DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Caddo Indians in Hunt County. Four hundred years ago — and let that number sit with you a moment — the valleys and tributaries of the Ouachita, the Red, the Sabine, and the Neches rivers were home to a people whose story reaches back even further than that. We're talkin' about the ancestors of the Caddo, and the territory they called their own stretched across what we now know as northeast Texas, northwest Louisiana, southwest Arkansas, and southeast Oklahoma.
That is a wide country, and they knew every inch of it. Now, when folks toss around the word "extraordinary," they usually don't mean much by it. But here it fits.
The Caddo were farmers and warriors, potters and priests, traders who moved goods and ideas across a region that most of their contemporaries couldn't have mapped. Highly successful agriculturalists — that's the marker's own word, successful — they had established themselves through much of the Piney Woods of east Texas by five hundred AD. They supplemented all that farming with hunting and fishing and gathering, because a wise people doesn't put every egg in one basket.
And their villages? You'd have known one on sight. Their homes were beehive-shaped, built from long-stemmed prairie grasses — an architectural choice that was as distinctive as a signature.
The Caddo were also known for bow making and pottery production, and they were identifiable by something even more personal: facial and body tattoos and body painting. Most of their clothing was made of tanned deerskin. These were not people who faded into the background.
The first European encounter with the Caddo came in 1541, when the conquistador Hernando de Soto fought a group of them in what is now Arkansas. That first meeting was a rough one. But later encounters, the marker tells us, accentuated something different — the friendly nature of the Caddos.
Which brings us to a word you say every single day without maybe thinkin' twice about it. Texas. The word "Texas" is said to originate from the Hasinai confederation of Caddos, who used the word "Tayshas," meaning "allies" or "friends." Every time somebody says the name of this state, there's a Caddo echo in it.
By AD 800, Caddo groups appear to have moved into the upper and middle Sabine drainage basin — moving closer to the ground you might be drivin' over right now. Artifacts found right here in Hunt County suggest the presence of Caddoan peoples between 800 and 1700 AD. And before the Caddo, the marker is careful to note, other, earlier peoples also used this region.
Layer upon layer of human presence, going down into the soil. Today, this area and the artifacts discovered in it continue to emphasize the legacy of the Caddo peoples. Legacy is the right word.
It doesn't just mean the past — it means something handed forward. And out here in Hunt County, that handoff is still in motion.
What the marker says
Four hundred years ago, the valleys and tributaries of the Ouachita, Red, Sabine and Neches rivers in what is today northeast Texas, northwest Louisiana, southwest Arkansas, and southeast Oklahoma were home to ancestors of the people known today as the Caddo. This extraordinary society of farmers, warriors, potters, priests, and traders played a vital role in the early political and cultural history of the region. Highly successful agriculturalists, the Caddo established themselves through much of the Piney Woods of east Texas by 500 AD. While primarily dependent on agriculture, they supplemented their diet through hunting, fishing, and gathering. Caddo villages were distinctive for their beehive-shaped homes constructed of long-stemmed prairie grasses. The Caddos were known for bow making, pottery production, and many other crafts, and were identifiable by facial and body tattoos and body painting. Most Caddo clothing was made of tanned deerskin. Europeans first encountered the Caddos in 1541, when conquistador Hernando de Soto fought a group in what is now Arkansas. Later encounters accentuated the friendly nature of the Caddos. The word "Texas" is said to originate from the Hasinai confederation of Caddos, who used the work "Tayshas," meaning "allies" or "friends." By AD 800, Caddo groups appear to have moved into the upper and middle Sabine drainage basin. Artifacts found in Hunt County suggest the presence of Caddoan peoples between 800 and 1700 AD; other, earlier peoples also used this region prior to the Caddo. Today, this area and artifacts discovered in it continue to emphasize the legacy of the Caddo peoples. (2010)