The Waco (also spelled Huaco and Hueco) of the Wichita people is a Midwestern Native American tribe that inhabited northeastern Texas. Today, they are enrolled members of the federally recognized Wichita and Affiliated Tribes, headquartered in Anadarko, Oklahoma.
The Waco were a division of the Tawakoni people. The present-day Waco, Texas is located on the site of their principal village, that stood at least until 1820. French explorer Jean-Baptiste Bénard de la Harpe travelled through the region in 1719, and the people he called the Honecha or Houecha could be the Waco. They are most likely the Quainco on Guillaume de L'Isle's 1718 map, Carte de la Louisiane et du Cours du Mississipi.
The Waco village on the Brazos River was flanked by two Tawakoni villages: El Quiscat and the Flechazos. In 1824, Stephen F. Austin wrote that the Waco village was 40 acres large, with 33 grass houses and approximately 100 men. They grew 200 acres of corn, in fields enclosed by brush fences. As late as 1829 the village was protected by defensive earthworks. In 1837, the Texas Rangers planned to establish a fort at Waco village but abandoned the idea after several weeks. In 1844 a trading post was established eight miles south of the village. The anthropologist Jean-Louis Berlandier recorded 60 Waco houses in 1830.
The tribe had a second, smaller village located on the Guadalupe River.