The Caddo Indians of Louisiana

Between A.D. 1100 and 1200 the early Caddo culture was changing into a simpler culture that has been named Bossier, for the parish in which it was first discovered (Webb 1948a). The large centers faded out or were inhabited by small groups. The people seem to have been secure, not menaced, and beginning to spread out along the streams in small settlements or family homesteads. Local materials were used and few exotic objects have been found. Burial customs became simpler, usually single graves with a few offerings and situated near the home or in small cemeteries. The pottery of the Bossier folk was of good quality and still had some of the decoration by engraving, incising, and punctating techniques of the earlier period, but increasing amounts of everyday wares were decorated by simple brushing (similar to Plaquemine pottery of eastern and southern Louisiana).

Between Caddo Lake and Natchitoches the location of settlements in the Red River Valley almost disappeared at this time, possibly signifying the beginning of the Great Raft. The villages and hamlets were on the lateral streams, lakes, and into the uplands, along virtually every watercourse. A calm period of pastoral life is indicated and probably lasted until it was shattered in 1542 by Moscoso’s tattered Spanish army and the subsequent arrival of other Europeans.

One such hamlet or family homestead of Bossier people is under study at the Montgomery site in upper Webster Parish at the Springhill Airport (Webb and Jeane 1977). The people seem to have lived here long enough for their thatched roof, clay-daubed houses to have been repaired and relocated a number of times, leaving numerous post molds. Their simple tools and arrow points were made of local cherts; ornaments are missing and polished stone tools are rare. Residues of gathered or hunted food stuffs are present: hickory nuts, acorns, persimmons, mussels, turtle, fish, and deer bones. No corn, beans, or pumpkin seeds have been found, but they must have grown these crops and probably did so in gardens rather than in fields. Their pottery, as shown by broken sherds, ranged from rough culinary or storage pots to nicely engraved bowls and red-surfaced or engraved bottles.

A Bossier group of higher culture lived along Willow Chute, an old Red River channel in the valley east of Bossier City. Farming homesteads and hamlets are strung along its course and two large mounds—Vanceville and Werner—mark the Bossier ceremonial centers. Beneath the Werner mound, destroyed in the 1930’s, were the ruins of an immense lodge which was circular with a projecting entrance. The entire lodge measured eighty by ninety feet. It was probably ceremonial, or the lodge of a Caddi (chief), as few arrows, tools, or personal possessions were found. There were quantities of deer and other animal bones, fish and turtle bones, and mussel shells. Broken pottery in large amounts denoted feasts and the ceramics were of exceptional quality. No burials or whole vessels were found.

Each lateral lake along Red River—Black Bayou, Caddo, Wallace, Clear, and Smithport lakes on the west side; Bodcau, Bistineau, Swan, and Black lakes on the east—has Bossier period sites around its margins. Occupations continue westward to Sabine River and into eastern Texas, southward almost to Catahoula Lake, eastward along D’Arbonne and Corney bayous toward the Ouachita, and northward into Arkansas. Either late Bossier or Belcher people could have been in the populous Naguatex district described by the De Soto chroniclers, encountered just before the Spaniards crossed Red River.

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The Belcher mound site, in Red River Valley about twenty miles north of Shreveport, gives its name to this Caddo culture period. Radiocarbon dates at the site and comparisons with other cultures suggest that the Belcher Focus began about A.D. 1400 and lasted into the 17th century. During its beginning. Belcher culture probably overlapped and coexisted with Bossier culture.

The Belcher site was excavated by Webb (1959) and his associates over a ten year period. The Belcher mound contained a succession of levels on which houses were built, burned or deserted, and covered over with new buildings. Burials were placed in pits beneath the house floors or through the ruins of burned houses. It is inferred that the houses were ceremonial lodges or chiefs’ houses. The earliest house was rectangular, with wall posts erected in trenches and packed with clay; a seven-foot entranceway projected northeastward. The walls were clay-daubed, and the gabled roof covered with grass thatch. Later houses were circular, also with projecting entranceways, and with interior roof supports and central hearths. They also were daubed and thatch-covered, but were divided into compartments, which contained internal posts for seats or couches and sometimes small hearths for each compartment. Food remains found on the floors of Belcher houses included maize, beans, hickory nuts, persimmon seeds, pecans, mussel and snail shells, and bones of deer, rabbit, squirrel, fox, mink, birds, fish (gar, catfish, buffalo, sheepshead, and bowfin), and turtle. Belcher tools encompassed stone celts (hatchets or chisels), arrow points which had tiny pointed stems, flint scrapers and gravers, sandstone hones, bone awls, needles and Chisels, shell hoes, spoons and saws, and pottery spindle weights.

Ornaments found with burials or on house floors at Belcher include beads, anklets, pendants and gorgets of shell, pearls, ear ornaments of shell, bone and pottery, bone hairpins, bear tooth pendants, shell inlays, and small shell bangles. Some of the shell pendants were carved in lizard or salamander effigy forms. Ceremonial drinking cups made of conch shells were sometimes decorated, one bearing a composite flying serpent-eagle design. Platform and elbow pipes were of baked clay. Split cane basketry or matting fragments show herringbone or 1-over-4-under weave.

Belcher pottery was superior to that of the Bossier people and, indeed, is some of the best in the entire Caddoan area. There was a diversity of bowl, bottle, urn, jar, vase, miniature, and compound forms. Large storage ollas were found broken on house floors. Techniques of decoration involved engraving, stamping, incising, trailing, ridging, punctating, brushing, applique nodes, insertion of red or white pigment into designs, red slipping, polishing, pedestal elevation, rattle bowls, bird and turtle effigies, and tripod and tetrapod legs. Many of the vessels had ornate or intricate curvilinear designs, with scrolls, circles, meanders, spirals, and guilloches; sun symbols, crosses, swastikas, and triskeles were added.

Many of the twenty-six burials found in Belcher mound exhibited a carry-over of the early Caddo burial ceremonialism, presumably including human sacrifice. Individuals or groups of up to seven persons were placed in shaft burial pits, and often were surrounded by many pottery vessels—sometimes in stacks—in addition to tools, arrows, ornaments, food offerings, vessels with spoons, decorated drinking cups, pipes, and other indicators of high rank. As many as twenty to forty pottery vessels had been placed in a single pit. Even small children had ornaments and numerous vessels, as though they were of the nobility. This suggests a hereditary social ranking as was found among the Natchez Indians.

Other mound centers of Belcher culture, occurring along Red River into southwestern Arkansas, show similar ceremonialism. Villages and hamlets along the river to Natchitoches and into the uplands are marked by typical Belcher pottery sherds. In all, late Belcher people were dispersed widely, and their way of life gave rise to the generalized cultural base that existed at the time of European intrusion.

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If one views the Caddoan archaeological sequence as a tree trunk, identifiable branches seem to begin spreading by about A.D. 1450 (Belcher Focus). After that point, several distinct tribal branches can be recognized, each with its own particular language, or dialect, and customs. Within relatively short distances these groups often exhibited striking differences.

The Louisiana Caddoan-speaking groups were the Adaes, Doustioni, Natchitoches, Ouachita and Yatasi. These groups seem to have been concentrated around Natchitoches, Mansfield, Monroe, and Robeline, Louisiana. Their total aboriginal territory stretched from the Ouachita River west to the Sabine River and south to the mouth of Cane River.

On Red River, in northeastern Texas and southwestern Arkansas, there were other Caddoan groups: Kadohadacho, Petit Caddo, Nasoni, Nanatsoho, and Upper Natchitoches. Eventually, due to pressure from the Osage, these groups migrated south to Louisiana and settled north of the Yatasi, near Caddo Prairie and Caddo Lake.

The Caddoan tribes seem to have had strong cultural affiliations. In fact, some anthropologists have considered them part of three vast inter-tribal confederacies (Swanton 1942; Hodge 1907). In eastern Texas another group, led by the Hasinai, consisted of the Ais, Anadarko, Hainai, Hasinai, Nabiti, Nacogdoches, and Nabedache. This group also has been considered a large confederacy (Hodge 1907).

The various peoples mentioned above seem to have been regional groups, fairly fluid in nature, but tied to general geographic boundaries. Linguistic differences served to differentiate them (Taylor 1963:51-59) and some, like the Adaes, could hardly be understood by the others. However, the Kadohadacho language dominated in the east—where nearly everyone understood it—and the Hasinai language in the west.

These groups had chiefs, or Caddi. Generally one man had more prestige than any other Caddi, but multiple chiefs—usually two—were present in most communities. Other groups seem to have had tama (local organizers), but chiefs were weak or lacking. Polity, then, consisted of the Caddi, or chiefs, and tama, a sort of organizational leader (often confused with the chief by early Europeans) who was powerful enough to gather the people for work, war, or ceremonials. The Caddi were a select group—likely the historic equivalent to the priest-chiefs of prehistoric times. Priests and witches composed a non-secular leadership among the Caddoan groups, but by historic times they had become somewhat separate from the warrior-chiefs who led the tribes.

It can be seen, then, that the Caddoan peoples had several of the criteria of true chiefdoms (Service 1962): territory, leadership, and linguistic-cultural distinctiveness. All of the Europeans—French, Spanish and Anglo-American—who dealt with them left records relative to their character and intelligence. As late as the 19th century the Caddo still boasted that they had never shed white blood (Swanton 1942) and their chiefs still were respected.

In the age of tribal self-determination and Indian sovereignty, it seems in order to explain basic Caddo tribalism. Contrary to many other southeastern Indian groups, the Caddoan people seem to have clung tenaciously to land and leadership even after the erosive effects of European contact. The fact that their roots extended into prehistory gave them strength and self-confidence. They kept their faith and polity, and their traditions remain even today.

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The earliest contacts with Europeans in Louisiana were fleeting. The best accounts were left by Henri de Tonti who reached a Natchitoches village in February of 1690. He was searching for the lost La Salle expedition and went on to visit the Yatasi, Kadohadacho, and Nacogdoches (Williams 1964). No other visits seem to be recorded for the next decade, even though Spanish efforts to Christianize the East Texas Caddo intensified. Contact is indicated by the 1690’s in such practices as the tribes holding Spanish-style horse fairs (Gregory 1974).

In 1701 Governor Bienville and Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, guided by the Tunica chief, Bride les Boeufs or Buffalo Tamer, arrived at the Natchitoches area. They visited the Doustioni, Natchitoches, and Yatasi villages, and then returned to New Orleans. Bienville was especially desirous of contacting the Kadohadacho to the north (Williams 1964; Rowland and Sanders 1929). This trip, ostensibly for exploration, was probably an attempt to obtain two commodities the French in lower Louisiana were desperate for: livestock and salt (Gregory 1974). The Tunica had long engaged in the Caddoan salt, and later, horse trades (Brain 1977), and like them, the Natchitoches quickly began capitalizing on their French connection. The Natchitoches employed an old Caddoan trade strategy, that of moving to the edge of another tribe’s territory, in order to be near their customers, and later returning to their own territory. Accordingly, the Natchitoches claimed a crop failure and relocated to the vicinity of Lake Pontchartrain, to trade with the French. Eventually, in 1714, they returned to Red River with St. Denis (McWilliams 1953). Likewise, the Ouachita had just moved back from the Ouachita River where they had relocated in order to trade with Tunican speakers (Gregory 1974).

After St. Denis returned to Red River in 1714, the Caddoan people in Louisiana were to be impacted constantly by European migrants. Indian polity and territory were eroded severely by more European settlements and the depredations of displaced populations of other Indian tribes like the Choctaw, Quapaw, and Osage.

Fort St. Jean Baptiste aux Natchitos was founded in 1714; it was the earliest European settlement in northwestern Louisiana. The East Texas missions, started in 1690, had not introduced many non-Indians to that area. The French settlements were different, however, and the Caddoan people began to see a gradual augmentation of European population. The French had, in general, good relations with the Caddo and by the 1720’s a number of them had Caddoan kinsmen.

In 1723, to counter French attempts at establishing a western trade, the Spanish established an outpost, Nuestra Señora del Pilar de Los Adaes (Bolton 1914). The Spanish presidio, or fort, became a hub for clandestine traders—French, Indian and Spanish—and lasted for some fifty years (Gregory 1974). Horses, cattle, and Lipan Apache (Connechi) slaves were traded via Los Adaes, and by the mid-eighteenth century the Spanish governors had named the site the capital of Spanish Texas.

The Caddo—Adaes, Natchitoches, Ouachita, Doustioni, and all the others—were caught between the political and economic machinations of the European powers. Gradually, the seesaw of European boundaries crossed what the Caddo all knew as their tribal territories. Traders resided in their larger communities, and seasonal hunts to the west tied them to the mercantile policies of the French and Spanish. After Louisiana was ceded to Spain at the end of the French and Indian War, French traders were left in charge of most Indian affairs in Louisiana because of the quality of their relationship to the Indians. For example, Athanase de Mézières (Bolton 1914), St. Denis’ son-in-law, became a power on the frontier because of his close relationship to the Caddo.

Caddoan-European ties remained close until 1803 when the Louisiana Purchase brought Anglo-Americans into contact with the Caddoan groups. The Anglo-Americans had new trade and military policies, and in spite of their agreement to recognize all prior treaties between France, Spain, and Indian tribes, they were not very careful to do this. The French and Spanish had ratified land sales by tribes and had insisted that their citizens respect Caddoan land and sovereignty, but the Americans saw new lands with few settlements, and were quick to encourage white settlement. The old Caddo-French-Spanish symbiosis was ending.

The Caddoan-speaking groups began to move together by the late eighteenth century. The Kadohadacho apparently absorbed several smaller groups—Upper Natchitoches, Nanatsoho, and Nasoni—and shifted south. Osage raids had taken their toll and the Kadohadacho moved to Caddo Prairie, farther from the plains, on marginal land (Swanton 1942). They settled on the hills to the southwest of the prairie (Soda Lake) near modern Caddo Station and added their numbers to the other Red River tribes in Louisiana.

Beset by many problems, the American agents at Natchitoches began moving the agency about, trying to keep the Caddo away from white settlements. It was moved to Grand Ecore, Sulphur Fork, Caddo Prairie, and finally to Bayou Pierre about six to seven miles south of Shreveport (Williams 1964).

The Louisiana Caddoans also found themselves estranged from their cultural kinsmen in eastern Texas. First, the East Texas tribes remained under Spanish domination while their neighbors were American. Policies in Texas were quite different until the Texas Revolution and the foundation of the Republic in the 1830’s and 1840’s. The new Texicans refused to allow old patterns of trade and traverse for fear of having to deal with even larger Indian populations.

The Caddoan tribes were consolidated enough by 1834 that the American agents had begun to treat them as though they were a single group. The term Caddo, an abbreviated cover term for Kadohadacho, one of the larger groups, began to cover all the tribes in the American Period. It was this amalgam of tribal units with which the United States decided to deal.

On June 25-26, 1835, some 489 Caddo gathered at the Caddo Agency seven or eight miles south of Shreveport on Bayou Pierre and on July 1, 1835, they agreed to sell to the United States approximately one million acres of land in the area above Texarkana, Arkansas, south to De Soto Parish, Louisiana (Swanton 1942). Two chiefs, Tarsher (Wolf) and Tsauninot, were the leaders of the Caddoan groups present at the land cession.

Present also at the land cession was their interpreter, Larkin Edwards, a man they regarded so highly that they reserved him a sizable piece of land (McClure and Howe 1937; Swanton 1942). Further, the treaty reserved a sizable block of land for the mixed Caddo-French Grappe family. Descended from a Kadohadacho woman and a French settler, François Grappe had served his people well. His efforts to protect not only the Caddo, but also the Bidai and others in East Texas, from American traders had resulted in his termination as chief interpreter for the American agents. The Caddoan people continued to respect and honor him.

The Caddo were to be paid $80,000, of which $30,000 was in goods delivered at the signing, and the remainder in annual $10,000 installments for another five years. Immediately Tarsher led his people into Texas and settled on the Brazos River, much to the chagrin of Texas authorities (Gullick 1921). Another group, led by Chief Cissany, stayed in Louisiana. They lived near Caddo Station in 1842 (seven years after the land cession). Texicans actually invaded the United States to insist that the Caddos disarm, the rumor in Texas being that the American agent had armed the Caddo and made incendiary remarks regarding the new Republic. The Louisiana chiefs offered to go to Nacogdoches as hostages to show their good faith, but the Texicans refused them on the grounds it might mean recognition of Caddoan land rights and polity in Texas (Gullick 1921).

Eventually these Louisiana Caddo left—their credit was cut off by local merchants, their payments ended, and the United States protection was failing—and headed for the Kiamichi River country in Oklahoma. The Caddoan presence in Louisiana, after a millennium, or more, was over.

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One of the most difficult problems in American archaeology is the firm connection of historic tribal locations to specific material remains and sites. In recent years a number of efforts (Wyckoff 1974; Tanner 1974; Williams 1964; Gregory and Webb 1965; Neuman 1974) have dealt with this topic for the Louisiana Caddoan groups.

Again, the term Caddo has no real meaning. Each of the groups had its own political existence, and both the Spanish and French realized that. Their approach to Indian affairs has left us much better information than that of the Americans. John Sibley, the first American agent, with the aid of the half-Caddo, François Grappe, gave us good information, but through time the American policy increasingly obscured tribal groups. By the time of the 1835 land cession the Americans were talking merely of the Caddo Nation. In the 1835 Treaty not a single warrior was identified by tribe, nor were the chiefs (Swanton 1942); this was a purely political machination by the Americans.

Since the early American policy has obscured the tribal diversity and history of the Caddoan groups in Louisiana, it seems in order to return to the older practice of recognizing the individual groups. Each will be discussed briefly, in turn, and archaeological sites will be related where possible. As was the practice in French and Spanish days, the tribes will be discussed from southernmost to northernmost, as they would be encountered as one ascended the Red River.

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The Natchitoches, or “Place of the Paw-Paw” (all translations by Melford Williams, personal communication, 1973), sometimes simply stated as the “Paw-Paw People,” were the southernmost Caddoan group. They had absorbed the Ouachita (“Cow River People”) by 1690 (Gregory 1974) and will be treated as a single group here.

The Natchitoches lived in a series of small hamlets, each with its own cemetery and corn fields. One hamlet had a temple which was described by Tonti (Walker 1935) and their whole settlement stretched from about Bermuda, Louisiana, to the vicinity of Natchitoches. Throughout their early history they remained in the alluvial valley of the Red River where only a few areas, usually “islands” of older terraces, were above the active floodplain. Wyckoff (1974) has stated that they preferred the tupelo gum-bald cypress biotic zone along the Red River, but in reality they seem to have lived on the mixed hardwood, cane-covered natural levees or in the oak-hickory ecological communities found on higher ground.

Natchitoches chiefs’ names are scarce, and one gets the impression that their chiefs were not very powerful. However, St. Denis seems to have purchased property from a chief called the White Chief. It can be assumed that the tribes all had Caddi, tama and priests. However, it seems that there were more egalitarian structures among the Natchitoches, Adaes, and Yatasi than in the East Texas or Great Bend groups.

Documents indicate that at least four sites were occupied by the Natchitoches between 1690 and 1803: White Chief’s village, Captain’s village (Pintado Papers), La Pinière village (Bridges and Deville 1967:239), and Lac des Muire village (Sibley 1832; Abel 1933). There are a larger number of archaeological sites which have yielded Natchitoches Engraved, Keno Trailed, or Emory Incised ceramic vessels or sherds, catlinite pipes, glass trade beads, copper or brass objects, knives, and gun parts. These include the U. S. Fish Hatchery (Walker 1935), the Lawton (Webb 1945), the Southern Compress (Gregory and Webb 1965), Natchitoches Country Club, Chamard House, American Cemetery, Settle’s Camp, and Kenny Place sites (Gregory 1974).

The Southern Compress and American Cemetery sites seem to correspond to White Chief’s villages. The Fish Hatchery and Kenny Place sites are likely combinations of Ouachita and Natchitoches groups visited by Tonti and others. Settle’s Camp site and Country Club site are along the high hills west of the modern town of Natchitoches and may well be the dispersed settlement known as La Pinière (Pine Woods) to the French. Chamard House site may have belonged to the French trader Chamard, or possibly one of the Grappes; located on the bluff overlooking the active Red River, it remains undocumented.

The Lawton site was the site seized for debts from the son of the Christian Indian, known as Pierre Captain, probably a sub-chief or possibly a tama, of the Natchitoches (Pintado Papers: 139). The latest Natchitoches village, Lac des Muire, was north of Powhatan and on the west bank of the Red River. Sibley (1922) pointed out that although the tribe was reduced in number they retained their language and distinctive dress. They were farmers and lived in houses, presumably their traditional wattle-daub constructions.

Natchitoches land was gradually surrounded by Anglo-Americans and, by the time of the Caddo Treaty, Natchitoches was a thriving community. The tribe lived north of the town, near the Grappes (their cultural broker with the whites). Local tradition holds that they were loaded on a steamboat on the Front Street dock and taken to Oklahoma in 1835—something that obviously did not happen. In 1843 the tribe was still together under Chief Cho-wee (The Bow) and living near the Kadohadacho on the Trinity River in Texas (Swanton 1942:96).

In the 1960’s Caddos living near Anadarko, Oklahoma, still could sing a few Natchitoches songs (Claude Medford, Jr., personal communication, 1975) and the late Mrs. Sadie Weller recorded in that language. Most contemporary Caddo remember the tribal name and a few “old” words, but as a distinct group the Natchitoches seem to have been absorbed by the Kadohadacho and Hasinai.

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The Adaes (from Na·dai which meant “A Place Along a Stream”) were supposed to have had a village on Red River, near the Natchitoches. If their reported village is taken to mean a dispersed series of kin-based hamlets—what Spanish colonial people called rancherías—the previously described Chamard site may be it.

In the 1720’s the Spanish established a mission for the Adaes, but its priest and one lay-soldier were expelled by the French lieutenant, Blondel (Bolton 1921). At the time there were no Indians living at the mission. Apparently, they relocated nearer the Spanish, but conversions were rare, and the Adaes were more interested in trade than religion. So, for that matter, were the Spanish, and when the presidio (now called Los Adaes) was established in 1723, ostensibly to protect the mission, the Adaes seem to have lived all around the vicinity.

Los Adaes then became essentially an Indian dominated community: Lipan, Coahuiltecans, Adaes, Wichita, Tawakoni, and others lived there off and on. Even the commandant, Gil Ybarbo, was married to a mestiza, a half-Indian woman. Whenever the Spanish authorities in Texas needed translators for Caddoan languages, they sent for soldiers from Los Adaes (Blake Papers).

There was an Adaes village near Big Hill Firetower at a place called La Gran Montaña (Bolton 1962) which has never been found, and another nineteenth century village on Lac Macdon. The latter is probably a later village than the one known on Spanish Lake where burials with European goods were excavated by James A. Ford (1936, unpublished fieldnotes, Museum of Geoscience, Louisiana State University).

Taylor (1963:51-59) finally placed Adaes as a definite Caddoan language, but it was the most deviant of all (Sibley 1832), and the Adaes became more and more western in their cultural orientation (Gregory 1974). They gradually extended to the Sabine River where a late trash pit (A.D. 1740) at Coral Snake Mound may be evidence of their presence (McClurkan, Field and Woodall 1966). It contained glass trade beads, and a French musket lock was found nearby. Their Lac Macdon village, where they remained as late as 1820, was probably near the water body known today as Berry Brake and may well be on Allen Plantation.

Little is known of Adaes history or culture. De Mézières (Bolton 1914:173) noted that they were severely impacted by Europeans and “extremely given to the vice of drunkenness.” Like the Natchitoches, they seem to have had close relationships with the Yatasi who were sometimes called the Nadas, likely a homonym for Na·dais.

One Adaes chief who was their leader in the 1770’s has been identified and they are clearly an archaeologically distinct group. Gregory (1974) has pointed out the higher frequencies of bone-tempered pottery and the ceramic types Patton Engraved and Emory Incised from trash pits at Los Adaes.

Unlike the Natchitoches and others, the Adaes are not remembered by contemporary Caddo who may have heard of them merely as part of the Yatasi, who are remembered as a group. Many may have been absorbed, as Christians, into the general mestizo population at Los Adaes and still have descendants in northwestern Louisiana.

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Swanton (1942) translates Doustioni as “Salt People,” and they seem to have lived near the salines northeast of Natchitoches. Little else is known about them, and they do not seem to persist into the nineteenth century. They either disappeared or mingled with the Natchitoches.

A large village site, on Little Cedar Lick, has yielded shell-tempered sherds, Venetian glass beads, and French faience, all early to middle eighteenth century artifact types. The site probably was the major Doustioni settlement. Other evidence of late occupations appears at Drake’s Lick. Williams (1964) points out that the Doustioni once had a village below the Natchitoches, and, though it has not been located, it may have been near the confluence of Saline Bayou and Red River, somewhere below Clarence, Louisiana. Saline Bayou provides easy access to the salt licks and was described by several early travelers (Le Page du Pratz 1774).

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The name Yatasi, meaning simply “Those Other People” in Kadohadacho language (Melford Williams, personal communication, 1977) apparently was applied to a number of groups living in the hills north of the Adaes and south of Caddo Lake. At least three villages are attributed to them historically. One, located near Mansfield on Bayou Pierre in the Red River Valley north of Natchitoches, was large enough to have a resident trader (Bolton 1914). The Pintado Papers also refer to a group and their chief, Antoine, who were living on a prairie known as Nabutscahe near Mansfield as late as 1784. Another village was located near LaPointe on Bayou Pierre (American State Papers 1859), and a third was near the Sabine River close to modern Logansport (Darby 1816).

As was pointed out, the Adaes and Yatasi apparently were fairly closely related, and they may not have been real tribes, but rather a series of kin-linked bands, each with its own autonomy. The Caddoan term for these groups sounds much like a more inclusive term which lumps small, scattered groups. Whether their “chiefs” were really chiefs or local, heuristic leaders remains problematical. Bolton (1914) mentions chiefs, stating that the Athanase de Mézières gave peace medals to two chiefs, Cocay and Gunkan, in 1768.

Presently, the archaeological picture seems to support the hypothesis that the Yatasi included a number of small autonomous bands. A cluster of sites is located around Chamard Lake: the Arnold or Bead Hill site (Gregory and Webb 1965), the Wilkinson site (Ford 1936), and the Eagle Brake site (Gregory 1974). These sites have fairly large, deep middens and all have yielded Natchitoches Engraved sherds and trade goods. This is somewhat different from the scattered shallow sites nearer Natchitoches and suggests more clustered populations, but still a dispersed settlement pattern. None of these archaeological sites seems to correspond to the Red River-Bayou Pierre sites, though they shared the drainage. Although it is known that the Lafittes, Poisot, and Rambin claims were near the Yatasi villages, and all of these settlers traded with the tribe (Pintado Papers:82-84), their documented sites remain to be found.

Contemporary Caddo, most of whom are Kadohadacho or Hasinai, frequently mention the Yatasi when asked about other groups and know they once existed. However, it remains obscure whether the Yatasi were one or many little groups. They seem to have been absorbed by the Kadohadacho, but it is hard to trace them after the American land sales.

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The Kadohadacho (“Great Chiefs” in the Caddoan languages) were the dominant Caddoan-speaking group in the Red River Valley. They occupied a widely dispersed settlement with a temple and a mound, in northeastern Texas and probably near the Great Bend at Texarkana. The Petit Caddo, Nasoni, Nanatsoho, and Upper Natchitoches were absorbed by the Kadohadacho, and the tribes abandoned their Great Bend villages (at least four archaeological sites there seem related to these groups) and shifted south to Caddo Lake. Once there, their chief, Tinhiouen, dealt politically with both the Spanish (Bolton 1914) and the Americans.

The Kadohadacho language was the most widely understood of all the Caddoan tongues, and, according to early accounts (Sibley 1922), the tribe was the most influential of all the Caddos. They had a sort of warrior class comparable to the “Knights of Malta.” It is, therefore, not surprising that the Kadohadacho became the Caddo Nation of the American Period (Williams 1964).

The Kadohadacho settled, at least by 1797 (Swanton 1942), at a location known as Timber Hill (Mooney 1896:323) near Caddo Lake (Swanton 1942). Williams (1964) has pointed out that this village has never been located archaeologically. However, it should be noted that the Texicans placed the tribe near Caddo Station in 1842 (Gullick 1921).

Immediately after the American land treaty, the tribe apparently split into factions. A group under Tarsher moved to the Brazos River in Texas; the others stayed in Louisiana until at least 1842, when they apparently moved to live with the Choctaw some time that year (Swanton 1942:95).

The late Miss Caroline Dormon (1935, unpublished field notes, Special Collections, Eugene Watson Library, Northwestern State University) recorded a single burial, with a “silver crown, copper, etc.,” which was found near Stormy Point on Ferry Lake by James Shenich, son-in-law of Larkin Edwards. This burial may have been very near the Kadohadacho village. According to the Dormon notes, this was a favorite crossing to Shreveport and the Indian trace was visible as late as the 1860’s. In spite of the fact that “Glendora Focus” artifacts were not present (Williams 1964), it can no longer be said that there were no historic Caddoan sites in the Treaty Cession areas of De Soto and Caddo parishes. In fact there is a good possibility that this was the grave of the powerful chief, Dahaut, who died in 1833 (Caddo Agency Letters).

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The Caddo left their names, art, and culture in Louisiana. A number of colonial European families can boast of Caddoan ancestors: Grappes, Brevelles, Balthazars, and others. In Oklahoma, after years of wandering, the Kadohadacho and Hasinai have become the dominant groups. Yet, as has been pointed out, old traditions persist. People still recall stories of floods on Caddo Prairie which left cows hanging by their horns in the trees, and know that Natchitoches meant the place of “little yellow fruits” that do not grow in Oklahoma.

At Binger and near Hinton, Oklahoma, the old songs and dances continue to be heard and seen. The Turkey Dance still is held before the sun sets, and individuals sing the “Dawn Song” or “Tom Cat Song” on their way home from the dancing.

The Caddo now visit Louisiana, especially Natchitoches and Shreveport, to see the places of their tradition. Places are part of Indian tradition and pilgrimages are sacred acts. Perhaps now other Louisianians will join the Caddo who realize how much Indian culture remains in northwestern Louisiana.

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