Copyright by Paul Shawn Joseph Marceaux 2011 - Repository ...

Figure 1.2. The Terán Map (Texas Beyond History 2011)
Caddo farmsteads were self‐supportive but often connected to the more
familiar mound complexes, which later in the Historic period fell into disuse
(Perttula 1992, Smith 1995). The Terán map illustrates a temple mound with an
associated structure still in use, and the location of the caddi’s house. The
Franciscan missionary Damián Massanet described the caddi’s house as:
[B]uilt of stakes thatched over with grass, it is about twenty varas high [1
vara=0.84 meters], is round, and has no windows, daylight entering
through the door only… In the middle of the house is the fire, which is
never extinguished by day or by night… Ranged around one half of the
house, inside, are ten beds, which consist of a rug made of reeds, laid on
four forked sticks. Over the rug they spread buffalo skins, on which they
sleep… In the other half of the house, where there are no beds, there are
some shelves about two varas high, and on them are ranged large round
baskets made of reeds… a row of very large earthen pots… and six
wooden mortars for pounding the corn (translated by Casis 1899:303‐304).
[brackets my own]
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