K'itaish

The K'itaish, whom French and Spanish scribes wrote down as Kichai, were a Southern Plains people of Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. They spoke a Caddoan language and were closest in origin to the Pawnee. French explorers first met them on the Red River in Louisiana in 1701.

Their allegiances shifted with the rivalries of the plains: early colonists called them enemies of the Caddo, and in 1712 they fought the Hainai on the Trinity River, yet they also intermarried with the Kadohadacho and took part in Caddoan confederate alliances.

By 1772 their main villages stood east of the Trinity near the site of present-day Palestine, Texas. In 1837 they defeated a Texas Ranger force at the Battle of Stone Houses, though their own leader fell in the first attack.