The early Texas cattleman Charles Goodnight found a Comanche war shield stuffed with a complete history of ancient Rome (its rise, efflorescence and fall to nomadic barbarians from the north). Nomad tribes carry their culture

In New Mexico and California there were Mexican women, but on the whole they lacked the endurance, skills and experience to make good trail wives.

One of those sketches became a painting entitled Bourgeois W—r, & his Squaw. Bourgeois (pronounced booshway) was another word for a field

Walker rode on to California, hung up his saddle at his nephew’s ranch in Contra Costa County, and settled down to a calm, pleasant, dignified retirement, with no recorded bouts of nostalgia or restlessness.

The most damaging legacy of their past, she says, is genetic. Seventy-five per cent of the tribe have diabetes and 25 per cent have had amputations because of the disease: legs, arms, fingers, toes. As wandering hunter-gatherers, with a diet that was mostly lean meat, grilled, boiled or eaten raw, the Comanches evolved without any exposure to refin

deserts on their horses, to raid or conquer or exact tribute. The prophet Jeremiah was probably thinking of the Scythians, the first recorded nomadic warriors in history, and by any civilised standard they were a fearsome and barbaric

same with all those other diseases Europeans brought us. We didn’t have any immunity to smallpox either, or the common cold, and we still don’t. How long does it take you to get over a cold? Two weeks max, right? For us, it’s thirty to sixty days, and the purer the blood, the longer it takes.’

microbes have never got the respect they deserve. Redoubtable and remorseless, clearing the way for civilisation’s advance, and presumably acting with the blessing of God, immigrant germs killed more Indians than the cowboys, the army and the frontiersmen combined. We can posit historical inevitability and say that the more numerous and technically

‘Basically, rendezvous these days is an excuse to get dressed up, go on a camping trip and have a big swap meet.’ This was the judgement of Lance Grabowski, delivered from his tent on the far fringe of traders’ row. His tone was jaded and sardonic: rendezvous was dumbing down and there was nothing you could do about