The Caddo people are part of the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma, a federally recognized tribe based in Binger, Oklahoma. their language is Caddo language.
The Caddo Confederacy was a network of indigenous peoples in the Southeast Forest who historically inhabited most of what is now East Texas, western Louisiana, southwestern Arkansas, and southeastern Oklahoma. Before contact with Europe, they were the Mississippi Caddoan culture, which built large earthen mounds at several regional sites, developing around AD 800 to 1400. In the early 19th century, the Caddo people were forced to make reservations in Texas. In 1859, they were transferred to the Indian Territory
The Caddo Society and its Governing
Oklahoma Caddo Nation, formerly known as the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma. The tribal constitution provides for the election of a council of eight, with a chairperson.
About 6,000 people are registered in the country, with 3,044 living in the state of Oklahoma. Individuals must document at least 1/16th of Caddo ancestry to register as citizens.
See: Other Native Americans in United States
In July 2016, Tamara M. Francis was re-elected as Chair of the Caddo Nation. Chairwoman Tamara Francis is the daughter of the first elected chairwoman, Francis, Mary Pat She is the Caddo Nation's fourth elected female leader.
This tribe has various work programs to reinforce their Caddo culture. Like doing a summer culture camp for the kids. The Hasinai Society and Caddo Culture Club teach and perform Caddo songs and dances to keep the culture alive and pass it on to the next generation. The Kiwat Hasinay Foundation is dedicated to preserving and enhancing the use of the Caddo language.
The Caddo Tribe's Journey
Archaeological Discoveries
The Caddo is considered a continuation of the Woodland period peoples, the Fourche Maline and Mossy Grove cultures. They lived in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas between 200 BC and 800 AD. The Wichita and Pawnee tribes are also still related. With Caddo, that's because they historically spoke the Caddoan language.
In 800 AD, this society began to integrate with Mississippi Caddoan culture. Leaders directed the construction of major earthworks known as platform mounds, which later served as a temple and a platform as a residence for tribal elites. Meanwhile, flat mounds are arranged around a flat, large, and open square, which is kept clean and used for ceremonial events. Several villages started to become famous as ritual centres. As religious and social developments began to develop, some people and family lineages became more prominent than others.
In 1000 AD, archaeologists referred to Caddo as "Caddoan". They flourished during the 12th and 13th centuries. Then the year 1200, many villages, hamlets, and extensive maize farms were established throughout the Caddo region, generating a surplus that made the settlements even larger. In these villages, artisans developed their artistic and mound-making skills in the Mississippi Caddoan.
Spiro Mounds, near the Arkansas River in present-day southeast Oklahoma, are some of the most complex mounds in the United States. They were created by the Mississippian ancestors of the historic Caddo and Wichita tribes, a place considered the westernmost region of Mississippi culture. the Caddo people are farmers and enjoy good growing conditions most of the time. Later, however, The Piney Woods, the geographic area in which they lived, was affected by the Great Drought from 1276 to 1299 AD, which covered an area that extended into California and disrupted many other Native American cultures.
People are the direct ancestors of the Caddo people and related Caddo speakers, such as the Pawnee and Wichita. Archaeological evidence has confirmed that cultural continuity is unbroken from prehistory to the present among these peoples. They met the first Europeans and the modern Caddo People of Oklahoma.
Beginning Caddo Tribe's Journey
The turkey dance they performed turned out to be a dance that conveyed the history of their nation. The dance said that their tribe emerged from a cave called the Chahkanina or "weeping place", located at the confluence of the Red River in the South and the Mississippi River (in the north, today Louisiana). Their leader, Moon, told the people to not look back. An old Caddo man carried a drum, a pipe, and a fire, all of which continued to be important religious items for the people. His wife brought corn and pumpkin seeds. When the humans and accompanying animals appeared, the wolf looked back. The exit from the underground was closed to the remaining people and animals.
The Caddo people moved west along the Red River, which they called Bah'hatteno di Caddo. A Caddo woman, Zacado, instructs the tribe in hunting, fishing, building shelter, and making clothes.
Their Religion
Caddo religion focuses on Kadhi háyuh which translates to "Lord Above" or "Lord of Heaven." In the early days, the people were led by priests, including a chief priest, the xinesi, who could communicate with the spirits who lived near the Caddo temples. The early priests drank a purification drink made from wild olive leaves. A ceremonial cycle developed around an important period of seasonal maize cultivation. Tobacco is also cultivated and used ceremonially.
Culture and gender
What did the Caddo Tribe eat?
The Caddo tribe has a culture that consists of hunting and farming dynamics. They hunt all year round, and those assigned to hunt are the men. At the same time, the women are divided into two, namely, the old women plant and cultivate seeds for the harvest season. While young and healthy women are responsible for gathering fruits, grains, and vegetables for their livelihood. Seeds and roots are collected and processed to provide food other than meat in winter when the plants are not growing. Items collected included corn, sunflowers, beans, melons, tobacco, and pumpkins during the warm season.
Caddo people have a diet based on cultivated plants, especially corn (maize). Besides corn, there are sunflowers, pumpkins, and squash. This food has cultural significance, much like a wild turkey. They also hunt and gather wild plants.
Art
Most of the tools and everyday items are made by women. Men use handmade bows and arrows to hunt animals such as wild turkeys, quail, rabbits, bears, and bulls during the winter months. They made wooden mortars, pots, and other utensils from clay. These rigid and clay tools were carved and shaped to help with daily tasks such as cooking food for the tribe. These tools were viewed with such respect that men and women were buried with the things they had made.
Caddo people also decorate their bodies. Men like body modifications and ornaments such as leather paintings, jewellery, ear piercings, and hair ornaments, such as braids, decorated with bird feathers or animal feathers. While the tribal women wore some jewellery and styled their hair similar to men, most used tattoo art to decorate their bodies. Such tattoos cover most of the body, including the face.
Where did the Caddo Tribe live
Centuries before contact with Europeans, several regions of Caddo were invaded by migrating Dhegihan-speaking people: such as Osage, Ponca, Omaha, and Kaw. They moved west starting around AD 1200 after years of war with the Haudenosaunee in the Ohio River area of what is now Kentucky.
Osage specifically fought Caddo, pushing them out of some of their Territory. Then Caddo became dominant in the present-day territories of Missouri, Arkansas, and eastern Kansas. These tribes had settled in their new territories west of the Mississippi before European contact in the mid-18th century.
Most Caddos have historically lived in the Piney Woods ecoregion of the United States, divided among the states of East Texas, southern Arkansas, western Louisiana, and southeast Oklahoma. This region extends to the foothills of the Ozarks. The Piney Woods is a dense forest of deciduous flora and pinophytes covering hills, steep river valleys, and intermittent wetlands called "bayous." The Caddo people mainly settled near the Caddo River.
When they first met Europeans and Africans, the Caddo tribe organized themselves into three confederations: Natchitoches, Hasinai, and Kadohadacho. Natchitoches lived in present-day northern Louisiana, Haisinai lived in East Texas, and Kadohadacho lived near the borders of Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. They are openly affiliated with other neighbouring tribes, including the Yowani Choctaw tribe.
Contact with Europe
Caddo first met Europeans and Africans in 1541 when Hernando de Soto's Spanish Expedition came to their land. De Soto's troops had violent clashes with the Caddo Tribe and the Tula tribe near the Caddo Gap, present-day Arkansas. This historical event has marked the modern city with a monument.
French explorers in the early 18th century encountered Natchitoche in northern Louisiana. Fur traders from French bases along the Gulf Coast trailed them. Then Catholic missionaries from France and Spain also joined in it. Unfortunately, Europeans carried infectious diseases such as smallpox and measles. Followed by Malaria and influenza, additional new diseases that caused many deaths among the Caddo people. Since the Caddo people had no immunity to such new diseases, they suffered from epidemics with high mortality, which devastated the tribal population.
French merchants built their trading posts and associated forts near the Caddo's village. It was an important center in the Great Plains trade network long before the 18th and 19th centuries. More French and many other European settlers were drawn to these stations. Among these settlements were the communities of Elysian Fields and Nacogdoches, Texas, and present-day Natchitoches, Louisiana. Early explorers and settlers continued to use the original village name Caddo in the last two cities.
After the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, in which the United States took over the former French colonial territory west of the Mississippi River, the U.S. government sought to ally with the Caddo people. Having given way over the years before the former Ohio Valley tribes' power, Caddo negotiated for peace with waves of Spanish, French, and, finally, Anglo-American settlers. During the War of 1812, American generals such as William Henry Harrison, William Clark, and Andrew Jackson crushed pro-British rebellions among Southeast Indians, particularly the Creek, also known as the Muscogee. Tensions within their tribe resulted in a civil war among the Rivers.
Because of the Caddo's neutrality and their importance as a source of information for the Louisiana Territory government, U.S. troops left them alone. Land-hungry migrants pressed them from the east. But following the passage of the Indian Abolition Act of 1830 by Congress under President Andrew Jackson, the federal government initiated a program of removing tribes from the Southeast to allow for European-American settlement.
In 1835 Kadohadacho, the northernmost Caddo confederation, signed a treaty with the U.S. to move to independent Mexico (which included present-day Texas). Their reservation area in East Texas had been slightly settled by Mexican colonists, but European-American immigration increased rapidly here. In 1836, Anglo-Americans declared independence from Mexico and founded the Republic of Texas, an independent nation. "Texas" comes from the Hasinai word Táysha, via the Spanish Tejas, meaning "friend".
On December 29, 1845, the United States recognized Texas as a state. At that time, the U.S. federal government forced Hasinai, Kadohadacho, and remaining Delaware allies (Lenape) and Yowani to move to the Brazos Reservation. White settlers increased pressure for Brazos Reservation Indians to move north into Indian Territory. White Texans viciously attacked Caddo's campsite just off the reservation on December 26, 1858.
Captain Peter Garland of Erath County led this vigilante group. Choctaw Tom leads Caddo. Married to a Hasinai woman, Tom Choctaw, along with 27 Caddo, died in this fight. In 1859, much of Caddo moved to the Indian Territory of northern Texas (which later became the state of Oklahoma in 1907). After the Civil War, Caddo concentrated on reservations between the Washita and Canadian rivers in the Indian Territory.
In the late 19th century, Caddo adopted the Ghost Dance religion, widespread among American Indian nations in the West. Practitioners believe that the dance will help them return to their traditional ways and to stop European-American intrusion into their land and culture. John Wilson, a Caddo/Delaware healer who speaks only Caddo, is an influential Ghost Dance leader. In 1880, John Wilson became a peyote roadman. The tribe was aware of the Half Moon peyote ceremony, but Wilson introduced them to the Big Moon ceremony. The Caddo nation remains very active in the Native American Church today.
Late 19th century To date
Congress passed the Dawes Act to promote the assimilation of the tribes in the Indian Territory and to abolish India's land claims to allow entry into the Territory as a state. This permitted the division and distribution of tribal communal land holdings into 160 acres for individual households to establish subsistence family farms along the European-American model. Any tribal land remaining after the allotment must be declared "surplus" and sold, including to non-native Americans. At the same time, the tribal government must end, and Native Americans must be accepted as U.S. citizens, subject to state and federal laws. Many European Americans have settled outside the tribal areas.
Caddo strongly opposed rationing. Whitebread, a Caddo leader, said, "because of their peaceful life and friendship with white people, and through ignorance, they were not consulted, and have been neglected and trapped in a corner and left to live in misery." The tribal government was dismantled then, and Native Americans were expected to act as U.S. states and citizens. After a while, the adverse effects of these changes were recognized. Caddo and other Native Americans suffered greatly from disrupting their traditional culture and lost much of their land in the decades following rationing.
20th Century Reorganization of Caddo
Under the federal India Reorganization Act of 1934 and the Oklahoma India Welfare Act of 1936, the Caddo restored their tribal government. They adopted a written constitution and a process for electing officials. They organized in 1938 as 'The Caddo Indians of Oklahoma.' They ratified their constitution on January 17, 1938. In 1976, they drafted a new constitution, which continued to elect the representative government.
During the 20th century, Caddo leaders such as Melford Williams, Harry Guy, Hubert Halfmoon, and Vernon Hunter helped shape the tribe. In the early 1980s, Mary Pat Francis was the first of four women to be elected tribal chief. He was re-elected in 2016. Her daughter, Tamara Michele Francis, was elected in 2015 after a term of high division.
In a special election on June 29, 2002, the tribe adopted six constitutional amendments. Tribal registration is open to individuals with a documented minimum 1/16 degree quantum of Caddo blood.
21st-century tribal issues
At times, severe disagreements have developed between tribal factions that have not been resolved in elections. In August 2022, a group led by Philip Smith attempted to recall Brenda Shemayme Edwards, chairman of the Tribal Council. The faction held new elections, but the winner resigned, and Edwards refused to leave office. In October 2013, Smith and his supporters broke into Caddo Nation headquarters. They chained the front door from the inside and blocked the entrance to the administration building. The opposition called the Indian Affairs Police Bureau.
Tribal operations are divided between the two factions. India's Offenses Court, overseeing matters for a year due to internal conflict, in October 2014 ordered fresh elections for all positions.
Tamara Michele Francis was elected chair, Carol D. Ross was elected vice chair, Jennifer Reeder was elected secretary, and Wildena G. Moffer was elected treasurer in the January 2015 elections.
In July 2016, Tamara M. Francis was re-elected as Chair of the Caddo Nation. The Board consists of Chair Francis, Deputy Chair Carol D. Ross, Acting Secretary Philip Martin, Treasurer Marilyn McDonald, Oklahoma City Representative Jennifer Wilson, Binger Representative Marilyn Threlkeld, and Fort Cobb Representative Maureen Owings.
See: Other Native Americans in United States
Chair Francis is the daughter of Mary Pat Francis, the first elected chairwoman (selected in the 1980s). Tamara Francis is the Caddo Nation's fourth elected female leader.
Reference:
Wikipedia
www.caddonation-nsn.gov