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Honoring the Ancients

Locating, documenting and celebrating Comanche Marker Trees in Texas.

By John Spaulding

December 2024 Issue

Comanche Marker Trees
Photo by John Wilson

The trees can keep good secrets. But they can also show us the way.

The enormous tree reveals itself, its crescent moon-shaped trunk bowing down to the ground. Located at a convergence of two distinct hiking trails in Big Bend National Park, the tree arcs from south to north, with several limbs stretching vertically from the nearly horizontal main trunk over 40 feet to the sunlight. With a year-round water source and nearby waterfalls, it's perfect for weary travelers to rest on their journeys.

“It was a place to relax, and not be fearful … you were just at peace,” Comanche Nation Elder Council Member Phyllis Narcomey says of her visit in November 2023. She was joined by Comanche Nation Elder Council Member and historian Jimmy W. Arterberry, arborist Steve Houser and National Park Service rangers. They met to dedicate and proclaim this rare Quercus robusta, a species found only in the Chisos Mountains of Big Bend National Park, an official Comanche Marker Tree. Marker trees served several purposes, often showing the path of a journey or indicating a source of water.

Arterberry says, “It was a very special journey to go down into that area … it was a gift to be there with the knowledge we have, to see this magnificent tree.” He adds, “It was very enriching for me, especially in that landscape, and what we know about marker trees today, because they're such a rare thing in the historic setting.”

Arterberry and Narcomey are highly involved in authenticating and proclaiming Comanche Marker Trees. Longtime Dallas-area arborist Houser also plays a critical role in detailing evidence on each potential candidate worthy of consideration. He has been dedicated to documenting Comanche Marker Trees for nearly 30 years and is a co-author of the book Comanche Marker Trees of Texas. “We cannot preserve significant trees or cultures that we fail to research, recognize or fully understand,” Houser says. These types of trees “are living witnesses to the history of a past civilization and its people's incredible way of life.” He adds that the book was “developed out of a deep and profound respect for the Comanche way of life and as a way to honor the many significant contributions of that tribe to our nation's history.”

tree at distance no sun rays
Photo by John Spaulding

A Volunteer's Journey

My first glimpse of that tree was in 2014. I was trudging along a gravel desert path on a toasty August morning in Big Bend when I saw it nestled on the western side of the Chisos Mountains. It grew larger with each step I took toward its uniquely shaped frame. Unprepared to do more than gawk and rest under its shade, I snapped a couple of photos, afterward pondering what I had seen.

Later that fall, I showed Houser a photo of the tree. He'd already heard about it from others who had attempted to nominate it for consideration. I vowed to take some measurements the next time I ventured to Big Bend. I returned four years later, juggling rulers, measuring tape, a camera with tripod — while also carrying extra water and snacks for the nearly five-mile round-trip hike. Unfortunately, my measuring tape was unable to completely embrace the tree because of its large circumference, leaving me with an incomplete series of measurements. I figured my data was unfit for submission to the Texas Historic Tree Coalition, which is the starting point for consideration of significant historical trees, including Comanche Marker Trees.

One summer later, as the tree added yet another ring to its width, I returned to gather more information. By chance, two park employees stopped and provided extra hands to assist. The tree's trunk at the base measured over 10 feet in circumference, with an 87-foot canopy spread and height of approximately four stories. Other trees and plants nearby included cottonwood, willow, smaller live oaks, yucca, prickly pear and agave, with other desert plants dotting the area. I later learned this spot was located near parts of the Great Comanche Trail leading into Mexico.

I started to take photographs, keeping an eye out for distinct features. Sometimes a Comanche Marker Tree will have scars, indicating the trunk may have been tied down at one end as a sapling. However, I neglected to take a key picture: a cross section of one of the fallen limbs, which appeared to have been previously cut or pruned. That type of picture is essential to pinning down the age of the tree, so the verification process could not proceed.

Fortunately, Houser was able to contact a recently hired Big Bend botanist who agreed to take those photos I missed. Once the tree's age range was estimated, the Comanche Marker Tree nomination and review process could continue. To be considered, the tree must date from between approximately 1700, the year Comanches first appeared in Texas, and 1867, when the Medicine Lodge Treaty was finalized and most surviving Comanches were forced to move to the Fort Sill Reservation in Oklahoma.

Few Trees Authenticated

Arterberry, the other co-author of Comanche Marker Trees of Texas, has extensive experience in identifying such trees and is also culturally connected to them through his Native American heritage. In the book, he says, “Our ancestors would mark a tree or use a tree that was naturally marked to identify resources such as food, medicine, water, a path, burial site or meeting place.” He also provides a taxonomy of the types of trees used as marker trees and their specific uses by the Comanche. Because of his extensive knowledge of the trees, he helps review marker tree applications researched by Houser and his office colleague RuthAnn Jackson, in tandem with the Texas Historic Tree Coalition.

Since the mid-1990s, over 900 historic tree nominations, including Comanche Marker Trees, have been submitted, with only a handful considered and recognized by Arterberry and the Comanche Nation. My personal experience with the Big Bend tree encompasses only a portion of the information-gathering stage. The process of designating a Comanche Marker Tree is a scientific and time-intensive task. Few of these trees are known to exist in Texas, and even fewer on public lands. Houser says that these trees “need to be located and recognized to help ensure that future generations have an opportunity to enjoy them. All trees will be lost over time, so recognizing them beforehand is an important and time-sensitive task.” Indeed, several previously identified trees have disappeared due to disease, storm damage, urbanization or old age.

Founders Oak tree
Photo by Maegan Lanham

Texas Historic Tree Coalition

Volunteers with the Texas Historic Tree Coalition document not only Comanche Marker Trees, but other historically significant trees throughout the state. Working with local officials, neighborhood groups and individual landowners, they research, recognize and celebrate Texas' historic trees. In addition to the coalition's primary mission, Marion Lineberry, the group's president, says that when “communities seem to get behind that tree and get it recognized … it can bring communities together.” For example, in October 2023, New Braunfels held an Arbor Day event to recognize the storied history of the Comanche Council Oak, long known as the Founders' Oak. I recently visited the tree in Landa Park for the first time, to admire its more than 300-year-old frame, buttressed by two limestone supports. I wondered what trees of this age had quietly witnessed over the years. When asked how people can get involved in the quest to recognize and preserve such trees, Lineberry lists roles such as researchers, historians, arborists, archeologists, surveyors, digital mapping experts, storytellers and copywriters.

California Crossing tree
Photo by Sonja Sommerfeld

Looks Can Be Deceiving

Some Comanche Marker trees may not appear large, but were still important in providing directions. The California Crossing tree in Dallas hides in plain sight, close to the Texas National Guard Armory, and “guarded” by a vintage American tank. The trunk grows almost completely parallel to the ground, and a large portion is buried under the soil. The old pecan gets its name from the low-water crossing nearby, also used by Gold Rush prospectors on their way west beginning in 1849. Once the verification process was complete, representatives from the Comanche Nation gathered to celebrate this tree in 2013. Even though only one of its two limbs remain, anyone can view this silent sentinel.

Marker Trees For Each of Us

To help people relate to marker trees, Arterberry provides this example: He remembers seeing a certain tree during the drive from his Oklahoma home to visit family in San Antonio. While he hasn't stopped to determine its type, it marks the halfway point of his journey. He says, “It really has become a marker tree by virtue of that for me.” When he tells people an experience like that, “it starts to resonate with them, because they have marker trees in their life that they didn't realize were marker trees.” Whether it is for picnics, near swimming holes or a place to meet, “people use trees as markers more than they fully recognize … I've discovered that everybody in their own personal life or experience remembers a tree.”

A Sacred Event

During the dedication of the Big Bend oak, the Comanche Nation representatives presented a framed proclamation to the National Park Service. Narcomey brought a specially made blessing mixture of herbs, vegetation and earth, and applied this sacred ointment to a small portion of one of the limbs. Part of her prayers for the tree were, “You have already done your work — you helped provide directions, where we needed to go, and I want you to have a very long life.”

My journey came to a satisfying conclusion. I was content to have played a small role in alerting those volunteers working with the Comanche Nation to recognize and celebrate a portion of their history. I hope to return to this sacred spot in Big Bend and utter my own prayer of thanks and well-wishes to an old friend.


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