Texas Border Business
Edinburg, Texas — Coahuiltecans were hunter-gatherers who roamed South Texas and northeastern Mexico, groups of native peoples whose language was all but lost were it not for the efforts of 18th-century Franciscan missionaries to record elements of this unwritten language. But, now, you can discover these words during “Poetry from the Forgotten Words of Coahuiltecans” featuring Lisa Kay Adam, the author of “xuāi: mission, house, village, town,” on Sunday, July 22, at 2 p.m. at the Museum of South Texas History.
Published by Lamar University Literary Press, Adam’s book is a series of poems using Coahuiltecan words and phrases, offering a window into the experiences of indigenous peoples during the Spanish colonial era. The book includes illustrations from a historical map of the region during that era. Along with the reading of select poems, Adam will invite the audience to join her in speaking some of these words not heard for hundreds of years. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing by the author in the Museum Store following the presentation.
Adam grew up in Bishop, Texas, and obtained an undergraduate degree in anthropology and English from The University of Texas at Austin. She worked at the Louisiana Art and Science Museum in Baton Rouge, where she earned a doctoral degree in historical geography and anthropology at Louisiana State University. Her writing has been published in the Nature Conservancy Magazine and The Christian Science Monitor. Currently, she works at the Museum of South Texas History.
Sunday Speaker Series is included in the fee for regular museum admission. FRIENDS of the MOSTHistory are admitted free as a benefit of FRIENDship.
