Description
La Junta Indians is a collective name for the various Indians living in the area known as La Junta de los Rios on the borders of present-day West Texas and Mexico. In 1535 Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca recorded visiting these peoples while making his way to a Spanish settlement. As a crossroads, the area attracted people of different tribes. In the eighteenth century, the Spanish set up missions in the area and the Native Americans gradually lost their tribal identifications. After suffering severe population losses through infectious disease, the Spanish slave trade, and attacks by raiding Apache and Comanche, the La Junta Indians disappeared. Some intermarried with Spanish soldiers and their descendants became part of the Mestizo population of Mexico; others merged with the Apache and Comanche; still others departed to work on Spanish haciendas and in silver mines.
Language
Little of their language, or languages, was recorded; scholars have not agreed on the language of the La Junta people. The most common guess is that they spoke Uto-Aztecan, but Kiowa–Tanoan and Athapaskan (Apache) have also been suggested.
Culture
These and later hunter-gatherers used spear-throwing levers and bows and arrows to hunt javelinas, mountain lions, rattlesnakes, foxes, and various other forms of small game. Humans also feasted on prickly-pear fruit and other edible plants native to the region. At some point in the Late Archaic Period, agriculture arrived at La Junta, and by 700 A.D. many of the region's Indians had begun to adopt more sedentary lifestyles. Influenced by pre-Puebloan cultures like the Mogollons, the Indians of La Junta eventually began to use pottery, live in jacal dwellings, and form extensive trade networks. The abundant water, plant, and animal life attracted indigenous peoples to the La Junta region for thousands of years. Settled village life, with agriculture supplementing traditional hunting and gathering, began by 1200 A.D.