The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 107, July 2003 - April, 2004 Page: 41
660 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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"Every Day Seemed to be a Holiday"
during the time they were held together, and that Bianca remembered
these remarks, is possible but also very unlikely. Nevertheless, the route
she describes, corresponding to the U.S. 287 corridor as far as Vernon,
Texas, and reaching to the Canadian River probably along the course of
modern U.S. 183, does conform to our knowledge of regular Comanche
movements during the period. Riding in escape mode to the Red River,
the Indians made about thirty-nine miles per day. Bianca's account of
the harrowing Red River crossing is a particularly rich one.
Bianca's defiance in the early hours of her captivity contributed to her
survival and subsequent acceptance, while her brother also earned his
captors' respect by enduring a series of ingenious tests of nerve. There is
much other evidence to support Bianca's implication that captives could
stay alive by standing up for themselves. Dolly Webster, a Texan held
captive in 1840, protected herself by asserting that she had magical
power, while the English observer William Bollaert relates a story of how
a white prisoner saved himself and a companion by refusing to carry a
large pot during a forced march: "he indignantly threw the brass pot at
the chief's feet. There was a moment of anxious suspense, when the
Indian hugged him, called him 'brave' and 'brother,' gave them back
their clothes and put them in the way of the settlements."9
Bianca soon came to understand that she was not going to be treated
as a prisoner, but was expected to lead "a regular Indian life." She
recalled that "every day seemed to be a holiday," as "children came to
play with me and tried to make me welcome into their kind of life."
Tekwashana, her adoptive mother, instructed her in Comanche lore and
taught her to swim while they were doing laundry in the river. Bianca
especially enjoyed racing her horse. She even liked to attend war dances.
She had a hearty appetite and seemed to have had no trouble adjusting
to the Comanche diet. If her family lacked food, a boy named White
Blanket "would sometimes slip to me a part of his meat, or give me a
spoonfull [sic] of corn." Her least favorite aspect of Comanche life was
moving camp, since it entailed extra work.
Food memories are evocative of childhood experience, and so it is not
surprising that Bianca dwells on Comanche foodways. Most of the cook-
ing and meal-taking practices that she describes, as well as the seasonal
scarcity of buffalos and emergency eating of horseflesh, are widely docu-
mented. More surprising perhaps at this date is the menu of coffee,
sugar, and flat bread made from wheat flour. All were desired supplies,
" Benjamin Dolbeare, A Narrative of the Captzvzty and Suffering of Dolly Webster Among the
Camanche Indians in Texas (New Haven. Yale University Library, 1986), 23; Wilham Bollaert,
William Bollaert's Texas, W. Eugene Hollon and Ruth Lapham Butler, eds. (Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1956), 335n (quotation)2003
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 107, July 2003 - April, 2004, periodical, 2004; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101224/m1/59/: accessed May 9, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.