cruces, New Mexico developed in this area. The Manso were one of the indigenous groups to be resettled at the G ...

. The Manso and the Suma appear to have had similar cultures, although it is uncertain whether they spoke the same or similar languages. One theory is that the Indians of the El Paso and La Junta regions were intermixed when the Spanish arrived and that the Spaniards separated them into groups for "ease of government and increased control." The opposite is also proposed: that the Manso, Suma, Jumano, and La Junta Indians may have become mixed together in reaction to the threat from the Spanish and their diminishing population due to slave raids and European introduced diseases. The Suma lived, at least during winter, along of the Rio Grande southeast (downstream) from El Paso. Their range extended westward from the Rio Grande valley approximately to the future municipalities of Janos and

Nuevo Casas Grandes Nuevo Casas Grandes is a city and the seat of the Nuevo Casas Grandes Municipality in northern Mexico. It is located in the northwestern part of the state of Chihuahua, on the Casas Grandes or San Miguel river, situated in a wide, fertile valley o ...

, Chihuahua. The Janos and Jocomes people of northwestern Chihuahua were probably sub-tribes or closely related to the Suma. As hunter-gatherers the Suma had no fixed habitations. During summer they dispersed in small groups to exploit the plant and animal resources of this territory. The Suma, said early visitors, "are hunters; they eat all sorts of game, wild reptiles, and acorns…mesquite beans, tunas and other cactus fruits, roots, seeds, and unspecific game animals. They have no knowledge whatsoever of agriculture, have no fixed homes, or ranches, and live a carefree life." The Suma also raided their agricultural neighbors, the

Opata The Opata (written Ópata in Spanish, pronounced with stress on the first syllable: /ˈopata/) are three indigenous peoples of Mexico. Opata territory, the “Opatería” in Spanish, encompasses the mountainous northeast and central part of the ...

, to the west in Sonora. The language of the Suma is unknown. Scholars have speculated that it belongs to the

Uto-Aztecan Uto-Aztecan, Uto-Aztekan or (rarely in English) Uto-Nahuatl is a family of indigenous languages of the Americas, consisting of over thirty languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found almost entirely in the Western United States and Mexico. The na ...

language family.

Athabaskan Athabaskan (also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large family of indigenous languages of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific C ...

(

) affiliations have also been proposed.

History

The Suma and their neighbors the Manso are believed to be the descendants of the Jornada

Mogollon culture Mogollon culture () is an archaeological culture of Native American peoples from Southern New Mexico and Arizona, Northern Sonora and Chihuahua, and Western Texas. The northern part of this region is Oasisamerica, while the southern span of the M ...

. About 1450, the Mogollon pueblos near El Paso were abandoned and the Mogollon people seem to have abandoned agriculture to become hunter/gatherers. The Suma were not politically united, but rather a group of closely related autonomous bands and sub-tribes each of which acted independently. The Suma were probably encountered by

Cabeza de Vaca In Mexican cuisine, ''cabeza'' (''lit.'' 'head') is the meat from a roasted head of an animal, served as taco or burrito fillings. Typically, the whole head is placed on a steamer or grill, and customers may ask for particular parts of the body ...

in 1535, but the first definite mention of them was by

Antonio de Espejo Antonio de Espejo (1540–1585) was a Spanish explorer who led an expedition into New Mexico and Arizona in 1582–83.pg 189 - The expedition created interest in establishing a Spanish colony among the Pueblo Indians of the Rio Grande valley ...

in 1583 who called them the Caguates. He was received cordially by more than one thousand of them near the Rio Grande. The first mention of them by the name "Suma" came in 1630. The Suma at the time were at war with the Opata in Sonora and endangering Franciscan missions. In 1659, a mission was established for the Manso and the "Zumanas", in present-day downtown

Ciudad Juárez Ciudad Juárez ( ; ''Juarez City''. ) is the most populous city in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. It is commonly referred to as Juárez and was known as El Paso del Norte (''The Pass of the North'') until 1888. Juárez is the seat of the Ju� ...

, and in 1663 another mission was established for them near the city of

. Some of the Suma, Manso, and Jumano sought Spanish protection from the growing danger of Apache raids. Others seem to have continued their nomadic ways and joined the Apache. By 1680, the Missions at El Paso were ministering to over 2,000 Indians, including Sumas. But the

Pueblo Revolt The Pueblo Revolt of 1680, also known as Popé's Rebellion or Popay's Rebellion, was an uprising of most of the indigenous Pueblo people against the Spanish empire, Spanish colonizers in the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, larger than prese ...

in New Mexico caused an additional 2,000 Spaniards and allied Indians to take refuge in El Paso and stretched resources to their limits. A famine resulted in 1683-1684, and in 1684, the Indians revolted and fled the missions. Some of the Sumas returned to the mission later that same year, unable to find enough food to survive. However, some of the Suma, Janos, and Jocomes continued to be hostile to the Spanish, finding a stronghold in the

Chiricahua Mountains The Chiricahua Mountains massif is a large mountain range in southeastern Arizona which is part of the Basin and Range province of the west and southwestern United States and northwest Mexico; the range is part of the Coronado National Forest. T ...

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

and becoming associated with the Apache and absorbed by them over time. A

Chiricahua Apache Chiricahua ( ) is a band of Apache Native Americans. Based in the Southern Plains and Southwestern United States, the Chiricahua (Tsokanende ) are related to other Apache groups: Ndendahe (Mogollon, Carrizaleño), Tchihende (Mimbreño), Sehende ...

band, the Chokone or Xocone, may be named after the Jocomes. During the 18th century, the Suma living at the Mission of San Lorenzo near El Paso were servants of the priests, grew crops, worked as laborers, and adopted many Spanish customs. They also revolted frequently, in 1710, 1726, 1745, and 1749, fleeing the mission and taking refuge in the mountains, often with the

. San Lorenzo Mission had a population of 300 in the 1750s of which 150 were Sumas. A smallpox epidemic in the 1780s killed most of the Sumas living at the mission and they soon lost their ethnic identity. The last known man identifying himself as Suma died in 1869.Gerald, p. 80 The bloodline descendants of the Suma are the

inhabitants of

Ciudad Juarez Ciudad () is the Spanish word for City Ciudad may also refer to: *La Ciudad (archaeological site), Hohokam ruins in Phoenix, Arizona *La Ciudad, district of Durango City, Mexico *''La ciudad'', novel by Mario Levrero 1970 *La Ciudad ''The City'' ...

as well as

San Buenaventura, Chihuahua San Buenaventura (named for St. Bonaventure) is a city in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. It serves as the municipal seat for the Buenaventura Municipality. As of 2010, the municipality had a total population of 6,957, down from 9,402 as of 200 ...

and

along with other cities where missions were established for them.

References

Bibliography

* Bolton, H. E. (1912). The Jumano Indians in Texas, 1650-1771. ''The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association'', ''20'', 66-84. * Bolton, H. E. (1916). ''Spanish exploration in the southwest, 1542-1706''. New York. * Griffin, William B. (1983). Southern periphery: East. In A. Ortiz (Ed.), ''Handbook of North American Indians: Southwest'' (Vol. 10, pp. 329–342). Sturtevant, W. C. (Gen. Ed.). Washington, D.C.; Smithsonian Institution. * Hammond, G. P.; & Rey, Agapito. (1929). ''Expedition into New Mexico made by

, 1582-1583 (as revealed in the journal of Diego Perez de Luxan, a member of the party)''. Los Angeles: The Quivira Society. * Hodge, Frederick Webb. (1911)
"The Jumano Indians".
''Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society'', 20, 249-268. * Hickerson, Nancy Parrott. (1994). The Jumanos: Hunters and Traders of the South Plains. Austin: University of Texas Press. * Kelley, J. Charles. (1947). Jumano and Patarabueye: Relations at La Junta de los Rios. (Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University). * Kelley, J. Charles. (1955). Juan Sabeata and diffusion in aboriginal Texas. ''American Anthropologist'', ''57'' (5), 981-995. * Sauer, Carl. (1934). ''The distribution of aboriginal tribes and languages in northwestern Mexico''. Ibero-Americana (No. 5). Berkeley: University of California. * Scholes, F. V.; & Mera, H. P. (1940). ''Some aspects of the Jumano problem''. Contributions to American anthropology and history (No. 34; Publ. No. 523). Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington. * http://www.texasindians.com/jumano.htm {{DEFAULTSORT:Suma Indians Native American tribes in Texas Indigenous peoples in Mexico Indigenous peoples of Aridoamerica Unclassified languages of North America es:Jumanos eo:Jumanoj fr:Jumanos