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In view of a widespread belief1 that the mounds lying southwest of Alto, Texas, mark the site of an historic Neches village and the second location of the mission San Francisco de los Tejas, and since the archaeological evidence denies such an identification, it is necessary to review the early history of this region, pointing out certain discrepancies in the literature.
The Neches was one of nine main trihes forming the Hasinai Confederation. Detailed accounts of their names, approximate locations, and political structure have been published by Bolton, Swanton, and others. Numerous names, with variations in spelling, have been given to this group of tribes. The French called them Cenis; the Spaniards, Hasinai or Tejas. These names were usually applied to the confederacy as a whole, but occasionally to a specific tribe or village. It is sufficient here to mention only two: the Nabedache, the most southwesterly group, among whom the first East Texas mission was established in 1690; and the Neches, who lived just across a river (presumably the Neches River) from them.
- Type
- Part I. Description of the Site, Excavations, and Buildings
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1949
References
1 Bolton, 1908; Bolton, 1912, pp. 49-50; Clark, 1908; Hoffman, 193S; Buckley, 1911; and others.
2 An historical marker claiming this may be seen on top of the large mound in Figure 3, A.
3 A. F. and F. R. Bandelier, 190S.
4 Bancroft, 1884-89, Vol. 1, pp. 63-4.
5 Bandelier, op. cit., map.
6 Hallenbeck, 1940, p. 155, map.
7 Bancroft, op. cit., p. 384.
8 Paredes in Bancroft, op. cit., pp. 388-90.
9 Bolton, 1924, pp. 171-89.
10 Bancroft, op. cit., p. 398. (Italics mine.)
11 Douay, 1908, pp. 232-3.
12 Bancroft, op. cit., p. 401.
13 Bolton, 1908, pp. 265-6.
14 The length of the Spanish league is somewhat variable. Hodge (1907, p. 22, Footnote 2) says, “The Spanish league varied greatly, but in these early narratives the judicial league, equivalent to 2.634 English miles, is usually meant. Distances, however, while sometimes paced, were generally loose guesses as is often shown by the great disparity in the figures given by two or more chroniclers of the same journey.” Bolton (1908, p. 7) considered a league as “about two miles.”
15 Bolton, 1915, map.
16 Bolton, 1908.
17 de Mezieres in Bolton, 1908, p. 261.
18 Hatcher, 1898-99, p. 29. (Italics mine.)
19 Bolton, 1915, map.
20 H. B. Stenzel, Bureau of Economic Geology, University of Texas, personal communication.
21 Carter (1931, p. 42) says, “The Nacogdoches soils are red, blood-red, or reddish-brown. They merge below with red, rather heavy, crumbly, permeable clay subsoils … . The soils and subsoils characteristically contain fragments and layers of ironstone … . The Nacogdoches soils occur almost entirely within the ‘redlands’ section of the region and constitute the famous red soils of eastern Texas.”
22 Hatcher, 1926-27, p. 209. (A translation of'the Report of August 15, 1691 of Fray Francisco Casanas de Jesus Maria to the Viceroy of Mexico.)
23 Carter, 1931, pp. 58, 61. “The Houston soils are black, dark-gray, ashy-black, or dark brown grading below into dark-gray, brown or yellowish-brown calcareous subsoils… . The topsoils of the Wilson soils are nearly black to dark-gray, the lighter textured sandy soils having the lightest color. The topsoils grade below into dark-gray clay ….”
24 Idem, p. 45.
25 Stenzel, 1938, pp. 8-9. “In eastern Madison County it [Old Spanish Road) follows the loosely wooded, park-like region of the lower Yegna outcrop. In early times these prairies were selected for the trail because in the open country one could see farther and was safer from attack or ambush, and cutting of trees was not necessary to make a road.”
26 The only exceptions known to me are the following: a glass marble found in a rodent hole in the village area; two small lead balls found in the slope of the mound; and some pieces of Spanish pottery found near a spring in one of the ravines cutting the slope a few hundred yards southeast from the mound. The lead balls and Spanish ware were examined by Arthur Woodward, Los Angeles County Museum, who judged, from the poor casting and other features, that the lead balls had been cast by “an Indian or a Mexican, not by an American hunter,” and “were probably used with a flint lock musket but of period unknown.” The Spanish ware was analyzed as follows: “The fragment of blue and white glazed ware is Mexican majolica, made at Puebla, Mexico sometime between 1700-76 but more than likely it dates from 1720-50… . [andj was probably a small food bowl so common in that period.”
Also, A. T. Jackson and I found some fragments of what may possibly be Spanish bricks in a heavily wooded area near a spring, about a mile east of the mound. It is highly improbable that any of these items had any connection with the Indian occupation of the Davis site.
27 A. F. and F. R. Bandelier (1905, pp. 261, 263-5) give the testimony of various Jumano Indians, including their chief, Don Juan Xaviata, that they had just returned from East Texas where they had visited the Tejas.
28 Bancroft, op. cit., p. 398, and see this paper, p. 9.
29 Kelley, Campbell, and Lehmer, 1940, p. 21.
30 Ibid., p. 36.
31 Ibid., p. 36.
32 Krieger, personal communication [Krieger, 1946, p. 209].
33 [When Newell wrote these lines there was some possibility of a late prehistoric position for the Davis site. Developments since then show the Alto Focus to have preceded the historic horizon by many centuries, as discussed in the concluding sections of Part II.]
34 Bolton, 1908, p. 263.
35 Buckley, 1911, p. 44, Footnote 3.
36 Swanton, 1942.
37 Idem, pp. 9, 171.
38 Idem, p. 10.
39 [In previous publications (Krieger, 1944, 1946, 1947) I have referred such sites to the Frankston Focus with the explanation that this focus continued from definitely precontact times into historic times. Sufficient information from key sites now reveals that two distinct foci can be defined. Frankston Focus is now regarded as entirely prehistoric (except that it could well have existed until after De Soto). A new name, Allen Focus, is now given to the historic culture. The arguments for historic objects reaching the Neches Valley from Old or New Mexico by 1600-1650 is the same as that given in my 1946 paper, pp. 209-10.]