The literary traders and raiders of the Western Comanche empire rendezvoused on the Last Thursday of the Year, to feast upon the posole of the Southwest and carry forth a spirited discussion on the merits and deficiencies of The Comanche Empire. The once proud tribe gathered once the waning crescent of the moon had passed at the tipi of SubChief Fading Embers, just west of Comancheria.
Our brother Wandering Bison is in his winter habitat south of the Creek Nation's land of Georgia. Our brother Ailing Burro has returned from travels to the west to find a virus has come with him, one which the Arapaho call "White Man's Sniffles." Most joined the gathering by zooming with the Great Spirit.
Dear Peter, I am sorry I won't be able to join the LTBC meeting at your house at the end of the month. I am on Saint Simons Island, one of the barrier islands off the coast of Georgia near Brunswick. The earliest known inhabitants here were Native American tribes of the Creek Nation. Vestiges of the past remain on the island in the form of shell rings and middens from the Guale Indians who established a village here in the early 1500s. They were unable to survive the European occupation of the area, however, first by the Spanish in the 1600s and then the English when their forces defeated the Spanish on the island in 1742. The growing number of European settlers and the emergence of cotton and rice plantations spelled the end of the Guale way of life more than a century before the collapse of the Comanche Empire.
\Although I learned a lot from Professor Hamalainen's study of the Comanche Indians, it was not easy. Obviously, The Comanche Empire was well researched, but I found reading it very tedious--too detailed, too repetitive, and too long (for me). I was left with the feeling that it was a scholarly work written by a scholar intended for an audience that did not include me-- more like a textbook fit for academic use in a graduate-level course. On the other hand, because I live in and like to explore what was once the Comanche Empire and I had read Empire of the Summer Moon, there were elements which did pique my interest. Chapter 6 entitled "Children of the Sun" was of particular interest to me. It provided insight into Comanche culture and social structure which was helpful to me to understand how their flexibility and ability to adapt allowed them to seemingly reinvent themselves as their environment and circumstances changed. Unless you are a serious student of history, I would recommend reading perhaps Chapters 4 through 6. My grade: B
Warm regards, Jack
