Jumanos

Jumano

The approximate location of Indian tribes in western Texas and adjacent Mexico, in the early 17th century
Total population
Extinct as a tribe by the late 18th century. 20,000 and 30,000 (1580[1])
Regions with significant populations
West Texas, Northern Mexico
Languages
Jumano language (unattested)
Religion
Indigenous religion, Roman Catholicism
Related ethnic groups
possibly Apache, Wichita

The Jumanos were a tribe or several tribes, who inhabited a large area of western Texas, New Mexico, and northern Mexico, especially near the Junta de los Rios region with its large settled Indigenous population. They lived in the Big Bend area in the mountain and basin region. Spanish explorers first recorded encounters with the Jumano in 1581. Later expeditions noted them in a broad area of the Southwest and the Southern Plains.

The last historical reference was in a 19th-century oral history, but their population had already declined by the early 18th century.^[2] Scholars have generally argued that the Jumanos disappeared as a distinct people by 1750 due to infectious disease, the slave trade, and warfare, with remnants absorbed by the Apache or Comanche. Frederick Webb Hodge proposed that they merged into the Wichita people.