By George H. Odell
This significant contribution to touch interval reports issues to the Lasley Vore web site in glossy Oklahoma because the probably first assembly position of Plains Indians and Europeans greater than three hundred years in the past.
In 1718, Jean-Baptiste Bénard, Sieur de l. a. Harpe, departed St. Malo in Brittany for the hot global. l. a. Harpe, a member of the French bourgeoisie, arrived at Dauphin Island at the Gulf coast to soak up the entrepreneurial concession supplied by way of the director of the French colony, Jean Baptiste LeMoyne de Bienville. los angeles Harpe's cost was once to open a buying and selling put up at the pink River simply above a Caddoan village now not faraway from present-day Texarkana. Following the institution of this put up, l. a. Harpe ventured farther north to increase his exchange industry into the zone occupied by means of the Wichita Indians. right here he encountered a Tawakoni village with an envisioned 6,000 population, a bunch that swelled to 7,000 in the course of the ten-day visit.
Despite years of ethnohistoric and archaeological learn, no pupil had effectively demonstrated the place this crucial assembly happened. Then in 1988, George Odell and his staff surveyed and excavated a space thirteen miles south of Tulsa, alongside the Arkansas River, that exposed indisputable organization of local American habitation refuse with 18th-century ecu alternate goods.
Odell right here provides an entire account of the presumed place of the Tawakoni village as published throughout the research of excavated fabrics from 9 professional collaborators. In a strikingly well-written narrative file, utilising cautious research and leading edge research supported via appendixes containing the excavation info, Odell combines documentary background and archaeological facts to pinpoint the possible web site of the 1st ecu touch with North American Plains Indians.
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Additional info for La Harpe's Post: Tales of French-Wichita Contact on the Eastern Plains
Example text
They conducted two bison hunts, in the fall and the spring. These were cooperative operations, organized through carefully selected leaders and subleaders to maximize group effectiveness. When opportune, and particularly after most of the bison had been extinguished from the Plains, Apache hunted other game, such as deer, antelope, and turkey, and gathered several plant species—particularly agave, when forced into more arid locales. The Apache developed an extremely nomadic lifestyle, not occupying any locale for very long.
Thus, if one were to search for the exact location of the Tawakoni village that La Harpe visited, he or she would be ill-advised to use trade goods as irrefutable evidence, as these would ultimately have been distributed over a far wider area than the site itself. From La Harpe’s account, there is only one item that, if found, would unambiguously indicate the existence of that speci¤c village. As quoted from Margry, just before the French party left the Tawakoni, M. Du R ivage carved the arms of the king and the company on a post, which was planted in the center of the village (Smith 1959:533).
Sexual division of labor was practiced, and men performed tasks such as preparing and cultivating the gardens and making certain equipment, tasks that would have been beneath the dignity of Wichita men (Newcomb 1961:298). As among the Wichita, marital residence was matrilocal. This trait appears to have some time depth, judging from pottery design homogeneity existing among eight late prehistoric archaeological sites in the Neches Valley (Gilmore 1973). Descent was matrilineal and organized into clans.