Comanche Moon is informative, if you watch out for historical inaccuracies

vegacarrol

First of all, I did not read the book, but I am now planning to. I would praise this miniseries most for the inclusion of the Comanche language, and I hope it is authentic. Any comments out there on that?

The custom of torturing captives spread northward from the Aztecs, who conquered other tribes in central Mexico and butchered thousands of people on their hideous sun god altars. The custom of scalping was introduced by the whites, in Canada and New England, and it spread westward. Prolonged and viciously cruel executions were the rule throughout "civilized" Europe and only in the late 19th and 20th centuries has humanity made a concerted effort to be rid of them, despite the appalling atrocities of the Holocaust... enough said, the things to watch out for in Comanche moon are first, the alleged cooperation of the Texas Rangers with the occupying Yankee troops during Reconstruction. The Rangers were regarded as an armed Confederate force and were officially disbanded during this period. Documentations of their activities as an outlawed organization are extremely scarce. Many of them hired out as gunmen for the cattle barons, against rustlers who were running cattle across the Rio Grande. Mexican hacienda owners and ranchers in Nuevo Leon had had their livestock decimated by a series of wars, and they bought cattle, no questions asked. Other rustlers stole cattle in Mexico and sold them to the Texas barons. The Mexican government complained in 1878. The Texas Rangers who fought the Mexican rustlers were unrestrained by any court system and they were brutal to the Texas- Mexican population. They chased suspected rustlers into Mexico and shot them for "resisting arrest." They often behaved as badly as the Mexican War's notorious "rackensackers" who were Rangers and their imitators who invaded with General Taylor in the north. They were so abusive of civilians that Taylor almost sent them home in disgrace, but rescinded the order when his forces were vastly outnumbered by General Santa Anna's army. Another thing to watch out for in Comanche Moon is the depiction of Cynthia Parker. When she is recovered by the Texans, a little inaccuracy is excusable, but it shows her with long hair and later, her husband, the warrior Peta Nocoma, is shown as still alive. Peta Nocoma died from an infected wound before Cynthia Ann was recovered,and she had cut her hair very short, a sign of mourning. Personally, I think this production is yet another gringo view of Texas history, with hardly any presence of Mexican Texans in it but for a typically stereotypical "Mexican bandit" El Ahumado... and those cages on pulley masts hanging over the side of a cliff are ridiculous. Was this guy supposed to be an engineer? And where would he get those tall trees to make into masts in that part of the country? However, I praise the author's desire to include authentic wildlife of the period, which have mostly vanished today. Yes, the jaguar did range that far north, but it was nocturnal. A daytime attack by a big cat would have more likely been a puma. And there was a parrot that lived in canyons and dive bombed any creature or person that got too close to its nest. It is now gone, too. There is a scene in an Indian village with the Indians dying of cholera. SMALLPOX! The Comanches were done in by forked tongue treaties and the US Army, in the first documented modern use of germ warfare, gave them blankets taken from a smallpox hospital. Quanah Parker, the son of Cynthia Ann Parker and Peta Nocoma, continued the tribal custom of polygamy. He lived a long and accomplished life and his grave boasts an impressive monument.

score /10

vegacarrol 17 January 2008

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1802052/