Note 104 — Chapter 15

Important as it is in affording evidence of the route of Cabeza de Vaca and his companions, it is not possible, with our present knowledge of the former tribes of the coast region of Texas, to identify with certainty the various Indians mentioned by the narrator. Whether the names given by him are those which the natives applied to themselves or are those given by other tribes is unknown, and as no remnant of this once considerable coast population now exists, the only hope of the ultimate determination of these Indians lies in the historical archives of Texas, Mexico, and Spain. The two languages and stocks represented on the island of Malhado—the Capoque and the Han—would seem to apply to the Karankawan and Attacapan families respectively. The Capoques (called Cahoques on p. 87) are seemingly identical with the Cocos who lived with the Mayayes on the coast between the Brazos and Colorado Rivers in 1778, and with the Cokés, who as late as 1850 are described as a branch of the Koronks (Karankawa). Of the Han people nothing more definite is known than that which is here recorded.