Land of the Tejas: Native American Identity and Interaction in Texas, A.D. 1300 to 1700 by John Wesley Arnn III (review)

This is a book with a very misleading title, from which scholars of Texas history and archaeology might entertain the expectation of reading about the Caddo Indians of eastern Texas. Instead, one is presented a reworked doctoral dissertation filled with obscure anthropological theorizing on an archaeological construct known as the Toyah phase. The Toyah phase, dating from A.D. 1300-1700, is situated in central, southern, and western Texas, and does not overlap even partially, culturally or geographically, the "Land of the Tejas." The author's inappropriate title selection is apparently based partially on his liking for a childhood book of similar title (Texas: the Land of the Tejas by Siddie Joe Johnson, 1943.), and upon a misreading of poorly translated statements from 1691 of Fray Francisco Casañas de Jesus Maria. The reverend father's purpose was to debunk the erroneous impression that earlier religious chroniclers had promulgated, namely that the Caddo Indians of eastern Texas represented a kingdom, wherein he defines the word "Tejias" (also Texias or Tejas, now Texas, pronounced tay-shas) as a Hasinai or southern Caddo word meaning "friends. "Actually, the term is more aptly interpreted as a diplomatic plea for peaceful relations rather than a declaration of friendship, namely: "let us be at peace," "let us not fight," or even "let us be friendly." However imprecisely Casañas construed the term, the interpretation of his definition is unequivocal, and does not leave any wiggle-room that would justify Arnn's inference of "ally" in the definition.

Largely if not solely based on Casañas' possible listing of the Jumano Indians among the allies of the Hasinai, and the Jumano likely being one of the constituent buffalo-hunting tribes that deposited the material culture archaeologists have defined as representing evidence of the Toyah phase, Arnn makes a huge leap of faith in postulating a vast Tejias Alliance, and then feels justified in appropriating and broad-brushing most of Texas (except anywhere the Hasinai Caddo lived), with the moniker "Land of the Tejas." Further, the primary informant on the period, a Jumano trader named Juan Sabeata (also known as Xaviata) by the Spaniards, consistently referred to the Tejas or Hasinai Caddo as being friendly, and trading partners, but clearly different from Jumano, and he never averred they were allies.

The designation "land of the Tejas" has been heretofore well-settled among historical and archaeological scholars as lying east of the Trinity River in the homeland of the Hasinai Caddo. Arnn's attempt to redefine the term to blanket the Toyah phase is unsettling and unjustified. I have no doubt that Caddo tribal elders would be offended by the misrepresentative title of this book and would consider it another in a long list of attempts to appropriate their national patrimony and diminish the cultural identity of their people.

The cover blurb claims that "Land of the Tejas examines a full scope of previously overlooked details." But I found that it rather overlooks many previously examined important details. If you are interested in the archaeological construct known as the Toyah phase, then this book presents a fair overview of it. Arnn presents the Toyah peoples as groups of hunter-gatherers, mobile foragers who had become particularly well-adapted to the changing vagaries of the generally harsh environments of their territory over a four-hundred-year period, and who were socially adept in dealing with neighboring tribes. He presents convincing arguments that various Toyah groups had distinct social identities and were engaged in friendly social relationships with neighboring native groups on all sides; but I believe he falls far short of demonstrating that the Toyah peoples were part of an alliance. He also cannot justify appropriation of the well-settled appellation "Land of the Tejas" for this hypothetical construct.