Description
The Quivirans were almost certainly the Wichita. Coronado's meager descriptions of Quivira resemble more recent post-contact Wichita communities. The Quivirans seem to have been numerous, based on the number of settlements Coronado visited, with a population of at least 10,000 persons. The original inhabitants of Quivira migrated to eastern Kansas and south to Oklahoma. Their reasons for moving may have been to escape the encroachment of the Plains Apache, whose expansion created war and hostilities among the nations of the Great Plains.
Language
Caddoan
Culture
Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, the expedition historian, bears out the description of the houses given by Coronado, saying: “The houses are round, without a wall, and they have one story like a loft, under the roof, where they sleep and keep their belongings. The roofs are of straw.” They have no clothes, nor cotton to make them of; they simply tan the hides of the cows which they hunt and which pasture around their village and in the neighborhood of a large river. They eat their meat raw like the Querechos and Tejas and are enemies to one another and war among one another. All these men look alike. The inhabitants of Quivira are the best of hunters, and they plant maize.”