Description
The Escanjaque Indians are known only from the seventeenth century, and their area remains in doubt. Early attempts to identify the Escanjaques with the Kansa Indians were not successful because it was found that the Kansa Indians lived elsewhere in the seventeenth century. It has been suggested that the Escanjaques were Apaches, but today most writers are inclined to identify them as a Wichita group, possibly the same as the Yscanis of the eighteenth century.
Language
Escanjaques (Aguacane) were speakers of a Caddoan language and probably akin to the Wichita.
Culture
Juan de Onate, governor and founder of the newly created Spanish province of New Mexico, led a Spanish expedition to the Great Plains in 1601. Near a small river, he found a large encampment of people he called Escanjaques. He estimated the population at more than 5,000 living in 600 houses. The Escanjaques lived in round houses as large as ninety feet in diameter and covered with tanned buffalo hides—similar in form to the grass houses of Quivira. They lived solely on the bison and were ruled by chiefs. They had large quantities of hides which, wrapped around their bodies, served them as clothing, but the weather being hot, all the men went about nearly naked, the women being clothed from the waist down. Men and women alike used bows and arrows, with which they were very dexterous.