Caddo Food

information supplied by John Conway, Jr

Caddoes were agriculturists first and foremost and except in infrequent drought years, raised an abundance of garden produce. Their principal crops were corn, beans, squash, sunflower seed, and tobacco. Two varieties of corn were raised, an early maturing variety called little corn by the Louisiana French, and "Flour Corn" that matured later. Enough of this seed corn was saved as a safeguard against crop failure for two successive years of plantings. Beans were also an important article in the diet, and they had five or six varieties, including pole beans. Hoes were fashioned either from the shoulder blade of a buffalo or from wood and were virtually the only tools used. Since such tools could be used effectively only on lighter soils, there must have been many localities considered unsuitable for farming by Caddoes that are productive with more modern machinery.

After the Caddoes acquired horses, buffalo were easier to hunt and hence figured in prominently in their subsistence. Bears were hunted mainly for their fat, which could be stored in pots for long periods of time. Small birds, mammals, fish , wild hogs, prairie chickens, ducks, turkeys were also the meat of choice. The trot line method of fishing was another custom that was started here.

Many varieties of nuts were available from the area: pecan, chestnuts, hickory, acorns and many wild fruits could be collected, blackberries, mulberries, cherries, plums, and grapes, whose flavor impressed the Europeans. These were the more important fruits, but others were eaten also, to say nothing of various roots and tubers.

Corn was roasted, by placing the green, unhusked ears in a pile of ashes. It was also boiled, either alone or with beans or other vegetables to make a kind of succotash. Dried corn was ground, as were nuts and seeds, in large mortars made from hollowed out tree trunks. Fish were preserved by smoking them, and the meat of animals killed far from home was jerked, either by sun drying or fire drying.