For many, the springs of Central Texas are more than swimming holes. Places like Barton Springs, San Marcos Springs, San Pedro Springs, and Comal Springs live in memory, ritual, and identity. Hydrogeologists dedicate their careers to protecting the local aquifers, whose waters feed millions of gallons through these springs each day. Year-round swimmers cut through the cold water every morning. Visitors arrive expecting a beautiful place and leave realizing that no photograph, video, or description can truly capture the mesmerizing shades of blue and green. Some families return to these places for generations, weaving the waters into the story of their lives.
Yet even these connections are recent in the broader story of these waterways. Long before Texas’s springs became destinations for recreation and tourism, the Coahuiltecan people lived in relationship with them, drawing on their cultural, spiritual, and life-sustaining significance.
The word “Coahuiltecan” (pronounced Kwa-will-TEH-can) refers to the Indigenous people who inhabited Central and Southern Texas and Northern Mexico prior to European colonization. Many of their ancestors assimilated into Mexican and Hispanic cultures, which makes an exact population count difficult to determine today, though approximately 7,000 people identify as Coahuiltecan today.
Rather than a single collective tribe, Coahuiltecans lived in smaller groups called “bands,” ranging from a few dozen people to a couple hundred. They were largely nomadic, moving through the region in response to seasonal change, ceremonial responsibilities, and the availability of food, including prickly pear fruit, pecans, small game, and other gathered or hunted resources. Central to these movements was the presence of springs, which offered reliable access to fresh, cool water year-round.
For millennia, the springs of Central and South Texas held deep meaning for the Coahuiltecan people. They were places of gathering, friendship, ceremony, and spiritual significance. What follows is a summary of the creation story of the Miakan-Garza Band of the Coahuiltecan people in the San Marcos area, reflecting the cultural and spiritual importance of these waters. The narrative was provided by Emi Aguilar, who is Coahuiltecan, a Native advocate, and a resident of Austin.
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In the beginning, the people existed as tamox (spirits) in an underworld beneath the earth. They felt a longing and knew there was somewhere else they were meant to be, but they did not know how to reach it. The underworld was inhabited by the spirits of animals and other beings that had not yet come into existence in the world above.
Ānua (the spirit of the moon) emerged, threw her head into the sky, and became the moon. Through her immense pulling force — much like her influence on tides and water — she began drawing the beings upward. Panāma (a deer) appeared to guide the people’s spirits through the underworld toward the surface.
The journey was difficult and painful. The people moved through underground passages and cavities — which can also be envisioned as an aquifer — as they were drawn toward the world above. As things grew more challenging, Miakān (a water bird commonly identified as a heron), swooped in and pulled the people and deer toward the surface. Finally, they emerged through a watery portal, through Ajehuac Yana (San Marcos Springs), entering Tāp Tāi (Mother Earth) and the world above.
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For the Miakan-Garza Coahuiltecan people, San Marcos Springs is the place where their people entered this world, making it a sacred creation site. The Payaya Band identifies San Pedro Springs in San Antonio as theirs. While many springs throughout Central and South Texas have sustained the Coahuiltecan people for thousands of years, four are recognized as the Sacred Springs. From north to south, these are Barton Springs, San Marcos Springs, Comal Springs, and San Pedro Springs.
While the creation story and the significance of the springs have been passed down through generations by oral tradition, some believe The White Shaman — a pictograph in the Pecos River style — offers a possible visual record of the same narrative. Located along the US-Mexico border near Del Rio, Texas, the painting resides in a rock shelter overlooking the Pecos River and has been dated by archaeologists to roughly 4,000 years old. According to the Indigenous Cultures Institute, Elders of the Miakan-Garza Band believe the panel contains elements of the Coahuiltecan creation story.
Some Coahuiltecan members go further, suggesting the painting includes a map of the Sacred Springs. They state that when it’s overlaid with a modern map, four black-and-white figures in the pictograph (circled in red) align with the springs’ locations. The intent of the original artists may be impossible to confirm 4,000 years later, but the connection has resonated with Coahuiltecan descendants and some archaeologists alike.
Barton Springs lies within the Barton Springs-Edwards Aquifer Conservation District’s territory, which is responsible for protecting the aquifer and groundwater that feeds it. While it isn’t the Coahuiltecan creation site, Emi described Barton Springs as a historical “place of gathering, and friendship” for her people. Today, the Barton Springs segment of the Edwards Aquifer provides drinking water to nearly 100,000 people, and the springs remain a place where the community gathers to enjoy the cold, clear waters flowing from below. Today, a group of Coahuiltecan women still makes an annual pilgrimage to Barton, San Marcos, Comal, and San Pedro springs to pay homage to these spiritual sites.
Most of the articles we produce focus on local hydrogeology, drought conditions, and aquifer management. But it’s worth pausing to consider the other ways groundwater matters to people past and present. While most readers of this piece likely aren’t Coahuiltecans, chances are you’re here because you’ve benefited from these waters in some way: through the drinking water for your family, a place of tranquility, a natural resource you study, or a site where you feel something close to reverence. As Emi put it, “Whenever we connect with places that are sacred, that activates something in us, regardless of our relationship to that place.”
These springs have sustained life and meaning for thousands of years, long before science gave us the tools to study them and conservation districts began managing their waters. Protecting them today isn’t just about the people who depend on this water now. It’s about honoring everything these waters have meant to people, wildlife, and the landscape stretching back millennia.
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Emi Aguilar is a member of the Miakan-Garza Band of Coahuiltecans. She is a mother, community organizer, educator, researcher, and artist, currently serving as Director of Membership & Radical Collaboration at the BLIS Collective. When asked what she hopes readers take from this article, she said, “I would love for people to think less people-centrically and consider ourselves as beings alongside every other being here.” Emi also hopes this piece raises awareness of her people and the significance of the springs because, “There’s no point in [her] sharing these stories if people aren’t sharing them forward.”