Notes on the Caddo Collections

Where The Witch Had His Power

There was one witch (naiiti), the most powerful of all. He was an old man and he always wanted to marry young girls. The old people were afraid of him. The chief had a pretty daughter. This witch asked for her. The chief said, “You are too old.” That night the girl died. The chief told his messenger (Puma) to go and kill that witch. He killed him, buried him. Next morning he heard a great explosion from the grave. The witch was alive again in his house. The chief got yuku [medicine men] to tell about him. Yuku said … Read more

War Dance

In the war dance (R. GucuuwiGaocan, Gu, where, cuuwi, men, braves, Gaocan, dance), the men bunch around the drum and move dancing around the dance floor. They carry a tomahawk or a scalp on a stick, and wear the typical war bonnet of eagle feathers fastened to a strip of cloth. On the face is painted the characteristic mark of the dancer’s supernatural partner Coon, Fox, Lightning. (Fig. 4.) The women, wearing their buckskin dress, stand together, on the outside, moving slightly. If a feather falls out of the bonnet of a dancer or off the decorations of his person, … Read more

The Wrestler

There was a village. They would gather the boys to wrestle. One boy was an orphan. He went from place to place. When he found a family good to him he would stay with them. An old man gave him a gun and he went hunting. He brought in a turkey. One evening he did not come back. Next morning he came back. In the evening he left again. They wondered why he was staying out all night. He told them he went turkey hunting. He shot a turkey, it fell across the creek. He heard a voice saying, “My … Read more

The Spirit of the Caddo

The spirit stays Six days before starting on its way. During these six days a fire must be kept up at the east end of the grave. Anybody in the family, man or woman, old or young, may keep up this fire. All the possessions of the deceased, clothes, etc. are kept by this fire, hung on a pole. At the close of the six days things which are unfit for further use are burned, other things are smoked, and may then be given away to friends or reltives. Members of the household of the deceased who have been staying … Read more

The Peyote Cult Among the Caddo Indians

Before the night meetings everyone takes a bath in the creek “to wash away sins,” or a sweat bath. For sweat bath is made a dome-shaped frame of willows, over it a canvas wagon-cover. At the fire outside, the stones are heated, taken into the house and a little water poured over them to make steam. One man says a prayer while he beats the stones with white-leaf (?sage) brush. Ten to twelve men take the sweat bath at the same time. After the bath everybody goes into the tipi that has been put up for the ceremony, and sits … Read more

The Doctor Who Told His Secret

There were two little boys playing all the time together. They were tesha. The folks of one lived away at some distance. The other was the chief’s son. One day they went bird hunting. The chief’s son came back without his friend. On a mountain they had found a big hole. The chief’s son threw the other boy into it. (A chief’s son may be like that overbearing.) He was down there six days. He was crying. Two ravens (o’wa`) flew down. One said, “My boy, we heard you crying. We are going to get you out. Hold to our … Read more

The Clever Boy

There was a mean boy; his mother’s brother, a chief, wanted to kill him. His mother begged him off. The chief said he must not fight at home, but go out to strange Indians to fight. One day the boy disappeared. He came back and shot off his gun .221 He brought in two scalps or heads fully skinned. Now he could do as he liked, his uncle could not say anything to him. He told how he got these head skins. He found a cave and hid in it. Two men came in, made a fire, lay down on … Read more

The Caddo Tale of Lion Bridegroom

There was a girl, a pretty girl, the boys came courting her. The girl would not listen to them. One day she went after water, she saw a boy across the creek, she went across and talked to him. He was a handsome boy in a fine buckskin suit. She went back to the river. She talked to him. She took him to her folks, they got married. In the fall people went hunting and the boy went out with his gun. He brought nothing back. The girl’s dogs were starved. They said, “Well, younger sister (tahai’), we are going … Read more

The Caddo Doctors

The Beaver (t’ao) doctor is the “strongest” (i.e. most powerful) (Ingkanish). He is a daitino (mescal-bean) doctor. He held a medicine dance in early spring. He would throw fire up onto the “grass house” and get it down without the house catching fire. He would shoot another doctor through the heart so that he bled from the mouth. They would find the bullet and give it to the doctor who would then revive the one he had shot. Also, according to Ingkanish, the doctors were in groups, “bands.” He mentioned three “bands”–Beaver, Mescal-bean, yuko, and there were two or three … Read more

Supernatural Beliefs of the Caddo Indians

Grandfather or Father Sun, Earth (wadat’ina: wadat’, earth, ĭn’ă, mother), Fire (ibat’niko: ibat, grandfather, niko, fire), Lightning (ika adinin: ika, grandmother, adinin, lightning), Thunder (R. iGahabaGanswa, grandmother, noise maker, see p. 16), Winds, Cyclone, God, all are referred to by White Moon as supernatural beings, but so vaguely that in his mind, at least, they appear to have little religious import. Whereas to ghosts and to certain animals a more definite significance attaches. The relationship with the animals is the familiar one of supernatural helper, or, in White Moon’s phrase, partner – pi’DO’niwana’gu (R.), “two are partners with” e.g. bear … Read more

Rites of the Caddo

Exorcism By Fumigation This rite is performed, as we shall note, in Peyote ceremonial–when a participant returns to the ceremonial tipi after having had to leave it during the night, and, by all the participants at the close of the ceremony. Any one who would enter the room where a patient is being cured has first to be smoked. The property of the dead is smoked, at the grave, before it is given away, and the mourners themselves are smoked. Feathers plucked from a dead eagle have also to be smoked before they are given away. Eagle killers are smoked. … Read more

Notes on the Caddo

The following data were recorded in New York City in the winter of 1921-22 with the cooperation of White Moon, a recent Caddo graduate of Carlisle who in New York shrewdly called himself Chief Silver Moon. In Oklahoma he was generally known as Mike Martin. In December, 1927, at Anadarko, Oklahoma, while collecting folk tales from the Kiowa, I had opportunities to check up on some of White Moon’s data and to add to them, as I worked with two middle-aged men, James Ingkanish, a Caddo; and Grayson Pardon or Ninnid, whose mother was a Delaware, his father, Caddo, and … Read more

Northern Division Family Groups

The localized family groups of which I have information are all in the northern division, to which White Moon belongs. He is less familiar with the family groupings in the southern division; he opines that in the southern division there is less concentration by family. Kuhaiyu Here there are four houses occupied by several descendants of Gen. I, 1 and 2, White Moon’s paternal grandparents. House 1: Enoch Hoag (Gen. I, 7), chief; and his wife, a Delaware; and their daughter and son-in-law. (Their son lives at Lookeba, his wife’s home.) House 2: Sam Houston (Gen. I, 24); and his … Read more

Kinship of the Caddo

Of any clanship system White Moon had never heard, and, whatever approach to the subject we made, he remained consistently unaware of clan groups. White Moon was born in 1897, and it seemed not improbable that his ignorance of clanship was characteristic of the younger generation of the tribe; but Ingkanish20 and Pardon were equally ignorant of any clanship is system, present or past. And yet, in 1890-1891, Mooney recorded among the Caddo the existence of clans, the names of which, as words merely, were verified by White Moon as follows: Mooney White Moon Sun Thunder Eagle Panther Raccoon Beaver … Read more

How the Same Cousin Term is Applied

Gen. II, 63 > Gen. II, 59 parallel cousin removed Gen. III, 37 > Gen. III, 48 father’s sister’s son Du’wi’} Du wi t iti} younger brother, parallel cousin of a male (?) Gen. II, 8 > Gen. II, 12 younger brother Gen. I, 42 > Gen. I, 44 younger half brother Gen. III, 6 > Gen. III, 12 younger half brother (toitete) Gen. I, 30>Gen. I, 42 father’s brother’s son Gen. I, 34>Gen. I, 42 father’s brother’s son, actually older than Gen. I, 35 Gen. III, 24>Gen. III, 33 father’s brother’s son (toitete) Gen. I, 59 > Gen. … Read more

Caddo Witchcraft

Sickness may be caused by a witch who has sent something into your body-horse hair, an insect, a bit of cloth, an arrow. Your doctor (konah’) would draw out this thing and send it back into the witch who sent it. Then a fight would be on “between the two witches,” i.e. your doctor and the one bewitching you. The one who has the more power will win. If the curing doctor is stronger than the witch doctor, he will make a cure, otherwise the witch doctor will send the sickness into the curing doctor. The curing doctor has first … Read more

Caddo Tales by Grasshopper

White Moon related a set of “funny stories” told him by old man Grasshopper, some of which are “tall stories” or stories of Spanish picaresque type like those recorded by Handy at Zuni. Grasshopper said that once he lost his horse, it was gone almost a year. And one day he lost his hogs, they were gone a long time. Out hunting one day he saw a bunch of hogs up on a hill. He went up the hill and looked at the hogs; they were his hogs, nice and fat. He saw a tree move, he went up to … Read more

Caddo Stories

Stories were told at night, in winter (Pardon). The boys had to bathe in the creek early in the morning before the night of story telling. While listening to the story they had to sit straight. If the story was not told right it would turn cold. Caddo Creation Story The Caddo Tale of Lion Bridegroom Caddo Tales by Grasshopper The Clever Boy The Doctor Who Told His Secret The Wrestler Where The Witch Had His Power

Caddo Stomp Dance and Turkey Dance

Turkey Dance The Caddo Turkey dance (R. nu’Gano’caniya’: nu’, turkey, cano’caniya’, going to dance) is danced by women only, circling two by two around the centre pole, their step a turkey trot. To sing for them is a choir of three or four men, who sit down around their drum, anywhere convenient. There is no dance leader. The dancers wear a broadcloth blanket, lots of bead work, and tied to their hair-braid at the back a plaque studded with small mirrors and brass tacks, with ribbons pendent. Neither in connection with this dance nor at other times is there any … Read more

Caddo Standards of Decency

Adultery in American law is a good cause for divorce; but divorce for adultery as far as it might be a public display of jealousy runs counter to Caddo standards of decency. People would think it “an awful disgrace” for a husband to show jealousy in public, to do anything to the other man like hitting him. Privately a man might speak to his wife and tell her to take the other man if she preferred him. For a woman to show jealousy in public is also indecent, bad manners.” Girls and youths marry at eighteen or nineteen. White Moon … Read more