Comanche Culture

The Apache’s agricultural attempts were indeed a strategically sound effort before the war with the Ute and Comanche – their diverse diet helped to avoid the laundry list of problems associated with high-protein, bison-based methods of substinence, chief amongst these concerns would be birth defects in pregnant women (Hamalainen, 31). The Apache’s formerly advantageous development of farming began to backfire, however, since their rivals simply traded in their bison meat for Pueblo maize and attacked the numerous Apache villages with guerrilla raids, exploiting their dependence on the land (Hamalainen, 32). By the 1720s, the Apache grew increasingly desperate from Comanche attacks, and they began to offer submission to Spanish rule as a potential

means to survive the onslaught, but this failed to produce anything of value other than creating unique regional alliances and strengthening Comanche dominance in the plains (Hamalainen, 35-37). By the late 1780s and 1790s, relations between the Spanish and Western Comanche would grow even more fraught with danger due to the collapse of an Ute-Navajo-Comanche peace agreement (originally created in 1786) - the relationship between the Comanche and their sister tribe actually soured a bit earlier due to the latter’s efforts at engaging with Spain politically (Hamalainen, 139).

At this point, the Comanche also continued to accept Spanish gifts while extending their hospitality to the American newcomers – unlike the Spanish, national loyalty wasn’t a concept with any relevance in Comanche culture, and their entire society at this point met the qualifications for a form of indigenous imperialism that predated American imperialism (Hamalainen, 142-145). By 1800, the Comanche story was one of victory – through shifting alliances, brutal practices in warfare, and cultural evolution, the Comanche managed dominance over fellow Plains Indian tribes while outwitting their would-be Spanish overlords and checking the expansion of the Americans at every step of the

way.
Since this is the natural ending of the Comanche story by 1800, it would be best to shift focus to the second tribe being evaluated within this analysis, the Makah. Occupying the coast near the Pacific Northwest, the Makah territory included a region known as the ca di borderland, and this indigenous tribe originally referred to themselves as Qidiccatx, which roughly translates as “the people who live by the rocks and the seagulls” or (in simplified form) “the People of the Cape” (Reid, 24).” At the time of European contact, chiefs such as Maquinna, Wickaninnish, and Tatoosh maintained leadership over the region. The cultural practices surrounding possession of property and authority were unusual by European standards; for example, drift whales were considered property of the whaling chief in whatever area they floated towards, and their presence was considered a result of ritual rather than serendipity (Reid, 25). Visitors to the region were forced to recognize the sovereign authority of the local titleholder, and outsiders were required to receive permission before approaching various areas of the surrounding waters (Reid, 27). The arrival of Captain Cook’s crew on the Nootka Sound in March 29, 1778 would be one of the first complete/recorded encounters experienced by the people of the ca di borderland and the Europeans – contrary to stereotypes, these indigenous people did not make the initial assumption that the Europeans were gods (Reid, 30). Foreigners would have been classified into the categories of local outsiders (villages within the ca di borderland), distant outsiders (like the Haida slave raiders), and denizens of the spirit realm (who were known as the Nimpkish Kwakwaka’wakw); however, Europeans were given a separate category of “mamani,” which roughly translates as “those living on the water and floating around, like they have no land” (Reid, 30). Another pre-1800 interaction with Europeans would be the arrival of Meares’ Felice into the region in 1787 – by the time of his arrival, interaction between the natives and Europeans had already been codified into a complex set of gift-giving/serenading to receive permission for further travel. (Reid, 30-31). The fact that Natives were able to adjust their framework of “outsiders” to include people with an entirely different cultural/phenotypic background without immediately jumping to supernatural explanations does indeed confirm the adaptability inherent in their belief systems.
Unfortunately, Meares’ arrival did not go as “swimmingly” as the current account my lead one to believe – during his time amongst the Clayquot and Mowachaht chiefs, Meares accidentally insulted Tatoosh, making his encounter with the Makah rather strained (Reid, 33). To make matters even worse, Meares also didn’t offer a present of a suitable size and ignored Tatoosh’s authority by leaving instead of responding to the greeting protocol – per the rules of Makah society, Meares first paid for his perceived disrespect with thefts (Reid, 34). Violence and theft were not necessarily just about revenge – in many ways, the model of violence practiced within the Northwest Coast fit into Nirenberg’s five categories of violence – quotidian, cataclysmic, strategic, controlled, and stabilizing (Reid, 57). Violence towards Europeans usually fit into the strategic, controlled, and stabilizing categories (i.e. seizing resources/sea space, keeping a rival from gaining too much power, and utilizing the threat of violence to maintain order) – cataclysmic violence was reserves for supernatural threats, and as previously established, the people of the ca di borderlands quickly discerned that Europeans were not of the spirit world (Reid, 57). Aside from being concerned with breaches of etiquette and the employing violence, the Makah also utilized the opportunity as a chance to expand trading due to their strategically advantageous positioning alongside the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Puget Sound, and Cape Flattery – historically, the Makah controlled the region’s “marine space” by dominating trade in the area (Reid, 35). This is yet another innovation unique to their culture – after noting their geographic superiority, they made usage of their advantage to subjugate their neighbors long before the arrival of Europeans and even after their presence was established. The Makah’s trade networks were likened to “a big highway,” and the maritime fur trade even began in around the 1770s, resulting in the Nootka Sound Controversy between the Spanish and British empires (which nearly led to war) (Reid, 37). In Cook’s 1778 voyage, the Northwest Coast people rejected the beads and cloth that the British originally offered to them in favor of trading sea otter skins for metal items – Meares even traded firearms to Maquinna and Wickanninnish, and these weapons had special significance amongst the Natives for both their lethality and their spiritual significance (Northwest Coast people attributed their power to the Thunderbird) (Reid, 40-41). Wickaninnish made multiple attempts to acquire two non-native vessels, the Resolution and the Ruby, but he was rejected in both cases (after delivering payments). (It’s quite likely that European traders did not want to take the risk of greatly advantaging Wickaninnish over his rivals for the sake of not further inflaming regional tensions – also, it would be particularly unwise to grant the Makah access to large-scale weaponry that could potentially be used against their forces.)
The previously described relations between the people of the ca di borderland and Europeans help us understand the value that the Makah placed in trading and assimilating new technologies into their culture – rather than waste their time accepting the useless objects traded by Cook’s men, they instead requested metal and secured many other innovations with military and pragmatic value (rather than focusing on the mere aesthetics).

Since they were quite accustomed to serving as the “trade pioneers” of their region, it made perfect sense to open up the avenues to Europeans, although they did this on their own terms rather than completely acquiescing to the will of the would-be conquerors. By manipulating kinship structures and trade, Maquinna,Wickaninish, and Tatoosh were able to serve as the “primary historical actors” in this circumstance – because these waters were so unfamiliar, European explorers did not find an area ripe for exploitation when they entered the ca di borderlands, and the diplomatic protocols/boundaries followed by natives existed prior to the arrival of Meares (Reid, 51). In a sense, this story defies the usual tropes of Native history because the pre-1800 account of the Makah does not involve Europeans landing in a region, being worshipped as gods, and swiftly conquering the primitive locals without being

contested.
The Makah and the Comanche are both excellent examples of Native cultures with rich and vibrant histories, and their various adaptations (ranging from the Comanche’s adoption to horseback to the Makah’s extension of trade networks) help to explain why their histories until the 1800s were indeed characterized by relative prosperity despite the declining fortunes that would inevitably befall indigenous peoples (in large part due to the massive of smallpox epidemics and massive-scale bison hunting in the late 19th century). Throughout both narratives, special consideration has been paid to both Native innovation and agency – it’s important to keep in mind that a variety of earlier histories about indigenous people tend to both discount oral tradition as a valid form of knowledge preservation and delegitimize Native roles as historical actors. The Makah and Comanche tribes both dwelled very far away from one another; despite their geographic distance, their responses to a changing world in the pre-1800 era involved the assimilation of new technologies and the adaptation of previous cultural frameworks. Although they did indeed change in response to imperialistic influences, they managed to preserve quite a bit of their original outlook – in the case of the Comanche, this allowed them to become a dominant military power of the Plains, and in the example of the Makah, it enabled them to become the central trading hub of the Pacific Northwest.