The Karankawa Indians

Were they descended from Roman Cast Aways and the  Ancient Giants of  America

Historical accounts of the Karankawa

Ancient Roman Contact with the Karankawa

Ancient Romans in America

Historical accounts of the Karankawa

 Historical accounts begin in 1528 when two boat loads of survivors of a shipwrecked  expedition from Spain landed on a small island west of Galveston named Malhado by the Spanish. The Island was inhabited by Karankawas. Cabeza de Vaca lived among these aboriginal hunter gatherer people for nearly six years, and was the sole survivor of the original group of shipwrecked Spaniards. De Vaca provided an account upon his return to Spain .

 The Karankawa's were known to be the arch enemy of the Comanches. Some Karankawa campsites have been located , yielding better clues to their life and activities.

 Wars, disease, and general genocide condemned them to complete extinction . In 1858 , Texans , attacked and annihilated the last remaining band of Karankawas. After that last defeat, the Karankawa tribe was considered extinct.

 Native legends of the Giants throughout the Southwest tell of a race of Cannibalistic Giants.

 Ritual cannibalism was practiced by the Karankawa , this involved eating the flesh of captured enemy warriors and leaders . The belief, as was common in other primitive societies, was to acquire the courage, magical powers, strength and so forth of the conquered warrior or leader. Many other Southwest and Mexican Indian tribes practiced the same genre of cannibalism.  Fray Gaspar Jose de Solis reported that the ritual lasted three days and nights. De Solis described the Ritual known as a "Mitote" .

" They set a nailed stake in the ground on the place where they are to dance the Mitote; they light a big fire, tying the victim who is to be danced about or sacrificed to the stake. All assemble together and when the harsh instruments, the cayman, begins to play they begin to dance and to leap, making many gestures and very fierce grimaces with funereal and discordant cries, dancing with well sharpened knives in their hands. As they jump around they approach the victim and cut a piece of flesh off of his body, going to the fire and half roasting it in sight of the victim, they eat it with great relish, and so they go on cutting off pieces and quartering him until with the scalp and put it on a pole in order to bring it to the dance as a trophy."

Ancient Roman Contact with the Karankawa

Dr Valentine Belfiglio, a professor at Texas Woman's University wrote an article "Circumstantial Evidence in Support of an Encounter Between Indian Texans and Ancient Romans"  Dr Belfiglio found reports of a mysterious shipwreck In the Galveston Daily News Archives, apparently in 1886  a ship whose construction is typically Greco-Roman was unearthed by severe storms that year. The Galveston Daily News reported on July 9, 1886, that “Her stern, or what is supposed to be her stern, is put together in such a manner as to contradict any reasonable supposition that she was a vessel fashioned even as early as the sixteenth century. It is composed of the most massive and solid oak, fully six or seven inches in thickness, and the pieces laid crosswise over each other, secured with huge iron spikes, totally unlike any craft coming within the category of modern construction”

 In 1993 Dr Belfiglio and others embarked on an expedition in the Galveston Bay area of St. Joseph Island to search for Roman artifacts 

“An ancient coin {was} unearthed from eight inches below the surface, 25 feet from shore, on the beach facing the Gulf of Mexico at the southeast section of the island. The discovery was made on September 5, 1993 at 10:35 A.M. Kamron identified the languahe of the inscription on the coin as Latin. The likeness and inscription on the coin indicate that it was minted during the reign of Trajan (A.D. 98-117). It appears to be made of silver”.”

 Belfiglio cites accounts of Roman coins unearthed in Texas, such as one found in Round Rock, Texas on the bottom of an Indian mound dated at approximately 800 AD.   Belfiglio also cites apparent linguistic and cultural similarities between the Romans and the Karankawa Indians.

"....statements by Roman scholars, and Roman material objects dating back to the fourth century AD, combined with the similarity of many Karankawan and Latin words offer a preponderance of evidence that a Roman party landed at southeast Texas during the fourth century AD.”   Dr Valentine Belfiglio  {See Also "Ancient Romans in America"}