Ten Bears (born Paruasemana ) (c. 1790-1872) became the paraivo chief of the Ketahto 'Don't Wear Shoes' local band, and later the principal paraivo of the northern Yamparika 'Root Eater' division of the Numunuu Comanche, ca 1850-60. Inasmuch as Comanche personal names are among the few Native names that were not translated into English when they were transformed into patronymics, he will be referred hereafter as Paruasemena. He had been orphaned as a still-suckling infant when his family group was wiped out by others Indians, sometimes identified as Lakotas. [1] Later Comanche tradition remembers that in his young adult years, he was noted for leading horse-mounted spear attacks on Lakota villages. The ethnonym, Yamparika 'Root Eater' Comanche was known to the Spaniards of New Mexico as early as the 1750s, but until about 1780, they were generally north of the Arkansas River, and so were seldom specifically mentioned in Spanish documents. After that time, with the advance of Cheyennes (Comanche: paka naboo 'striped arrows'), and Cuampes, probably Arapahos, some local Yamparika groups relocated to the valley of the North Canadian River in New Mexico and Texas. Paruasemena first came to the attention of Anglo-Americans in 1853 when he signed the Treaty of Fort Atkinson, although his name was there translated as 'Ten Sticks', a confusion of /parua/ 'bear' with /paria/ 'dogwood stick'. The error was corrected in the 1854 revision of the treaty. As Paruasemena's local range was the valley of the North Canadian River in the panhandle of Texas into New Mexico, he was often in rivalry with a man named either Esakwahip 'Wolf's Back', or Esakiip 'Wolf's Elbow'. [2] Paruasemena became the principal Yamparika chief about 1860 after the death of the man known to Anglos as 'Shaved Head'; the latter's Comanche name is not known. Paruasemena visited Washington in 1863, but he was unable to get any major concessions for his people from the U.S. government. Being in the valley of the Canadian, Paruasemena was the chief of the Yamparika Comanche village near the ruins of the Bent brothers' old adobe trading post (the first Adobe Walls, built ca 1840) when troops under Col. Christopher 'Kit' Carson attacked a Kiowa village in November 1864. [3] Warriors from Paruasemena's village led the counterattack which drove off Carson's men. In 1865, Paruasemena and two of his sons, Isananaka 'Wolf's Name' and Hitetetsi 'Little Crow', along with other Yamparikas, and other Comanches, signed the Treaty of the Little Arkansas River in Kansas, which created a reservation for the Comanches encompasing the entire panhandle of Texas. This was problematic, as the Federal government did not then "own" that territory and therefore could not "reserve it" [The point is that at the time the Republic of Texas was annexed to the United States (1849), the Republic did not recognize any native land claims within its borders—this opinion was based on a faulty reading of Spanish and Mexican law—and therefore in 1865 there were no "federal" versus "state" owned lands within the boundaries of Texas which the Government could "reserve" to the Indians.] While the specifics of the implications of these details remain historical unclear, two years later, at the October 1867 Medicine Lodge Treaty Conference, Paruasemena and other Yamparikas as well as a few other Comanches (but none of the newly emergent Kwahada division), agreed to a smaller reservation in western Indian territory (Oklahoma). At that conference, Paruasemena gave an eloquent address: “ Insert the text of the quote here, without quotation marks. ” A year later, in December, 1868, a number of Yamparika local bands, including Paruasemena's, were along the Washita River in western Indian Territory, near their allied Cheyennes and within the boundaries of the latter's reservation. When troops under Lt. Col George Armstrong Custer attacked the Cheyenne village under Black Kettle, Yamparika warriors from the village of Esarosavit 'White Wolf' joined in the counter attack, and "rode over" the detachment of Major Joel Elliot. In 1872, Paruasemena again visited Washington, along with a delegation that included his grandson Cheevers (probably from the Spanish chiva 'goat', although Attocknie argues that it was tsii putsi 'little pitied one'), as well as other Comanches and Kiowas. But the hope that promises would be kept was ultimately futile. Paruasemena died soon after his return, in December, 1872, at Fort Sill. The oft-repeated claim that he had been "rejected" by the Comanches following this trip is unfounded.

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References

1. Attocknie, F. J. (n. d.) "The Life of Ten Bears." Manuscript.
2. Kavanagh, Thomas W. (1996) Comanche Political History. U Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-2730-2.
3. Pettis, G. H. (1908) Kit Carson's Fight with the Comanche and Kiowa Indians. New Mexico Historical Society Publications, No. 12 (Santa Fe)
4. Taylor, Nathaniel G., et al., (1910) Papers Relating to Talks and Councils Held with the Indians in Dakota and Montana in the years 1866-1869. Washington: Government Printing Office. (Original in the National Archives, Records of the Indian Division, Office of the Secretary of the Interior, Record Group 48.)