within the circle of men, wrapped up to his head in skins, and he bent over as he walked around the fire. They chanted in chromatic ascending and descending tones, and all the natives joined in the chorus. This ceremony continued throughout the night. Other than this, only a few other rituals were observed, and their purposes are unknown. The Karankawa stared at the sun when it disappeared into the sea, like some other native groups of the area. They also smoked tobacco through their nostrils first to the north, then to the east, west, and south. They frequently whistled at certain times and apparently for some objective, but ultimately for unknown purposes. Jean-Baptist Talon, in response to interrogation, reported, "one could only infer that they have some confused impression of the immortality of their souls and the resurrection of the dead by the ceremonies that they observe in the burial of their dead. After having wrapped the corpse in a well-prepared buffalo hide, the same one that he had used in life to cover himself, they bury him with his club, his bow, and his arrows, a quantity of smoked meat, some corn and vegetables, and two pieces of a certain rock that they use instead of gun flint to make fire.For this purpose they make a little hole in one of the pieces of wood, which is flat, and which they lean against something; and having sharpened the other, which is round, they adjust the point of i in the hole and make some fire by rubbing these two pieces of wood, by turning the one that is round between their hands, as fast as they can and all that in order that he may use them (so they say) when he wakes up". La Salle, the Mississippi, and the Gulf Three Primary Documents Edited by Robert S. Weddle 1987 p 253-254 Cannibalism According to some sources, the Karankawa practiced ritual cannibalism, in common with other Gulf coastal tribes of present-day Texas and Louisiana. Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, a Spanish conquistador who lived among the Karankawa for several years in the 1530s and wrote a memoir, made no mention of cannibalism except for ritualistic consumption of deceased relatives in the form of funeral ashes "presented in water for the relatives to drink." Cabeza De Vaca admitted that his fellow survivors and he had committed acts of cannibalism