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Nebraska
Press Series 2
| Traditions
of the Caddo
Wallace Chafe, George A. Dorsey, Paper: 1997,xxiv,132,CIP.LC
97-30481,0-8032-6602-2
Sources of American Indian Oral Literature
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Hernando de Soto encountered the Caddos
in the sixteenth century, and survivors of Sieur de
La Salle's last voyage in the late seventeenth century
gave the first full description of them. By 1903, when
George A. Dorsey was investigating their customs and
beliefs, the Caddos, numbering 530, were living on a
reservation in Oklahoma. The Caddoan tribes, found along
the Red River and its tributaries in present-day Louisiana
and Arkansas, practiced agriculture long before they
hunted buffalo. The tales collected for this book, first
published in 1905, reflect the women's horticultural
practices (supplemented by the men's hunting), village
life distinguished by conical grass lodges, family and
social relationships, connection to nature, and ceremonies.
The tales vibrate with earthly and unearthly forces:
Snake-Woman, who distributes seeds; Coyote, who regulates
life after death; the Effeminate Man, who brings strife
to the tribe; Coward, son of the Moon; the Man and the
Dog who become Stars; the Old Woman who kept all the
pecans; Splinter-Foot Boy and Medicine-Screech-Owl;
water monsters; animal-people; and cannibals. George
A. Dorsey (1868-1931), an anthropologist who taught
at the University of Chicago, published numerous works,
including The Pawnee Mythology, available as a Bison
Book. Wallace L. Chafe is a professor of linguistics
at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and
the author of Seneca Thanksgiving Rituals.
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