Caddo

Several mixed marriages or lineages appear in the genealogies. Chu´’uu’s first husband, White Moon’s maternal grandfather (Gen. II, 16), was a Shawnee. Enoch Hoag’s wife is Delaware (Gen. I, 9), and one of his sisters married a man “part Delaware,” Ninin or Alfred Taylor (Gen. I, 17, 34). Another sister married a Choctaw (Gen. I, 6). Margaret and Bertha Deer (Gen. I, 14, 25) are Muskogean (Mashkoki). The first wife (Gen. II, 13) of Kill-deer was a Kickapoo. The widow of Billy Bowlegs (and wife of Amos Longhat) (Gen. II, 10) is half French (Kanosh). The father of Chanatih (Gen. II, … Read more

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

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

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

The sibling or cousin nomenclature, I may say incidentally, was quite difficult to work out, as White Moon persistently assumed that the Indian and the English systems were the same. It was only through testing by the genealogical tables that the differentiation became clear first to me, then to him. And then one of the genealogical tables, in one case, had to be revised, a woman who had been described as a father’s sister having to be reclassified as a parallel cousin. As for the principles of seniority which prevail, as we are to see, in this part of the … Read more

Age-Class Terms gayotsi baby sihyat’iti} boy under ten tat’iti} nutyit’it’i} sihnuti} girl under ten nutyit’it’i} tishiyatsi boy, about ten and over tinuti girl, about ten and over shiyatsi youth, eighteen or twenty nutitsi maiden, eighteen or twenty hanistih mature or old man sayatih mature or old woman Joking Relationship: Respect Between relations by marriage within the same generation, i.e. between those who call each other da’hai’, there is a joking relationship (tsimbakanishia, I joke with him, with her) as well as with one kind of cousin you call “sister,” dahai’’.  More explicit on this parallel cousinship White Moo could not … Read more

To an infant a name is given in the family, by any relative, maternal or paternal. White Moon (R. NichaGaiyu’) does not know the relative who gave him this name. The infant name may continue in use or it may be supplanted by a later name, perhaps the name of the being acquired as a guardian spirit, as in the case of Nvhi’, Horned-hoot-owl or, probably, of Moon-head, or by a name given quite as a nickname, as in the case of K’akitsaiyet’, Chewed-up or Ba’tshush, Tail-cut-off, who was in boyhood attacked by a bear; of Hina’kahdi, Snow-chief, from his … Read more

Boys were sent every morning to bathe in the river, even through the ice. The boys would shoot birds and a little boy liked to show his birds to his grandmother. The older woman in the family would talk to both the girls and the boys about how to take care of themselves. White Moon remembers that his grandmother told him he was not to interfere in other people’s affairs. “That feeling grows in… I don’t want to fool with anybody’s business and I don’t want them to fool with mine.” A boy used to be told that he was … Read more

ka’inchi, grandchild, w. sp. Gen. III, 3 > Gen. III, 24 son’s son, w. sp. iba`, mother’s brother Gen. II, 57 > Gen. II, 30 mother’s brother Gen. III, 44 > Gen. III, 12 mother’s brother Gen. II, 57 > Gen. II, 34 (iba`t’iti, little mother’s brother) mother’s brother Gen. II, 63 > Gen. 11,48 (iba`t’iti) mother’s brother Gen. II, 59 > Gen. 11,12 mother’s mother’s brother Gen. I, 49 > Gen. I, 10 parallel cousin removed. The mother of Gen. I, 49 called Gen. I, 10, brother. Gen. I, 42 > Gen. I, 17 father’s sister’s husband Gen. I, … Read more

  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