The Life of Ten Bears: Comanche Historical Narratives

The Life of Ten Bears is a remarkable collection of nineteenth-century Comanche oral histories given by Francis Joseph “Joe A” Attocknie. Although various elements of Ten Bears’s life (ca. 1790–1872) are widely known, including several versions of how the toddler Ten Bears survived the massacre of his family, other parts have not been as widely publicized, remaining instead in the collective memory of his descendants. Other narratives in this collection reference lesser-known family members...