Suma Indians - Identity and Livelihood

Identity and Livelihood

Confusion is rife concerning the complex mix of indigenous peoples who lived near the Rio Grande in west Texas. They are often collectively called Jumanos, a name which probably should only be applied to the Plains Indians who lived in the Pecos River and Concho River valleys of Texas but traveled to and traded with the people in the Rio Grande Valley. Near La Junta de los Rios, the junction of the Rio Grande and the Rio Conchos, were a large number of farming villages whose inhabitants were given more than a dozen names by the Spanish. It is unclear whether the La Junta Indians belonged to a single ethnic group and spoke the same language or were instead a mixture of languages and peoples. Also unclear is whether they were related to the more nomadic Jumano.

Upstream on the Rio Grande from La Junta were the people who came to be called the Suma, and further upstream from El Paso northward were the Manso Indians. The Manso and the Suma appear to have had similar cultures, although it is uncertain whether they spoke the same or similar languages. One theory is that the Indians of the El Paso and La Junta regions were intermixed when the Spanish arrived and that the Spaniards separated them into groups for "ease of government and increased control." The opposite is also proposed: that the Manso, Suma, Jumano, and La Junta Indians may have become mixed together in reaction to the threat from the Spanish and their diminishing population due to slave raids and European introduced diseases.

The Suma lived, at least during winter, along 130 miles (210 km) of the Rio Grande southeast (downstream) from El Paso. Their range extended westward from the Rio Grande valley approximately 200 miles (320 km) to the future municipalities of Janos and Nuevo Casas Grandes, Chihuahua. The Janos and Jocomes people of northwestern Chihuahua were probably sub-tribes or closely related to the Suma. As hunter-gatherers the Suma had no fixed habitations. During summer they dispersed in small groups to exploit the plant and animal resources of this territory. The Suma, said early visitors, "are hunters; they eat all sorts of game, wild reptiles, and acorns…mesquite beans, tunas and other cactus fruits, roots, seeds, and unspecific game animals. They have no knowledge whatsoever of agriculture, have no fixed homes, or ranches, and live a carefree life."

The Suma also raided their agricultural neighbors, the Opata, to the west in Sonora.

The language of the Suma is unknown. Scholars have speculated that it belongs to the Uto-Aztecan language family. Athabaskan (Apache) affiliations have also been proposed.