Ian Thompson Roman Art and Archaeology Oklahoma

This piece courtesy of Jeri Redcorn copyright. This is her Turkey Dance Tripod and was recently presented to Justice Sandra Day O'Connor who did the turkey dance with Jeri. The Turkey Dance, Nuh-Koa-Shun is the most ceremonial of the Caddo dances and is a victory dance. We will be interviewing Jeri at her home and studio in Norman Oklahoma.

TheCaddo Nation is a confederacy of several Southeastern Native American tribes, who traditionally inhabited much of what is at present E Texas, northernLouisiana and portions of southern Arkansas and Oklahoma. Today theCaddo Nation of Oklahoma is a cohesive tribe with its upper-case letter at Binger, Oklahoma. The unlike Caddo languages have converged into a unmarried linguistic communication. The Caddo Nation is a federally recognized tribe. They were previously known equally the Caddo Tribe of Oklahoma. A tribal constitution provides for a tribal quango consisting of eight members with a chairperson, based in Binger, Oklahoma.^[2] The tribal complex, dance grounds, and the Caddo Heritage Museum are located due south of Binger. 5000 people are enrolled in the tribe, with 2500 living within the state of Oklahoma. The tribe operates its ain housing authority and problems its own tribal vehicle tags.^[1] They maintain administrative centers, trip the light fantastic toe grounds, several community centers, and an active NAGPRA office.

Several programs exist to invigorate Caddo traditions. The tribe sponsors a summer culture military camp for children.^[3] The Hasinai Society^[4] and Caddo Civilisation Guild^[5] both keep Caddo songs and dances alive, while the Kiwat Hasinay Foundation is dedicated to preserving the Caddo language.^[6]

Archæology

Map of the Caddoan Mississippian culture and some important sites

The Caddo are thought to be an extension of Woodland menstruum peoples, the Fourche Maline culture and Mossy Grove cultures who were living in the area of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas between 200 BCE to 800 CE.^[eight] The Wichita and Pawnee are related to the Caddo, as shown by their speaking Caddoan languages. By 800 CE this society had begun to coalesce into the Caddoan Mississippian culture. Some villages began to proceeds prominence as ritual centers, with elite residences and temple mound constructions. The mounds were arranged around open plazas, which were unremarkably kept swept clean and were frequently used for ceremonial occasions. Every bit circuitous religious and social ideas adult, some people and family unit lineages gained prominence over others.^[8] By 1000 CE a society that is defined every bit "Caddoan" had emerged. By 1200 the numerous villages, hamlets, and farmsteads established throughout the Caddo globe had begun extensive maize agriculture.^[8] Their artistic skills and earthwork mound-building flourished during the 12h and 13th centuries.^[nine] Spiro mounds, some of the about elaborate in the United states of america, were made by ancestors of the Caddo and Wichita.^[x] The Caddo were farmers and enjoyed good growing conditions most of the time. Yet, the Pineywoods were afflicted by the Not bad Drought, from 1276–1299 CE.^[eleven]

Archeological prove that the cultural continuity is unbroken from prehistory to the nowadays, and that the direct ancestors of the Caddo and relatedCaddo linguistic communication speakers in prehistoric times and at commencement European contact and the modernistic Caddo Nation of Oklahoma is unquestioned today.^[12]

[edit] Oral history

Caddo oral history says the tribe emerged from an secret cavern, chosenChahkanina or "the identify of crying," located at the confluence of the Red andMississippi Rivers in northern Louisiana. Their leader, named Moon, instructed the people not to look back. An former Caddo homo carried with him a drum, a pipe, and fire, all of which continued to be important religious items. His wife carried corn and pumpkin seeds. Every bit people and accompanying animals emerged, the wolf looked back and the exit was closed to the remaining people and animals.^[13]

The Caddo peoples moved w forth the Ruby River, orBah'hatteno in Caddo.^[14] A Caddo woman,Zacado, instructed the tribe in hunting, angling, home structure, and vesture. Caddo religion focuses onKadhi háyuh, translating to "Lord Above" or "Lord of the Sky." In early times, the people were led by priests, including a caput priest, thexinesi, who could commune with spirits residing about Caddo temples.^[13] A cycle of ceremonies corresponded to corn cultivation. Tobacco was and is used ceremonially. Early on priests drank a purifying sacrament made of wild olive leaves.^[15]

[edit] Geography

The Caddo lived in the Piney Woods eco-region of the United States up to the foothills of the Ozark Mountains and often well-nigh the Caddo River. The Piney Forest is a dense forest of deciduous and conifer flora covering rolling hills, steep river valleys, and intermittent wetlands calledBayous. Several Caddo villages were resettled, including the customs of Elysian Fields, Texas, and Nacogdoches and Natchitoches both of which accept kept their original names. The Caddo were progressively moved further west until they reached what is now western Oklahoma. The geography of the drier plains was quite a dissimilarity to the lush hilly wood that were formerly their homeland. The Caddo's food varied in many types, the near common beingness dried corn. Sunflower seeds and pumpkins were besides important staples with cultural significance, as were wild turkeys.

[edit] Postal service-contact history

Kaw-u-tz, photographed in 1906. Photo courtesy SMU.

The Caddo get-go encountered Europeans in 1541 when the Hernando de Soto Expedition came through their lands.^[xvi] De Soto'south force had a violent clash with one band of Caddo Indians, the Tula, nigh Caddo Gap, Arkansas. This event is marked by a monument that stands in the minor boondocks today.

The Caddo tribes were divided into three confederacies when beginning encountered past the Europeans, theHasinai,Kadohadacho, andNatchitoches, and loosely affiliated with other tribes. The Haisinai lived in E Texas, the Kadohadacho lived near the edge of Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, and the Natchitoches lived in now northern Louisiana.^[17]

Earlier extensive European contact, some of the Caddo territory was invaded by migrating Osage, Ponca, Omaha and Kaw, who had moved west get-go about 1200 CE because of years of warfare with the Iroquois in the Ohio River surface area of present-mean solar day Kentucky. The Osage especially dominated the Caddo and pushed them out of some former territory, becoming dominant in the region of Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma. The new tribes had go well settled in their new traditional grounds due west of the Mississippi by mid-18th century European contact.^[14]

Having given fashion over years earlier the power of the quondam Ohio Valley tribes, Caddos later on negotiated for place with Spanish, French, and finally Anglo-American settlers. After the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, the U.s.a. government sought to ally with the Caddos. In 1835 theKadohadacho, the northernmost Caddo confederacy, signed a treaty with the US to relocate to and so United mexican states. This area had been rapidly transformed by greatly increased clearing of European Americans, who in 1836 declared independence from Mexico with the Republic of Texas.^[14] "Texas" comes from theHasinai wordtáysha?, significant "friend."^[18]

In 1845 when Texas was admitted to the Usa equally a country, the government forced the relocation of both theHasinai and theKadohadacho onto the Brazos Reservation. In 1859 many of the Caddo were relocated to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. Afterwards the Civil War, the Caddo were full-bodied on a reservation located between the Washita and Canadian Rivers.^[14]

In the late 19th century, the Caddo took upwards the Ghost Dance faith, which was widespread among American Indian nations in the West. John Wilson, a Caddo-Delaware medicine man who spoke onlyCaddo, was an influential leader in the Ghost Dance. In 1880, Wilson became apeyote roadman. The tribe had known the Half Moon peyote ceremony, but Wilson introduced the Big Moon ceremony to them.^[19] The Caddo tribe remains very active in the Native American Church building today.

Subsequently the turn of the century, the Curtis Human action dismantled tribal institutions. The Dawes Human action was directed at absorption by breaking up tribal mutual landholdings into allotments for individual members. The Caddo vigorously opposed allotment. Whitebread, a Caddo leader, said, that "because of their peaceful lives and friendship to the white human being, and through their ignorance were not consulted, and have been ignored and stuck away in a corner and allowed to exist by sufferance."^[xiv]

The Oklahoma Indian Welfare Deed of 1936 provided the opportunity for the Caddo to reform their tribal government. They organized in 1938 as the Caddo Indian Tribe of Oklahoma. They ratified their constitution on 17 January 1938.^[2] In 1976, they drafted a new constitution. During the 20th century, Caddo leaders such as Melford Williams, Harry Guy, Hubert Halfmoon, and Vernon Hunter have shaped the tribe.^[14]

In a special election on 29 June 2002, six amendments were made to the constitution. Tribal enrollment is open to individuals with a documented minimum of 1/16 degree Caddo blood.^[20]

John Wilson (1860-1901), Caddo peyote roadman
Sho-due east-tat (Little Boy) or George Washington (1816-1883), Louisiana Caddo leader
A stirrup dance past the Caddo Culture Order, Caddo National Circuitous, Binger, 2008
Caddo dancers, members of the Caddo Cultural Club, Binger, Oklahoma, 2008