Karankawa

Texas was home to hundreds of tribes, such as the Anadarko and Karankawa, when Spanish missionaries arrived in the 1700s in what is now San Antonio.

For Matsumoto and others, the connection has to do with Galveston’s legendary brushes with death and destruction, dating back to the Karankawa tribe - the island’s first inhabitants, known to have consumed humans after killing them - and climaxing with the 1900 hurricane that killed more than 6,000 people, leaving their spirits to wander, some believe.

They ran low on drinking water, did not know what to forage, suffered from dysentery, and made quick enemies of the Karankawa people, who raided their camps and fought with settlers.

He was unable to collect any information in regard to the Karankawa tribe, concerning which little is known except that they lived upon the Texan coast near Lavaca Bay.

In 1884 Mr. Gatschet found a Tonkawe at Fort Griffin, Texas, who claimed to have formerly lived among the Karankawa.