Description
The Tawakoni are a Southern Plains Native American tribe, closely related to the Wichitas. They historically spoke a Wichita language of the Caddoan language family. Currently, they are enrolled in the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes, a federally recognized tribe. At the beginning of the 18th century, the Tawakoni lived in villages in what is now Oklahoma and Texas. In Texas, the Tawakoni were closely allied with the Waco tribe. Until 1770, they were friendly to the French but hostile to the Spanish. Chief Quiscat traveled to San Antonio in 1772 to try to make peace with the Spanish, but this did not have a lasting effect. European-American settlers fought with the tribes in the 1820s, and disease and warfare had dramatically reduced their numbers.
Language
Wichita language of the Caddoan language
Culture
In 1719 French explorer Jean Baptiste Bénard de La Harpe made an expedition into present Oklahoma. Traveling north from the Red River, he reached the Arkansas River, where a Tawakoni village was situated near the present site of Haskell in Muskogee County. The French reported that the tribe raised large quantities of corn and tobacco. Plains Native Americans lived in both sedentary and nomadic communities. They farmed corn, hunted, and gathered, establishing diverse lifestyles and healthy diets. When horses arrived on the Plains along with the Spanish colonizers, or conquistadores, they disrupted agricultural norms and intensified hunting competition between Native American groups.