The Wacos, the Taovaya, and the Tawakoni were originally part of the Wichita Confederation in Kansas.  The Wacos were the vanguard who were first forced south by the Comanche invasion of their territory hundreds of years ago.  The Tawakoni and the Taovaya followed later.  The Wacos settled in the Waco area of Central Texas on the banks of the Brazos River in 1772.  The Tawakoni settled on the Trinity River near present-day Palestine, Texas, but later abandoned that area in 1779 to settle on Tehuacana Creek between present-day Hillsboro and Mexia.

Several Waco villages were established on the original Tomas De La Vega land grant in the Brazos River Valley.  The main Waco Indian Village was on the banks of the Brazos River near the famous Waco suspension bridge on Washington Avenue and University-Parks Drive, not far from the Baylor University campus today known as “Indian Springs Park.”. 

The Wacos lived in conical, all weather, thatch, and beehive-like lodges. They survived through cultivation of the land and active hunting pursuits.  After planting near 400 acres of crops, they would leave to hunt all summer, then return in the fall for harvesting and the celebration of their first-fruits festival.  They chose the village locations because of the proximity of the fertile Brazos River basin and the artesian springs or geysers located there.   They believed the waters to have great miraculous and curative powers.

The Wacos, and the Wichita tribes in general, worshipped a pantheon of gods and goddesses, but there was one particular goddess they worshipped who was very much connected with their reasons for living where they lived.  She was called the “Woman-With-The-Powers-In-The Waters.”  She was worshipped in connection with the Brazos De Dios River (meaning The Arms of God) and the artesian springs or geysers.  Through the sacred waters, she gave prosperity, longevity, intelligence and power to those who worshipped her.

Around the 1820s, a group of Cherokees moved from Arkansas down into Central Texas and negotiated with the Mexican government to serve as a buffer between Mexico and the native Indians and the white settlers led by Stephen F. Austin.  The Cherokees quickly became enemies with the Wacos over the matter of some stolen horses and dead braves, supposedly by the Wacos.

It is reported that Austin disliked the Wacos as well, because they were populating the very fertile Brazos River Valley and preventing the white settlers from having access to it.  He also hated their worship of the female goddess – “Woman-With-The-Powers-In-The-Waters.”

Austin was contacted by Mateo Ahumada, the Mexican military commandant some time in the month of April in 1826.  He was instructed to enlist the aid of the Cherokees in removing the Tawakonis from their settlement along the Navasota River headwaters.  The Cherokee chose instead to attack the Waco Indian Village on the Brazos River in Spring, 1828 (after the Tawakoni raid was cancelled due to the swollen Neches and Trinity Rivers).  The Wacos were in danger of being annihilated by the Cherokee until the Tawakoni arrived and succeeded in driving off the Cherokee.  The Cherokee retaliated later and destroyed the main Tawakoni village on Tehuacana Creek.

Slowly, the Wacos began leaving the Brazos River Valley as the white man’s settlements came nearer.  There was a white man’s settlement within 30 miles by early 1837 when the Wacos left the area for good.  They joined the rest of the Wichita Confederation on the reservation near Anadarko, OK, in 1859.

New Mount Carmel Center, home of the Branch Davidians, lies within the Tomas De La Vega land grant and is only approximately 10 miles where once stood the main Waco Indian Village at Indian Springs Park.  The Center is on the highest point to the northeast over looking downtown Waco.  It is believed there were once geysers on this property that were capped off by Austin, just as there were geysers capped off at Indian Springs Park and the Alico building in order to destroy the sacred place(s) of worship of the Waco Indians to insure that they would never return. The largest tank on the Branch Davidian Center continues to have bubbles rising up to the surface from below.  This tank is very deep and maintains its depth and volume even during a drought.

It is not so farfetched a notion that the Center (originally 947 acres) was the center of worship for the “Woman-With-The-Powers-In-The-Waters”, the female water goddess of the Wacos that Austin hated so much. He was instrumental in encouraging the massacre and burning of the Wacos at this spiritual site.

Branch Davidians seem to have inherited this legacy with the land. Victor Houteff, founder of the Davidian Movement, settled near Lake Waco now is and used the waters in the area to cultivate peach orchards and a market garden. The land was very fertile and it sustained the Christian community and The Vanguard Biblical Institute. It was a place of worship and one of the most prized parcels of land in the area. The well and dam Victor Houteff dug to water his property was later instrumental in developing Lake Waco and The Mount Carmel Water Works used there today. When Victor Houteff died in February of 1955, his wife Florence sold off this prime land and worship center and bought the 940 acres northeast of Waco, the other area where the Wacos held sacred, the New Mount Carmel property where Ben and Lois Roden through several court battles with Florence Houteff et al. were able to salvage the 77.8 acres remaining from the 940 acres plot to establish the Branch Davidian Seventh Day Adventist Movement.

It was on this place that in 1977 Lois Roden had a vision of a beautiful female Angel with a backdrop of thousands of angels coming towards earth to help mankind. Lois interpreted this vision as a message fro the Spirit of God. She began teaching that the Holy Spirit is the Female member of the Godhead, and named her ministry “Living Waters Branch.”  This of course is no coincidence. Lois knew nothing of the history of the Wacos at the time.

In 1993, New Mount Carmel was invaded by the state and federal government and once again the people of this little community who worshipped the “Woman-With-The-Powers-In-The-Waters”, was massacred and burned out and had their water source destroyed when the well head was bulldozed during the cleanup. Consequently we have learned that the Trans Texas Corridor, which is a part of a national Toll Highway System to import and export product by way of rail and road internationally from Mexico, USA and Canada (NAFTA) is planned to go right through the New Mount Carmel property probably because it sits in the most strategic position to pump the water out of the huge aquifer under it and distribute it through the waterlines that will be apart of the TTC project. The ancient geyser that was capped by Austin and his cohorts was fed by this aquifer and is now to be exploited again at the cost of the lives of the inhabitants of the land. Only this time it is not just the Branch Davidians that are about to suffer, but everyone in the path of the land grabbing government.

Will history again repeat itself at the expense of the native land owners?

This was a Press Release Given to CNN by Charles Pace, December 31, 2007