Caddo

The Caddo languages form a small family of the North American Great Plains, stretching from North Dakota south to Oklahoma and Texas. Its five members fall into a southern branch, Caddo proper, and a northern branch of Wichita, Kitsai, Pawnee and Arikara. Linguistic comparison suggests Proto-Caddoan split into these two branches more than three thousand years ago.

The Caddo-speaking peoples were maize farmers and temple mound builders of the Caddoan Mississippian culture, which flourished from about 800 and raised great earthworks such as the Spiro Mounds, until a long drought between 1276 and 1299 disrupted many of their villages. All five languages were unwritten and sustained by oral tradition.