Story
For many in East Texas, gathering wild food and medicine, gardening, and other activities of self-sufficiency are everyday practices with knowledge and skills passed down through generations by parents and grandparents. Caddo story says that Snake Woman brought seeds to the people of the world. In This fertile East Texas landscape, the Caddo developed the skills to cultivate and care for Snake Woman’s gifts around 2,500 years ago. In this area of the Caddo homeland, they tended the foods and medicines of wild spaces as well as domesticating and cultivating garden crops.
At Caddo Mounds State Historic Site, we explore and teach about land conservation, agricultural and foraging practices of the early Caddo people through the knowledge of Caddo citizens, scientists, , anthropologists, and historians.
In 2016, after a visit to the Plum Bayou Garden at Plum Bayou Mounds Archeological State Park in Scott, Arkansas, the staff at Caddo Mounds broke ground on Snake Woman’s Garden. Snake Woman’s Garden is a 50×50 foot space that highlights the history of Caddo agriculture from prehistory to the present day.
What's in Caddo Voices
Each section of the Caddo Voices Virtual Experience places content into a play list of Contemporary Caddo, Practice, and Ethnohistory videos.
- In Contemporary Caddo you will learn about current Indigenous movements.
- In Practice you are invited to explore hands-on projects that incorporate traditional Caddo knowledge into modern projects.
- In Ethnohistory you will tap into a wide range of scholarship about Caddo history and culture from anthropologists, historians, and other researchers.
Keep Exploring
In this extensive 2023 bibliography, you will find 380 pages of resources to learn more about Caddo history and culture.
Visit the THC’s Learning Resources page for garden related lesson plans and activities you can do at home or on a visit to Caddo Mounds SHS.
Read the Caddo stories written down in “Traditions of the Caddo” by George Dorsey in 1905. Dorsey’s stories were collected from Caddo informants including Tsa Bisuh “Wing” (who told 49 percent of the stories) and Dashkat Hakaayuʔ “Whitebread” (who told 19 percent of the stories).
Read an ethnographic work about Indigenous gardening traditions in Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden.
Learn about how plants were used as medicine by various Indigenous people in the Native American Ethnobotany Database.
Explore more about the Caddo history and culture at Texas Beyond History.