The Caddo

Plains: Comanche, Cheyenne, Kiowa, Caddo, Wichita, Pawnee

Recorded and Edited by Willard Rhodes
Folk Music Of The United States Issued from the Collections of the Archive of American Folk Song L39
The Caddo, now resident in southwestern Oklahoma and regarded as a single tribe, are the descendants of something like twenty-five tribes which at the time they first became known to Europeans formed three or more confederated groups beside some units that held themselves apart. Their territory included what is now northeastern Texas, southwestern Arkansas, and part of Louisiana.

The increased immigration which followed the acquisition of Louisiana pushed them westward, and in 1835 their first treaty was made in which they "agreed to move at their own expense beyond the boundaries of the United States, never to return and settle as a tribe." The hostility of the Texas settlers, further aggravated by the raids of the Comanche, made it necessary for the Caddo to make a forced march of fifteen days in the heat of July 1859 in order to escape a threatened massacre. After losing more than half their stock and possessions, they were safely settled on a reservation set apart for them near Fort Cobb, Oklahoma, where they became a part of what was known as the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes.

Like other Indians of the Southeast, the Caddo were agriculturists, cultivating tobacco, sunflowers, beans, squash, and corn. Corn was their basic food, and its cultivation figured importantly in their economic, social, and ceremonial life. They were known for the excellence of their pottery.

In summarizing the ethnology of these Indians, Swanton finds "the connection of the Caddo with the Southeastern tribes is evident in every respect of their lives-material, social, and ceremonial-such differences as existed being in matters of detail and never in fundamentals." They have been described as being industrious, intelligent, sociable, courageous, brave in war, and friendly to visitors.

At the beginning of the Civil War, a treaty was signed with the Commission of the Confederate States to the Indian nations and tribes. The Caddo with other tribes of the Wichita Agency were counted with the five civilized tribes in the "United Nations of the Indian Territory." While some Caddos served as scouts and rangers in the Confederate army, a large portion of Caddo remained loyal to the Union and moved to Kansas. They returned in 1867 to the old Wichita Agency and their locations near Fort Cobb.

In 1901 every man, woman, and child was allotted 160 acres when the Wichita-Caddo reservation was allotted in severalty and the surplus lands were opened to white settlement.

Play song

Name

Performed by

Description

Native Words

Translation

Notes

Caddo Round Dance Song This song is sung without words, according to the singer, Stanley Edge, who was seventy-seven years old when the song was recorded July 17, 1952, in Anadarko, Oklahoma. Caddo
Caddo Victory Song These songs recount two successful encounters with non-Caddo people. "They did not dance for these songs. "' The Caddos went a long way to visit the white man. When they began whooping to announce themselves, "Mrs. White woman" began to cry.
Caddo
Caddo Victory Song The Comanche was going back to where he came from. The Caddos overtook him and he never got back. Caddo
Caddo Lullaby This lovely lullaby explains itself. The following transcription omits repetitions.

ma ma ma ma ma ma
ma ma ma ma ma ma
ma ma ma ma
ma ma ma ma

hai iki he, hai iki he
[Go to sleep, go to sleep]
gai yo ti si, gai yo ti si
[My baby, my baby]
he iki he, ma ma
[Go to sleep, ma ma]
Caddo
Caddo Song Of The Little Skunks Dream This is a translation of a story song that grandmothers enjoyed singing to their grandchildren:

I had a dream last night that they were digging us out of our hole. I was being baked in hot ashes. The mother was cooking some of us in a brass kettle. The father was barbecuing some of us on a stick.
Caddo