Querechos

The Querechos were a Native American people.

In 1541 the Spanish conquistador Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and his army journeyed east from the Rio Grande Valley in search of a rich land called Quivira. Passing through what would later be the panhandle of Texas he met a people he called the Querechos.

This was the first known venture of Europeans across the Great Plains of the United States. Coronado and his chroniclers were the first Europeans to describe the buffalo-hunting nomads of the Plains. The Querechos were Apache Indians.

Coronado and his army found a Querecho settlement of about 200 "houses" on the Llano Estacado of the Texas Panhandle and adjacent New Mexico. On the Llano they also saw vast herds of buffalo or bison. According to members of Coronado’s expedition, the Querechos lived "in tents made of the tanned skins of the cows (bison). They travel around near the cows killing them for food....They travel like the Arabs, with their tents and troops of dogs loaded with poles...these people eat raw flesh and drink blood. They do not eat human flesh. They are a kind people and not cruel. They are faithful friends. They are able to make themselves very well understood by means of signs. They dry the flesh in the sun, cutting it thin like a leaf, and when dry they grind it like meal to keep it and make a sort of sea soup of it to eat....They season it with fat, which they always try to secure when they kill a cow. They empty a large gut and fill it with blood, and carry this around the neck to drink when they are thirsty."

This brief account describes many typical features of Plains Indians culture: skin tipis, travois pulled by dogs, sign language, jerky (food), and pemmican. In 1581, Spanish explorers of the Chamuscado and Rodriguez Expedition had another meeting with the Querechos. They found a large "rancheria" of 400 warriors on the Pecos River. probably near present-day Santa Rosa, New Mexico. The Spanish were especially interested in the Indian dogs which pulled travois with all their belongings, The Indians told the Spaniards that the bison herds were two days to the east and were "as numerous as grass in the fields."

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