Texas Now Magazine Presenting the "Texas Coast Experience" | Page 12

A Place With A Past M ATA G O R D A C O U N T Y “ Thousands of years ago, as early as 10,000 B.C, people were living off the bounty of the Matagorda land and sea. By the time European explorers arrived there in the 1600s, the area was home to the Karankawa Indians, a tribe of powerful swimmers and runners, excellent marksmen and formidable fighters. The Karankawa were fierce-looking people, many of whom stood over six feet tall and adorned themselves with lip and nipple piercings and dramatic tattoos. They smeared themselves with alligator or shark grease to repel insects, and were believed to practice ritual cannibalism against their enemies. Yet they were known to exhibit deep tenderness as well, as the first Spanish explorer in the region, Antonio Nu–ez Cabeza de Vaca reported. “He described a scene when, shipwrecked and bereft at the loss of many of his companions who had perished at sea, the tribesmen sat on the shore with him and wept. “But well they might have wept for themselves. For all his benign intentions, Cabeza de Vaca’s landing presaged the decline and eventual obliteration of the Karankawas. The tribe resisted assimilation and, by the 1850s, the last ragged band of them was spotted in Tamaulipas, Mexico, driven far from the Texas shores they’d called home. They were never seen again. “ 2 DAVID SWICKHEIMER