The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 103, July 1999 - April, 2000 Page: 276
554 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
i
The Wichita Mountains with Mount Scott at left, viewed from Porter Hill to the northeast.
With its island-like appearance, this range near the present-day Comanche communities in
southwest Oklahoma exemplifies the kind of landmark that past Comanche travelers navi-
gated by and sought for shelter, wood, and water. Photograph by DanielJ. Gelo.
to visit her grandson, the woman named in sequence all the major
cities her flight passed over, remarking that these locational references
made an otherwise unsettling experience manageable. Such examples
are offered to argue not that Comanches have some extraordinary apti-
tude for navigation, but simply that by custom they pay attention to the
lay of the land.
Concurrently, Comanches retain a sense of what the local landscape
was like before the coming of non-Indians. Despite their familiarity with
theories of Beringian and Numic migrations or their acknowledged link
with the Shoshones of the western basin and range country, some
Comanches maintain that their people were "always" in the Oklahoma-
Texas region, and they talk of a time when the country was defined in
Comanche terms, according to landmarks and trails. Numerous
toponyms have survived in and around the former reservation in south-
western Oklahoma where the Comanches were driven after 1868. The
Wichita Mountains are titled with the otherwise generic Toyabi,
"Mountain(s)," or else Tuhka?naai? Toyabi, "Wichita [people]
Mountain(s)," with the main prominence, Mount Scott, called Piaroya,
"Big Mountain." Just west of Mount Scott are Mount Scott's Boy and
Pitsiroya, "Tit Mountain" (Mount Roosevelt). Sugar Creek, Rainy
Mountain, Beaver Creek, and Rush Springs have Comanche names with
equivalent meanings, and Comanche names for many of the drainagesJanuary
276
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 103, July 1999 - April, 2000, periodical, 2000; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101220/m1/322/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.