The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 88, July 1984 - April, 1985 Page: 28
476 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
Southwestern Historical Quarterly
As the party moved rapidly upriver, Custis's daily routine was oc-
casionally interrupted by opportunities to visit the ruins of deserted
Indian villages. Extensively populated only a century before, the mid-
dle Red River was now a wilderness almost without inhabitants. The
ravages of Old World diseases alien to the Red River Valley, combined
with pressure from the Osages, a belligerent southern Siouan tribe,
had by 1806 driven the Caddos from sites they had occupied for thou-
sands of years. One of the largest of the ancient Kadohadacho towns,
and one of the last on the river to be abandoned, was deserted in 1795
following a surprise attack and massacre by the Osages. At this loca-
tion, the Caddoan guides showed the explorers their sacred hill, Cha-
canenah (place where tears were shed). A rocky, narrow ridge rising
abruptly some 250 feet above the valley floor, the hill was central to
Caddoan creation and flood mythologies. Freeman and Custis were
permitted to ascend this ridge with Cut Finger and Grand Ozages, who
took along a bottle of whiskey. The Caddoan guides wished to visit
the summit and speak with Enicco, the supreme being, as their re-
ligious leaders had done since time immemorial. On the plain below,
the wild plants of a vast stretch of riverbank prairie were taking over
the deserted Indian fields.54
Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire (Princeton, N.J., 1982),
148.
Contributing to the park effect was the interlocking canopy of the virgin forest, with
its loo-foot oaks and pines towering to 170o feet, but ecologists now agree that ground-
level fires would also have been a requisite, on a schedule of regularity that implies their
being started on purpose by the local Indians-an outstanding example of how native
peoples reshaped their environment Indeed, the great southern longleaf pine forests
are now vanishing in the absence of fires, which are necessary for the tree's cones to
open. See Pyne, Fare in America, 112-118, 144, and Calvin Martin, "Fire and Forest Struc-
ture in the Aboriginal Eastern Forest," Indian Historian, VI (Fall, 1973), 38-42, 54.
54Custis in Flores (ed.), Jefferson and Southwestern Exploration, 169, 170, 262; Freeman
ibid., 184-189.
The ridge is now known as Boyd Hill and is located about six miles northwest of
Lewisville, in Lafayette County, Arkansas, at about 33028' north latitude. See United
States Geological Survey, Boyd Hill (Ark.) Quadrangle. It is remarkable, in light of
their uprooting and transculturation, that the Oklahoma Caddos interviewed by James
Mooney nearly a century later still remembered this hill and its mythological name,
which Mooney rendered Cha'kani'ni--"place of crying." See Swanton, Source Material
on the History and Ethnology of the Caddo Indians, 25, 26 (footnote quotation), 27, 28,
79-8o; George A. Dorsey, Traditions of the Caddo (Washington, D.C., 1905), 8-9, 12,
18-19. In Dorsey's rendering of the myth the name is translated as Moon's-Tears-on-
the-Mountain.
The lower Kadohadacho village is traditionally remembered as one of the first spots
occupied by Caddoan peoples on the Red (and documented as the last they abandoned).
Luis de Blanc to Estevan Mir6, Mar. 27, 179o, Lawrence Kinnaird (ed.), Spain in the
Mississippi Valley, 1765-7794 (3 parts; Washington, D.C., 1946), II, 316. It has never been
excavated, since the area has been plowed for at least a century. Several of the cere-
monial mounds were worked by Clarence B. Moore, the distinguished archaeologist of
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Periodical.
Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 88, July 1984 - April, 1985, periodical, 1984/1985; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101210/m1/50/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.