Caddo Dwellings
By: Julianna
The Caddo Indians lived mostly in what is now Louisiana but they also lived in
northern Oklahoma, northeastern Texas and northern Arkansas. Then it was known as the
southeast part of red river valley. In red river valley there are rolling hills, rivers, lush forests
with various types of trees and other plants. There are swamp lands and bayous.
The Caddo Indians lived in dome shaped grass houses that looked like haystacks from
a distance. They made these homes by weaving grass together to make grass mats. They
then put the grass mats on sapling poles which they attached to the wooden dome shaped
frame. The grass mats overlapped giving it the effect of shingles and keeping the rain out.
These homes were approximately fifteen feet high and anywhere from twenty to fifty feet
wide.
The resources used by the Caddo Indians to build these massive houses were narrow
wooden poles, tree bark strips, sapling poles, and grass. The narrow poles made up the
frame. These poles run vertically from the ground into the air held together at the top by
tree bark strips. Then the woven grass mats were attached to the sapling poles. These poles,
with the grass mats, were attached; these ran horizontally on the frame.
The Caddo Indians mostly had the same type of house unless they lived in different
areas -some of the Caddo in current day Texas may have had earthen houses with thatched
roofs. This was because the grass homes were large and hard to build. For the same reason,
the Caddo stayed in the same spot.
Sources: Caddo by Barbra A. Gray-Kantllosh