Coahuiltecan
A general group of people living in the southern Texas region near the Rio Grande. These people are most often described in there post contact condition which left them in a state very similar to a society which has survived a terrible disaster. Accounts of these people state that they lived in very dirty and smelly camps and have been seen eating rotten meat, dirt, maggots, and bugs. Many scholar now believe that as many as 90% of these people have lost there lives due to European disease which in turn may account for how they existed after contact was made.
Language family
Coahuiltecan (also Paikawa) was a proposed language family that consisted of Coahuilteco and Cotoname . A later proposal expanded the family to also include Comecrudo (Comecrudan), Karankawa, and Tonkawa .
It is now generally believed that all of these languages are unrelated language isolates, with Comecrudo now part of the Comecrudan family.
The Coahuiltecan proposal appeared in John Wesley Powell's 1891 classification of Native American languages.
Links
See also: Coahuilteco.
Bibliography
