----- Original Message ----- 
From: "mark wilson" <[log in to unmask]>
> 
Hi, Mark.  Thanks for the interesting post re. Comanche diet. 

When game was scarce the men hunted wild mustangs, sometimes eating their own ponies.

Mark, I went to a lecture last week by an anthro. prof. at NMSU re. the Salado people of S. New Mexico.  He also touched on the Apache who came into this region at about 1450; the Spanish came through here about 1500.  Don Juan de Ornate led men, women & children up from Mexico to the Sante Fe area along with hundreds of cattle, horses, sheep.  Some members of the herds wandered off, bred and became feral.  Note:  when I have asked Apache people how long their people have lived here they say "forever" or "10K yrs" or similar answers, not agreeing w/ the 1450 approx. date. 

Although he didn't mention it during his lecture, I've read that the Apache did eat horses and, as a result, wild horses could smell them up to a mile away.  No idea if this is true or even possible.  Also, I've read that the Apache women never got attached to the tribe's horses because they never knew when they would have to eat them.  I visit the Mescalero Apache res. several times ea. year and enjoy seeing the painted & other horses scattered all over the res.   In speaking w/ the tribal president a couple yrs. ago, he told me that there are still wild horses on the res. & that tribal members just need to fill out a form at the tribal office & have it approved, then they are free to capture any one of the wild horses that they want at no cost & keep it.     


In later years the Comanche raided Texas ranches and stole longhorn cattle. 

Down here in S. NM the Apache had a reciprocal arrangement w/ the ranchers:  they'd swoop down on their horses & steal a few of the rancher's horses & ride back up to their mountain.  All  ranch horses were branded.  So, when some horses went missing the ranchers just waited.  Shortly, the Apache would ride down to a different ranch & offer the horses in trade for goods that their women were demanding the men get for them:  flour, sugar, coffee, etc.  The trade seems awfully lopsided toay, i.e. the value of goods varied from time to time but essentially a rancher would trade, say, a pound of sugar for up to four horses.  Then the rancher would take the stolen horses & give them back to the rightful owner.  Horses throughout the region just kept being stolen, taken to another ranch & then returned to the orig. owner.  It was a strange barter system but it worked.  Nobody got hurt.  That is, it worked until the U.S. Army came in and messed it up.  I often eat w/ friends at a very basic local restaurant where ranchers congregate & some of them have had family in the area for generations.  They have some pretty cool stories.


 They especially liked to make a sweet mush of buffalo marrow mixed with crushed
> mesquite beans. 

Mesquite grows everywhere down here.  The anthro. prof. said in the lecture that around 1450 (when the Apache came S. from the Plains to this area) the area was going through a mini ice age.  Pueblo crops failed and the people had to go back to hunting and gathering!  I never knew that.  W/out agriculture, they once again ground mesquite seeds.  I asked if they had found any evidence of animals that were hunted during that period but they have not; the digs are ongoing about 15 mi. from my condo.  I saw the rancher who owns the land at the lecture & he is being very generous in letting the Univ. use his land for research.

So....   I didn't know about the mini ice age and resultant crop failures & the return to hunting and gathering.  Interesting to me.

Kath in S. NM