Tejano Tribes

"'Los cabrones y cabronas del desierto, unidos, jamas seran vencidos!' - Tejano Motto."

Los Tejanos (Spanish: The Texans) are a series of nomadic tribes scattered throughout the North American south. Known for being both incredibly charismatic traders and powerful mounted raiders at the same time.

History
The ancestors of the Tejano tribes were descendants of the Mexican-American inhabitants of Texas, New Mexico and the Mexican citizens from the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Due to the nuclear fallout and viral outbreaks among the largest cities among these states, the Tejanos decided to travel the deserts and try their luck against the deadly nature of the desert and its mutated inhabitants. After several years they formed tribes who either fought each other for resources or began raiding settlements that had not been destroyed by the war, which were often reclaimed by the Southern States, which were still part of the Federal Union of Potama at the time.

This way of life continued for several generations until the year 2098, when a powerful Caudillo by the name of Juan Jose Caravajal managed to unite the tribes through diplomacy and pure unrivaled charisma. He led small raids against the Union until the year 2104, when he gathered a massive horde of Tejano raiders against the city of Houston. This was the start of the Tejano Wars and the first event that led to the separation of the New Columbian Confederation and the Federal Union of Potama. The war against the Confederate states ended March 7th of 2111 when Caravajal's horde was defeated in the Siege of San Antonio, thus putting an end to the Caudillo conquest of the North American south.

This, however, was not the end of the united Tejano tribes, who continued to cooperate witch each other even after the death of their leader, who they now deemed to be a Saint. They were no longer raiding fellow Tejanos and helped each other whenever was possible. This made the Confederations attempts to kick the Tejanos out of the desert and recapture Houston impossible.

Government
Each tribe is lead by a Caudillo, or warlord, who leads their tribe independently. Caudillos are elected by a council of elders, mainly wise grandparents, since they are both respected and beloved by the tribe. After the unification under Juan Jose Caravajal and the his eventual death, all tribes remain in good terms with each other and if there's ever a problem between two tribes, they try to use diplomacy to find a common ground, or simply ask for help for another tribe to act as an impartial judge.

Culture
The Tejano tribes are known for being a vibrant and friendly group of people. They treat each other like family and even extend this treatment to foreigners and even the victims of their raids, but this is not always the case, each tribe handles their personal politics how they see fit.

Some tribes are very welcoming of strangers and will openly trade with them, others try to stay out of foreign issues, some outright refuse to interact with others unless they are raiding. The Tejano tribes are not openly hateful towards those they raid and prefer leaving the survivors of their raids alone, some of the more friendlier tribes even attempt to assimilate the survivors into their tribes, not as slaves but as fellow Tejanos.

The reason as for why they treat their victims in such manner is because they see raiding as a natural thing, a product of the hundreds of years of hardships and isolation they faced on the deserts, when raiding was indeed a necessity due to the poor soil being unable to grow crops and water was incredibly scarce. This does not mean all tribes think alike, the friendlier tribes, while an interesting oddity, are a minority, and most tribes leave the survivors of their raids alone, or with the bare minimum to survive the wild wastelands.

The Tejanos are incredibly religious and follow the Roman Catholic faith, but with various elements that were added before and after the war. Such as Holy Dead, more staunch Catholics insist on describing it as a satanic cult. However, most of the people who profess this cult declare themselves to be Catholic believers, and consider that there is no contradiction between the tributes they offer to the Christ Child and the adoration of God. There are also a few Protestants among them, most of them are Americans who were assimilated from Columbian territories.

Mutants are respected, and sometimes welcomed, in most of the tribes, but they are treated like afflicted or sick people rather than fellow sapients. Indeed, there are plenty of Freaks among the Tejanos and even a few Goliaths. Automatons and other robots, however, are either destroyed on sight or completely ignored, because they are deemed to be soulless machines.