Caddo Origin Story
To understand the Caddo Origin Story I needed a physical location I could picture in my head.
George Sabo mentions in Dancing into the Past, the Caddo originated on the lower Red River in Lousiana at a lake close to the south bank where the Red River meets the "Mighty" Mississippi. A modern-day look at the area from Google maps has the general location near the town of Simmesport, LA - located near the juncture of the Red and Atchafalaya River with an outflow channel to the Mississippi. (Google Maps in conjunction with Wikipedia, accessed 2020) Sabo mentions a lake. There is Keller Lake on the map but whether this is "the" lake is unknown. There could have, also, been other lakes in the area that are no longer there. For reference, Simmesport sits at 46' above sea level.
The Origin Story begins with men and animals living underground in harmony. One day they discovered an entrance to a cave. Inside the cave, they found an opening to the surface of the Earth.
Curious, they decided to go to the surface. The first one to go up was an old man. He was carrying fire, a pipe, and a drum. His wife came up next. She was carrying corn and pumpkin seeds. After them, many people and animals came up. Then the wolf came up to the surface, but he was a trickster and closed up the entrance, trapping the rest of the people and animals underground - where they remain to this day.
The people that were on the surface realized their friends were trapped underground and they cried for a long time. They named the place Chá kaní na - which means "The Place of Crying".
Caddo Society
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| Caddo village scene about 900 years ago (A.D. 1100) as envisioned by artist George S. Nelson. This scene is based on archeological details from the George C. Davis site in east Texas and on early historic accounts. Courtesy of the artist and the Institute of Texan Cultures, the University of Texas at San Antonio. |
Caddo life in the late 1600s was highly organized. The Caddo lived in widespread communities made up of thatched huts made of local grass. They were made up of independent tribes that lived in villages and farms. Those close together made up the tribe. Each tribe had a religious and political leader. These two positions were inherited. The spiritual leader was called Xinesi. The political leader was Caddi. Village elders, known as Canahas were consulted often for serious matters concerning the tribe as a whole. Their god was known as Caddo Ayo and their medicine man as Connas.
Ancestry was traced through the maternal line. Upon marriage, the couple normally moved to the wife's tribe location. Roles were defined by age, sex, and kin group. Women were responsible for farming and cooking. Men cleared the fields, hunted, and gathered. The whole village harvested the crops.
The farms grew maize (corn), beans, squash, pumpkins, sunflowers, and other lesser-known plants.
The Europeans introduced watermelon, peaches, and tobacco. The men hunted for deer, turkey, rabbits, fish, and turtles. When the crops were not abundant, they turned to their stores which often contained hickory, walnuts, acorns, pecans, berries, plums, persimmons, and grapes that grew wild. (Texas Beyond History, n.d.)
The Turkey Dance - The Origin Story told through Song and Dance (Sabo 2003, paragraph 7)
The dance is started by the women of the tribe with men joining in phase 4. According to tradition, the dance must be completed during daylight hours. This time constraint means that the dance begins in the afternoon and continues through the night into the next day. The dance is a survival and victory dance.
Phase 1 begins with 4-8 male drummers sitting in a circle around a drum placed in the middle of the dancing ground. The drums are considered sacred objects as the beat of the drum represents the Earth's heartbeat. The drum contains pieces of flint or charcoal from a fire ignited by said flint. This symbolizes the fire the old man brought to the surface. With the first drum beats, singers call the dancers to the circle. The head dancer starts slowly and methodically - others join.
Phase 2 begins once the dance ground is filled. The singing begins. They are long songs relating to ancestral events. Songs of survival and victory are sung.
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| Phase 2 Turkey Dance; photo by Dayna lee |
Phase 3 - the dancers skip or hop-step - following the lead dancer away from the drum to the edge of the circle and back. They change direction - left to right then right to left. Then, they shift back to the original dance and resume circling around the drum.
Phase 4 - the women pick men from the crowd to join them for the final phase of dancing.
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| Leonard "Tony" Williams, Chairman of the Caddo Nation 1992. He was an enthusiastic Turkey Dance partner. Photo by Cecile Carter |
Texas Connection to the Caddo
Besides living in NE Texas - the state name, "Texas", came from the language of the Caddo.
Caddo called themselves "Táyshá" which means friend or ally. This term was misinterpreted as the tribal name. Táyshá became Tejas in Spanish. Tejas was, then, anglicized to Texas. (Canvas Module 5.1)
