Beginning of Culture
According to an old story of the Caddo, the first Caddoes came from under the ground through the mouth of a cave on a lake near the southern banks of the Red River.

There were actually 2 different types of Caddo tribes: The Hasinai, and the Kadondacho. The Kadonadacho lived in the Western part of the Caddo territory. The Kadondacho migrated in and around Rains County.

Appearance
All Indians of Texas, including the East Texas Indians, practiced tattooing. Using sharp pointed rocks, thorns, and bones, both men and women scratched circles and stripes on their faces and birds and plants on their bodies. They rubbed ashes into the scratches to leave blue marks when the skin healed.

Wichitas and Caddoes painted themselves with bright colors and wore shells, bones, animal teeth, seeds, and feathers as ornaments. They pireced their ears in several places and hung ornaments from them. Caddo men also wore ornaments suspended from their noses; in fact, the name "Caddo" means "pierced nose."

Women oiled and parted their hair in the middle, plaited it into one braid at the back, and tied a knot at the end with a rabbit or snake skin that had been dyed red. They wore sleeveless buckskin blouses and skirts fringed along the hem and trimmed with metal trinkets and colorful seeds. They wore fur capes in cold weather.

Dwellings
Caddoes built their homes on or near fertile fields where they could farm easily. Each village consisted of large grass huts. Each village sometimes supported as many as 800 people. The grass huts looked similar to beehives. They were made up of one circular room that was about fifteen to thirty feet in diameter with a high ceiling. Usually about ten to twelve people lived in each hut. Constructing these huts required the involvement of many workers. Fifteen to twenty holes were dug in a circle. Strong cedar poles were then planted in them. A single knobbed post with a crosspiece at the top was placed in the middle of the circle. Two men then climbed up on top of the crosspiece and lassoed the tops of the poles, pulling them together and tying them with wet leather straps.

The walls were then made by lacing and braiding the framework with saplings and grapevines. Women plastered the sides with mud and thatched the roof with bundles of straw and cornstalks. An escape hole was always left at the top for smoke from the fire that burned in the middle of the floor space. The hut had no windows and two narrow doors, one facing east, the other facing west. Two other smaller huts without sides were used by families as resting working and storage places. (copied word for word. be sure to credit source!)

Religion
Although they had no religious icon, almost all East Texas Indians, including the Caddo, prayed to the sun, wind, thunder, and earth as symbols of power. They did, also, believe in a Supreme Being. Its name is roughly translated to "Not-Known-To-Man." Each tribe had a shaman, or medicine man. He believed that when he was in a trance, he would be guided by a "guardian animal."

Customs
Not every man in the tribe was a warrior. Only those who chose the life of a warrior became a warrior. Warriors were very well respected and honored. Any warrior that brought home captives, scalps, or loot became a hero of the tribe.

When an Indian man decided to marry, there was no formal ceremony. The suitor left a gift of venison at the door of a girl. s home. If her parents took the offering, the marriage was considered granted, and the groom went to live with the bride. s parents. If they did not touch his offering, this was a sign that he had better find someone else for a wife.

Crafts
East Texas Indians, especially the Caddo, are well known for their pottery. They hand-molded jars and bowls from clay. They polished the pottery with slick stones and scratched designs in them with shells and sharp sticks.

They also split bamboo canes into threads and wove them into mats, sieves, traps, and baskets. They lined some of the baskets with clay to make water jugs. The women carried the jugs and other loads on their backs in baskets attached to headbands. These headbands which circled their foreheads were called "tumplines," and they helped to balance the weight of the load.

The End of Culture
For a long time the Caddo and Wichita Indians of East Texas had well-developed and successful societies. However, when hunters on horseback came into their territory, they were overwhelmed because they could not get enough horses to compete with the hunters. Then the diseases carried by white European settlers spread and killed most of them, and their cultures were destroyed. They are remembered as the most advanced Indians who lived in Texas.

The Gilbert Site in northern Rains County near the upper reaches of Lake Fork Reservoir: an unusual archeological site, a place that played a little-known part in Texas history. Here, some 250 years ago, a Caddo-connected Native American group established a deer-hunting and hide-processing camp that produced thousands of deer hides for an international market.
 

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