Pastia people

Early Spanish explorers encountered a number of ethnically distinct bands of aboriginal peoples near the Medina River who spoke a common Coahuiltecan dialect. The largest of these groups were the Payaya, known to the Spanish since 1690 and considered quite friendly. The area under their influence was centered along the lower Frio River's confluence with the Nueces (in an area later called Nueva Extremadura in New Spain). The Pastia lands overlapped largely with the Pampopa tribal lands. Their homeland was well removed from the usual northern Spanish trade routes and trails leading into Tejas. For that reason, the Pastia and Spanish had no contact until the early eighteenth century. When the Espinosa-Olivares-Aguirre expedition—Spain's initial excursion to explore the area of the San Antonio River valley—crossed the Medina on April 24, 1709, they encountered the Pastia tribe for the first time. ==The people==

The name, Pastias, is equivalent to "chamuscados" in Spanish, translated as the "scorched," "seared," or "singed" peoples. A 1707 document noted that name and meaning, but other contemporaneous records do not mention skin alterations. also contributed a large part to their diet. The Pastia, as well as the other tribes of the southeastern Texas tidal plain, reportedly subsisted in the lean months on roots; raw insects, lizards, and worms; and the undigested nuts picked from deer dung. ==Decline==

The tribes of southeastern Tejas suffered a severe decline in population following repeated epidemics of diseases to which they had no immunity, starting about the time of, or shortly before, the mission network's construction. This was in large part due to the close proximity of their labor camps to the settlements of the European mission workers who carried Old World diseases (such as smallpox) which were extremely deadly to the aboriginal inhabitants of the villages surrounding the missions. Following the establishment of the Mission San Antonio de Valero in 1718, many of the Native American peoples inhabiting the area were relocated from their traditional towns and moved onto the San Antonio mission lands. The few surviving Pastia reportedly gathered only at the Mission San José. Population figures for the refugees are not available, however, as the registration records of the early mission residents have been lost to history. As late as 1789, there were settlers in the settlement who identified as Pastia. ==Historical oversight and confusion==

The Pastias have been confused throughout history with several other tribes indigenous to the wider area. They have been mistaken for the Pasxa (Patzau) and Pachal (Pacal, Pasteal) peoples. The Patiri, an Indian tribe native to the woodlands of southeast Texas, were claimed as Pastia residents at the Mission San Ildefonso (in present-day Milam County), an area the Pastias never inhabited or visited. The Mission Concepción de Acuña's residents using Pastias as a surname are unproven members of that tribe. Following the decline of the Pastia and their neighboring tribes, the lands that were once their homes and the southeastern Texas coastal plains were eventually inhabited by the Apache. Today, there is no extant tribe of the Pastia people. ==Notes==