Tula

The Tula were a Caddoan people of western Arkansas, whose homeland probably lay along the upper Arkansas, Ouachita and Little Missouri rivers and in the northern Ouachita Mountains. They are known almost entirely from the chronicles of Hernando de Soto's expedition, which entered their territory near Fort Smith in September 1541 and fought several sharp battles with them; the Spanish described them as the finest warriors they had met in North America.

The chroniclers noted facial tattooing, cranial deformation and long spears. Probably the first Caddo band to meet Europeans, the Tula later disappeared from the records and are thought to have merged into the Kadohadacho, whose descendants belong to the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma.