Kaw-u-tz, photographed in 1906.
The Caddo Nation is a confederacy of several Southeastern Native American tribes. Their ancestors historically inhabited much of what is now East Texas, Louisiana and portions of southern Arkansas and Oklahoma. In the early 19th century, Cadd people were forced to a reservation in Texas then removed to Indian Territory in 1859.
Today, the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma is a federally recognized tribe with its capital at Binger, Oklahoma. Descendants of the historic Caddo tribes with documentation of at least 1/16 ancestry are eligible to enroll as members in the Caddo Nation. The several Caddo languages have converged into a single language.
The Caddo Nation was previously known as the Caddo Tribe of Oklahoma. The tribal constitution provides for election of an eight-person council, with a chairperson, based in Binger, Oklahoma.The tribe operates its own housing authority and issues its own tribal vehicle tags. It operates an administrative centers, dance grounds, several community centers, the Caddo Nation Heritage Museum, and an active NAGPRA office, located south of Binger. As of 2012, 5,757 people are enrolled in the nation, with 3,044 living within the state of Oklahoma.
The Caddo are thought to be an extension of Woodland period peoples, the Fourche Maline and Mossy Grove cultures whose members were living in the area of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas between 200 BCE to 800 CE. The Wichita and Pawnee are related to the Caddo, as both tribes speak Caddoan languages.
By 800 CE this society had begun to coalesce into the Caddoan Mississippian culture. Some villages began to gain prominence as ritual centers, where major earthworks were built, serving as temple mounds and elite residences. The mounds were arranged around leveled, large open plazas, which were usually kept swept clean and were often used for ceremonial occasions. As complex religious and social ideas developed, some people and family lineages gained prominence over others. By 1000 CE a society that is defined by archaeologists as "Caddoan" had emerged. By 1200 the many villages, hamlets, and farmsteads established throughout the Caddo world had developed extensive maize agriculture, producing a surplus that allowed for greater density of settlement. In these villages, artisans and craftsmen developed specialties. The artistic skills and earthwork mound-building of the Caddoan Mississippians flourished during the 12th and 13th centuries.
The Spiro mounds, near the Arkansas River in present-day southeastern Oklahoma, were some of the most elaborate mounds in the United States. They were made by Mississippian ancestors of the historic Caddo and Wichita tribes, in what is considered the westernmost point of the Mississippian culture.The Caddo were farmers and enjoyed good growing conditions most of the time. But, the Piney Woods, the geographic area where they lived, was affected by the Great Drought from 1276–1299 CE, which covered an area extending to present-day California and disrupted many Native American cultures.
Archeological evidence has confirmed that the cultural continuity is unbroken from prehistory to the present among these peoples. The Caddoan Mississippian people were the direct ancestors of the historic Caddo and related Caddo language speakers who encountered the first Europeans, as well as of the modern Caddo Nation of Oklahoma.
Caddo oral history of their creation story says the tribe emerged from an underground cave, called Chahkanina or "the place of crying," located at the confluence of the Red River of the South and Mississippi rivers in northern present-day Louisiana. Their leader, named Moon, instructed the people not to look back. An old Caddo man carried with him a drum, a pipe, and fire, all of which continued to be important religious items to the people. His wife carried corn and pumpkin seeds. As people and accompanying animals emerged, the wolf looked back, and the exit from the underground closed to the remaining people and animals.
The Caddo peoples moved west along the Red River, which they called Bah'hatteno in Caddo.[ A Caddo woman, Zacado, instructed the tribe in hunting, fishing, home construction, and making clothing. Caddo religion focuses on Kadhi háyuh, translating to "Lord Above" or "Lord of the Sky." In early times, the people were led by priests, including a head priest, the xinesi, who could commune with spirits residing near Caddo temples. A cycle of ceremonies corresponded to corn cultivation. Tobacco was and is used ceremonially. Early priests drank a purifying sacrament made of wild olive leaves.
The Caddo first encountered Europeans and Africans in 1541 when the Hernando de Soto Expedition came through their lands. De Soto's force had a violent clash with one band of Caddo Indians, the Tula, near present-day Caddo Gap, Arkansas. This historic event has been marked by the town with a monument.
French explorers in the early 18th century encountered the Natchitoche in northern Louisiana. They were followed by fur traders from outposts along the Gulf Coast, and later by missionaries from France and Spain, who also traveled among the people. The Europeans carried chronic infectious diseases, such as smallpox and measles, because these were endemic in their societies. As the Caddo peoples had no acquired immunity to such new diseases, they suffered epidemics with high fatalities that decimated the tribal populations. Influenza and malaria also devastated the Caddo.
French traders built forts with trading posts near Caddo villages. These stations attracted more French and other European settlers. Among such settlements are the present-day communities of Elysian Fields, and Nacogdoches, Texas, and Natchitoches, Louisiana. In the latter two towns, early explorers and settlers kept the original Caddo names of the villages.
Having given way over years before the power of the former Ohio Valley tribes, the later Caddo negotiated for peace with waves of Spanish, French, and finally Anglo-American settlers. After the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, by which the United States (US) took over the former French colonial territory west of the Mississippi River, the US government sought to ally with the Caddo peoples. During the War of 1812, American generals such as William Henry Harrison, William Clark (explorer), and Andrew Jackson crushed pro-British uprisings among other Southeast Indians. Due to the Caddo's neutrality and their importance as a source of information for the Louisiana Territory government, they were left alone. But in the 1830s, the federal government embarked on a program of Indian removal from Southeast areas desired for European-American settlement, as migrants pressed from the east.
In 1835 the Kadohadacho, the northernmost Caddo confederacy, signed a treaty with the US to relocate to Mexico (in the area of present-day east Texas). Then lightly settled by Mexican colonists, this area was being rapidly transformed by greatly increased immigration of European Americans. In 1836 the Americans declared independence from Mexico and established the Republic of Texas, an independent nation. The name "Texas" is derived from the Hasinai word táysha, meaning "friend."
In 1845 Texas was admitted to the US as a state. At that time, the federal government forced the relocation of both the Hasinai and the Kadohadacho onto the Brazos Reservation. In 1859 many of the Caddo were relocated again to Indian Territory north of Texas, in present-day Oklahoma. After the Civil War, the Caddo were concentrated on a reservation located between the Washita and Canadian rivers in Indian Territory.
In the late 19th century, the Caddo took up the Ghost Dance religion, which was widespread among American Indian nations in the West. John Wilson, a Caddo-Delaware medicine man who spoke only Caddo, was an influential leader in the Ghost Dance. In 1880, Wilson became a peyote roadman. The tribe had known the Half Moon peyote ceremony, but Wilson introduced the Big Moon ceremony to them. The Caddo tribe remains very active in the Native American Church today.*
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caddo
ETZNAB
Kin 18: White Overtone Mirror
I empower in order to reflect
Commanding order
I seal the matrix of endlessness
With the overtone tone of radiance
I am guided by the power of death.
Only a dew brave souls dare to into the unknown; they become the super shamans and mediums of the masses.*
*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2016-2017.
The Sacred Tzolk'in
Svadhistanha Chakra (Kali Plasma)
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