Description
The Caddo people comprise the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma, a federally recognized tribe headquartered in Binger, Oklahoma. The Caddo Confederacy was a network of Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands, who historically inhabited much of what is northeast Texas, west Louisiana, southwestern Arkansas, and southeastern Oklahoma.[2] Prior to European contact, they were the Caddoan Mississippian culture, who constructed huge earthwork mounds at several sites in this territory, flourishing about 800 to 1400 CE. In the early 19th century, Caddo people were forced to a reservation in Texas. In 1859, they were removed to Indian Territory. Twentieth-century archeological investigations of many prehistoric Caddoan sites indicate that Caddo communities were widely dispersed throughout the major and minor stream valleys of the Caddoan area by around A.D. 800.
Language
They speak the Caddo language and is critically endangered, with no exclusively Caddo-speaking community and as of 2023 only 2 speakers who acquired the language as children outside school instruction, down from 25 speakers in 1997. Caddo has several mutually intelligible dialects. The most commonly used dialects are Hasinai and Hainai; others include Kadohadacho, Natchitoches and Yatasi.
Culture
The Caddo were a semisedentary agricultural people living in conical dwellings of poles covered with a thatch of grass and grouped around ceremonial temple mounds. They were skillful potters and basket makers, wove cloth of vegetable fibres and, on special occasions, wore mantles decorated with feathers. They also wore nose rings and, like many other southeastern tribes, adorned their bodies with tattoos. Traditional Caddo descent was matrilineal, and a hereditary upper group, marked by head flattening and other status symbols, directed political and religious activities. There are scattered reports of ceremonial human sacrifice and cannibalism; these and other traits probably indicate trade or other links between the Caddo and the centres of Aztec or Mayan cultures in Mexico and Yucatan.