Teyas were a Native American people living near what is now Lubbock, Texas, who first made contact with Europeans during the 1541 Francisco Vásquez de Coronado expedition.
That implies that the Teyas were numerous, powerful, far ranging and that they participated in the politics of the Pueblos, thus strengthening the case that they were Tanoans.
[3] A narrow plurality of experts, however, believe that the Teyas were Caddoan language-speakers related to the Wichita peoples whom Coronado found in Quivira in central Kansas.
Archaeologists have found the remains of many farming villages of the time (Wheeler phase including the Edwards Archaeological Site, believed to be Caddoan), near the Washita River in southwestern Oklahoma.
An old man who said he had previously met Spaniards, probably Cabeza de Vaca, gives credence to a southern origin of the Teyas.
In 1541, the Spanish conquistador Francisco Vásquez de Coronado led an expedition onto the Great Plains from the Rio Grande pueblos in New Mexico.
The discovery of Spanish artifacts from an archaeological site 35 miles northeast of Lubbock makes Blanco Canyon near the headwaters of the Brazos River the likely place where Coronado first encountered a large settlement of Teyas.
The canyons had trees and flowing streams and the Teyas grew or foraged for beans, but the Coronado chroniclers state they did not "sow corn, nor eat bread, but instead raw meat."
The women were well-dressed and modest, covering their whole bodies by wearing a petticoat beneath a fringed cloak with sleeves.