Green Corn Ceremony of prehistoric Caddo Indians. Presumed village, dress, and utensils about A.D. 1000 as reconstructed from archaeological findings. Mural in Louisiana State Exhibit Museum, Shreveport. Clarence H. Webb Hiram F. Gregory August 1978 Baton Rouge, Louisiana STATE OF LOUISIANA Edwin Edwards Governor DEPARTMENT OF CULTURE, RECREATION AND TOURISM Dr. J. Larry Crain Secretary ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY AND ANTIQUITIES COMMISSION Ex-Officio Members Appointed Members...

More than 10,000 years of human settlement in Louisiana have left a cultural heritage that is both rich and informative. With the publication of “The Caddo Indians of Louisiana,” the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism is pleased to continue the series of Anthropological Studies that will illuminate some of the major episodes in Louisiana’s past. The two authors of the present study are eminently qualified authorities on the Caddo Indians. Dr. Clarence H. Webb, a well-known Shreveport

Northwestern Louisiana was occupied by the Caddo Indians during the period of early Spanish, French, and American contacts. By combining history and archaeology, the Caddo story can be traced back for a thousand years—a unique opportunity made possible by a long tradition of distinctive traits, especially in pottery forms and decorations. Our story of the Caddo Indians in Louisiana, therefore, begins around A.D. 800-900 and can be traced by archaeology well into the historic period. The center o

Northwestern Louisiana was occupied for thousands of years before the beginnings of Caddo culture. In the upland areas, along small streams and bordering the river valleys, projectile points and tools of Early and Late Paleo-Indian peoples have been found (Webb 1948b; Gagliano and Gregory 1965). In the western plains, the makers of the fluted Clovis and Folsom points hunted now extinct types of big game (mammoth, mastodon, sloth) between 10,000 and 8000 B.C. The later Plainview, Angostura, and S

At some time before A.D. 1000, and probably by A.D. 800, the traits associated with the beginnings of prehistoric Caddo culture replaced Coles Creek over the four-state area. The change may have started along Red River in northwestern Louisiana, although others have thought that a group of “culture bearers” entered the Caddoan area of eastern Texas overland from the more advanced culture centers of the Mexican Highlands. Whether the ideas that are shown in the prehistoric settlements came overla

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 w

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 succe

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 co

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 ho

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 affair

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 s

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

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 sett

The Ouachita were living on the river of that name before 1690. The most likely site is Pargoud Landing at Monroe where recent excavations have yielded early trade beads but no other goods (Lorraine Heartfield, personal communication, 1977). Other sites considered for the historic Ouachita were the Keno and Glendora sites (Gregory 1974; Williams 1964), but these are not certain since they may represent a Koroa (Tunica) village with Caddoan trade connections or vice-versa. However, animal burials

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 chie

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

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 fru

American State Papers 1859 Documents of the Congress of the United States in Relation to the Public Lands, Class VIII, Public Lands , Vol. 3, Washington. Blake Papers 1939 Translations of the Spanish Records of Nacogdoches County, Texas. Manuscript. Special Collections Library, Stephen F. Austin University, Nacogdoches. Bolton, Herbert E. 1914 Athanase de Mézières and the Louisiana-Texas Frontier, 1768-1780. Arthur H. Clark, Cleveland. 1921 The Spanish Borderlands. Yale University Press, New Hav