Source Material On The History And Ethnology Of The Caddo Indians

Excerpt from Source Material on the History and Ethnology of the Caddo Indians When I undertook to assemble materials from the original sources bearing on the tribes of the lower Mississippi, the Caddo were not included, partly because they did not reach the Mississippi and partly because consideration of them was believed to involve a study of the stock to which they belonged, and work was at that time being conducted in it by Dr. George A. Dorsey of the Field Museum of Natural History. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

First published in 1942, John R. Swanton’s Source Material on the History and Ethnology of the Caddo Indians is a classic reference on the Caddos. Long regarded as the dean of southeastern Native American studies, Swanton worked for decades as an ethnographer, ethnohistorian, folklorist, and linguist. In this volume he presents the history and culture of the Caddos according to the principal French, Spanish, and English sources. In the seventeenth century, French and Spanish explorers encountered four regional alliances-Cahinnio, Cadohadacho, Hasinai, and Natchitoches-within the boundaries of the present-day states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma. Their descriptions of Caddo culture are the earliest sources available, and Swanton weaves the information from these primary documents into a narrative, translated into English, for the benefit of the modern reader. For the scholar, he includes in an appendix the extire test of three principal documents in their original Spanish. The first half of the book is devoted to an extensive history of the Caddos, from De Soto’s encounters in 1521 to the Caddos’ involvement in the Ghost Dance Religion of 1890. The second half discusses Caddo culture, including origin legends and religious beliefs, material culture, social relations, government, warfare, leisure, and trade. For this edition, Helen Hornbeck Tanner also provides a new foreword surveying the scholarship published on the Caddos since Swanton’s time.

These essays explore the blending of structural and historical approaches to American Indian anthropology that characterizes the perspective developed by the late Fred Eggan and his students at the University of Chicago. They include studies of kinship and social organization, politics, religion, law, ethnicity, and art. Many reflect Eggan's method of controlled comparison, a tool for reconstructing social and cultural change over time. Together these essays make substantial descriptive contributions to American Indian anthropology, presenting contemporary interpretations of diverse groups from the Hudson Bay Inuit in the north to the Highland Maya of Chiapas in the south. The collection will serve as an introduction to Native American social and cultural anthropology for readers interested in the dynamics of Indian social life.

Source Material on the History and Ethnology of the Caddo Indians, by John R. Swanton, 1942.

In the past two decades, new research and thinking have dramatically reshaped our understanding of Choctaw history before removal. Greg O’Brien brings together in a single volume ten groundbreaking essays that reveal where Choctaw history has been and where it is going. Distinguished scholars James Taylor Carson, Patricia Galloway, and Clara Sue Kidwell join editor Greg O’Brien to present today’s most important research, while Choctaw writer and filmmaker LeAnne Howe offers a vital counterpoint to conventional scholarly views. In a chronological survey of topics spanning the precontact era to the 1830s, essayists take stock of the great achievements in recent Choctaw ethnohistory. Galloway explains the Choctaw civil war as an interethnic conflict. Carson reassesses the role of Chief Greenwood LeFlore. Kidwell explores the interaction of Choctaws and Christian missionaries. A new essay by O’Brien explores the role of Choctaws during the American Revolution as they decided whom to support and why. The previously unpublished proceedings of the 1786 Hopewell treaty reveal what that agreement meant to the Choctaws. Taken together, these and other essays show how ethnohistorical approaches and the “new Indian history” have influenced modern Choctaw scholarship. No other recent collection focuses exclusively on the Choctaws, making Pre-removal Choctaw History an indispensable resource for scholars and students of American Indian history, ethnohistory, and anthropology.

This narrative history of the Caddo Indians creates a vivid picture of daily life in the Caddo Nation. Using archaeological data, oral histories, and descriptions by explorers and settlers, Cecile Carter introduces impressive Caddo leaders past and present. The book provides observations, stories, and vignettes on twentieth-century Caddos and invites the reader to recognize the strengths, rooted in ancient culture, that have enabled the Caddos to survive epidemics, enemy attacks, and displacement from their original homelands in Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, and Oklahoma.