Caddo

Caddo Government

Between the northern and southern divisions of the tribe the prime distinction is in the chieftaincy. Each division has its own chief (kadhi’). In missions to Washington both chiefs are expected to participate. One division would not be properly represented by the chief of the other division.  Since 1896 Enoch Hoag (Gen. 1, 7) has

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Kinship of the Caddo

Of any clanship system White Moon had never heard, and, whatever approach to the subject we made, he remained consistently unaware of clan groups. White Moon was born in 1897, and it seemed not improbable that his ignorance of clanship was characteristic of the younger generation of the tribe; but Ingkanish20 and Pardon were equally

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Supernatural Beliefs of the Caddo Indians

Grandfather or Father Sun, Earth (wadat’ina: wadat’, earth, ĭn’ă, mother), Fire (ibat’niko: ibat, grandfather, niko, fire), Lightning (ika adinin: ika, grandmother, adinin, lightning), Thunder (R. iGahabaGanswa, grandmother, noise maker, see p. 16), Winds, Cyclone, God, all are referred to by White Moon as supernatural beings, but so vaguely that in his mind, at least, they

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Caddo Stories

Stories were told at night, in winter (Pardon). The boys had to bathe in the creek early in the morning before the night of story telling. While listening to the story they had to sit straight. If the story was not told right it would turn cold. Caddo Creation Story The Caddo Tale of Lion

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Caddo Creation Story

White Moon knew little if anything of the tradition of tribal emergence from cave or underground which Caddo and other Southeasterners have in common with Southwesterners; but familiar to White Moon was the phrase, d’qki haiyano kin’aota, six human (peoples) out came a reference to the emergence from the earth of the traditional six tribal

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Rites of the Caddo

Exorcism By Fumigation This rite is performed, as we shall note, in Peyote ceremonial–when a participant returns to the ceremonial tipi after having had to leave it during the night, and, by all the participants at the close of the ceremony. Any one who would enter the room where a patient is being cured has

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War Dance

In the war dance (R. GucuuwiGaocan, Gu, where, cuuwi, men, braves, Gaocan, dance), the men bunch around the drum and move dancing around the dance floor. They carry a tomahawk or a scalp on a stick, and wear the typical war bonnet of eagle feathers fastened to a strip of cloth. On the face is

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Caddo Hunting

When the Caddo hunt Eagles are shot, not snared. If you picked up the feather dropped by a live eagle, there would be a death in the family (Ingkanish). After shooting an eagle, or finding a dead eagle, you must notify your people, “otherwise something awful will happen to you; eagles have wonderful power.” Ritual

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Caddo Geographical Location

The remnants of the Caddo confederacies of northwestern Louisiana and northeastern Texas settled in Oklahoma in 1859. After the Louisiana  Purchase when Louisiana bands joined their tribesmen in Texas all lived there peaceably until some White Texans determined upon an indiscriminate massacre of raiding Comanche and of all Reservation Indians. The Caddo escaped by a forced

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