Life among the Texas Indians: The WPA Narratives Book

Historian David La Vere has culled from the Indian-Pioneer Histories housed in the Indian Archives of the Oklahoma Historical Society in Oklahoma City a wealth of vivid detail about life among the former Texas Indian peoples. The oral histories that make up this collection were gathered during the Great Depression by the Works Progress Administration. From the 112 bound volumes that resulted, La Vere has gathered all the material pertinent to the Indians who came from Texas into an exceptional picture of the details of daily life - war and raiding, hunting and planting, foodways, dress, parties and spiritual practices, education, health, and housing. La Vere sets the stage for the ethnographic detail with a lively, readable history of the succession of peoples who lived in Texas from the Paleo-Indian era until the present. It is a clear overview of the basic social structures of the tribes and the relations among tribes and, later, of the Indians with the Europeans who came to the region.