Mondo's NAT #309

Native American Tribe series.

Manso

The Manso Indians are an indigenous people who lived along the Rio Grande,[1] near Las Cruces, New Mexico, from the 16th to the 17th century, and were the one of the groups settled at the Guadalupe Mission in what is now Cd. Juarez, Mexico. Some of their descendants remain in the area to this day.

The Mansos were semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who practiced little if any agriculture although farming Indians lived both upstream and downstream from them. They had a life style similar to the Suma and Concho Indians who lived nearby.

The first account of the Mansos is from the expedition of Spanish explorer Antonio de Espejo in January 1583. Traveling up the Rio Grande in search of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, Espejo encountered a people he called Tampachoas below El Paso. "We found a great number of people living near some lagoons through the midst of which the Rio del Norte [Rio Grande] flows. These people, who must have numbered more than a thousand men and women, and who were settled in their rancherias and grass hunts, came out to receive us…Each one brought us his present of mesquite bean…fish of many kinds, which are very plentiful in these lagoons, and other kinds of food…During the three days and nights we were there they continually performed …dances in their fashion, as well as after the manner of the Mexicans."

In 1630, a Spanish priest described the Mansos as people "who do not have houses, but rather pole structures. Nor do they sow; they do not dress in anything particular; but all are nude and only the women cover themselves from the waist down with deerskins." In 1663, a Spaniard said of them, "The nation of Manso Indians is so barbarous and uncultivated that all its members go naked and, although the country is very cold, they have no houses in which to dwell, but live under the trees, not even knowing how to till the land for their food." The Mansos were also said to eat fish and meat raw. But they were described somewhat favorably as "a robust people, tall, and with good features, although they take pride in bedaubing themselves with powder of different colors which makes them look very ferocious."

The Manso have survived as members of the combined Piro-Manso-Tiwa (PMT) tribe. In the 19th century members of the group migrated to Las Cruces, New Mexico from where members helped found the Pueblo of Guadalupe in 1910. There are two groups claiming descent from the Mission Indians of Paso del Norte who have applied for federal recognition as an Indian Tribe: the Piro/Manso/Tiwa Tribe of San Juan de Guadalupe and the Piro/Manso/Tiwa Tribe of Guadalupe. In 2000, there were 206 members of the PMT tribe of San Juan de Guadalupe.