This narrative history of the Caddo Indians creates a vivid picture of daily life in the Caddo Nation. Using archaeological data, oral histories, and descriptions by explorers and settlers, Cecile Carter introduces impressive Caddo leaders past and present. The book provides observations, stories, and vignettes on twentieth-century Caddos and invites the reader to recognize the strengths, rooted in ancient culture, that have enabled the Caddos to survive epidemics, enemy attacks, and displacement from their original homelands in Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, and Oklahoma.

First published in 1942, John R. Swanton’s Source Material on the History and Ethnology of the Caddo Indians is a classic reference on the Caddos. Long regarded as the dean of southeastern Native American studies, Swanton worked for decades as an ethnographer, ethnohistorian, folklorist, and linguist. In this volume he presents the history and culture of the Caddos according to the principal French, Spanish, and English sources. In the seventeenth century, French and Spanish explorers encountered four regional alliances-Cahinnio, Cadohadacho, Hasinai, and Natchitoches-within the boundaries of the present-day states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma. Their descriptions of Caddo culture are the earliest sources available, and Swanton weaves the information from these primary documents into a narrative, translated into English, for the benefit of the modern reader. For the scholar, he includes in an appendix the extire test of three principal documents in their original Spanish. The first half of the book is devoted to an extensive history of the Caddos, from De Soto’s encounters in 1521 to the Caddos’ involvement in the Ghost Dance Religion of 1890. The second half discusses Caddo culture, including origin legends and religious beliefs, material culture, social relations, government, warfare, leisure, and trade. For this edition, Helen Hornbeck Tanner also provides a new foreword surveying the scholarship published on the Caddos since Swanton’s time.

The Caddo and Comanche were two of the largest American Indian groups living in Texas before European contact. This Spanish-translated nonfiction title explores the history of the Caddo and Comanche, how they adapted to European colonists and American settlers, and the impact they made on Texas history. The Hasinai, Kadohadacho, Natchitoches, Comanche Nation of Oklahoma, and Shoshone are some of the tribes that readers will discover through engaging sidebars and facts, intriguing images, easy to read text, and a supportive glossary, index, and table of contents.

Bilingual Edition in English and Caddo Language Tsa Chayah/How The Turtle Got Its Squares is a traditional Caddo Indian story that reaches back through countless generations into the Caddo past in what is now Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma. In those days much of the entertainment and education of Caddos took the form of stories and songs that were passed from generation to generation in the Caddo language. They explained the natural world, history, and moral lessons. In the late 1950s linguist Wallace Chafe met storyteller Sadie Bedoka Weller, recorded this story and transcribed it in an alphabet customized to the sounds of Caddo. In recent generations the Caddo language has fallen almost completely out of use; stories like Tsa Chayah have rested silently in archives and scholarly books. Now the Kiwat Hasinay Foundation has brought the story to life again, with original illustrations by Caddo artist Robin Michelle Montoya. The text is written in Chafes alphabet, and the actual voice of Sadie Bedoka can be heard on a CD that is available to accompany the book. Tsa Chayah, with its bilingual format and CD, helps children read and write English, read and write Caddo, understand and even speak a sample of spoken Caddo. Above all, it brings the wisdom and culture of the past once again into the present and future of the Caddo people. --Alice Anderton, Intertribal Wordpath Society Retold for the first time in print with Caddo language and English text and delightful illustrations, this charming book introduces a story told by generations of Caddo Indian Nation storytellers to capture the imaginations of their children. The story of How The Turtle Got Its Squares will fascinate andentertain new storytellers and their young listeners alike. --Cecile Elkins Carter, Caddo Historian and Storyteller, Author of Caddo Indians: Where We Come From

Authors Vynola B. Newkumet and Howard L. Meredith culled traditional lore and scholarly research to survey the major landmarks of the Hasinai experience--the Caddo Indians of the American Southwest.

For centuries, the Caddos occupied the southern prairies and woodlands across portions of Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. Organized into powerful chiefdoms during the Mississippian period, Caddo society was highly ceremonial, revolving around priest-chiefs, trade in exotic items, and the periodic construction of mounds. Their distinctive heritage helped the Caddos to adapt after the European invasion and to remain the dominant political and economic power in the region. New ideas, peoples, and commodities were incorporated into their cultural framework. The Caddos persisted and for a time even thrived, despite continual raids by the Osages and Choctaws, decimation by diseases, and escalating pressures from the French and Spanish. The Caddo Chiefdoms offers the most complete accounting available of early Caddo culture and history. Weaving together French and Spanish archival sources, Caddo oral history, and archaeological evidence, David La Vere presents a fascinating look at the political, social, economic, and religious forces that molded Caddo culture over time. Special attention is given to the relationship between kinship and trade and to the political impulses driving the successive rise and decline of Caddo chiefdoms. Distinguished by thorough scholarship and an interpretive vision that is both theoretically astute and culturally sensitive, this study enhances our understanding of a remarkable southeastern Native people.