Matt Walsh

The Takawa tribe in Texas, which allied with the US Army in its mission to take on the brutal Comanche tribe, often ate their victims.

One white captive named Herman Lehman, who lived with the Comanches and eventually became a Comanche warrior, wrote about his experiences in a book titled Nine Years Among Indians.

The Comanche had been locked in a genocidal war with the Tonkawas for decades.

And by the time Lehman encountered them, they were, in his words, nearly exterminated.

But upon finding a Tonkawa outpost, Lehman wrote, we took possession of the camp.

And what do you suppose we found on that fire roasting?

One of the legs of a Comanche.

a warrior of our tribe.

Whipped into a furor at the sight of their fellow warrior being eaten, the Comanches massacred the Tonkawa.

Lehman writes, a great many of the dying enemy were gasping for water, but we heeded not their pleadings.

We scalped them, amputated their arms, cut off their legs, cut out their tongues, and threw their mangled bodies and limbs upon their own campfire.

Put on more brushwood and piled the living, dying, and dead Tonkawas on the fire.

Some of them were able to flinch and work as a worm, and some were able to speak and plead for mercy.

We piled them up, put on more wood, and danced around in great glee as we saw the grease and blood run from their bodies and were delighted to see them swell up and hear the hide pop as it would burst in the fire.

After the Battle of Plum Creek in Texas, Tonkawa allies cut up the body of an enemy Comanche and skewered it on sticks over a bonfire.

The Texas Rangers were there with them and likely would have witnessed this.

So it's clear that the Indians were very violent, engaging in raids on one another, murdering women and children, burning entire villages, committing genocide, in some cases eating each other, which brings us to our next myth.

One common myth perpetuated by historians is that the American Indians only became violent after exposure to Europeans.

One advantage academics have in perpetuating this myth is that the Indians didn't keep a log of their own history.

So we don't have written accounts