A Journey of Resilience

On April 13, 2019, 80 people were celebrating Caddo Culture Day at Caddo Mounds State Historic Site, a pre-Columbian village and ceremonial center near Nacogdoches, in East Texas. Members of the Caddo Nation had traveled from several states to attend the festivities that included traditional dance and music performances, guided hikes, and artist exhibits—when tragedy struck.

A powerful storm system had unleashed multiple tornadoes early that afternoon, including one that swept directly over Caddo Mounds, even as visitors sought shelter in an interior room of the visitor center. A passerby was killed, and collapsing walls paralyzed one survivor and left others seriously injured.

“The shock of the 2019 tornado is unique to each individual who was present that day,” says Rachel Galan, assistant site manager. “Caddo citizen Tracy Burrows described the response of all of those there that day as a tribal response. With three hours before outside first responders were on the scene, all those on-site and the community around us took care of each other.”

But the healing process for the Caddo community took much longer and required a great measure of hard work.

Finally, on May 18, 2024, another gathering celebrated the grand reopening of a new 5,150-square-foot visitor center. Rebuilding became a pathway to recovery for the survivors, strengthening the Caddo connection to the site and to each other, and shaping the site’s future.

Caddo History

By the year 800, the Caddo people were firmly established near the Neches River in present-day East Texas, anthropologists say, due to the abundance of food and fertile soil for agriculture.

While Caddo territory is mainly centered around the Red River Valley, in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas, archaeological finds at the Caddo Mounds site—copper sourced from the Great Lakes and shells from the Gulf Coast—illustrate their vast trade network, which included the El Camino Real de los Tejas.

“This trail network has been appropriated as a Spanish-Euro western trail system, which is actually a network that was created over centuries, if not millennia, that connects Caddo all the way up to the Great Lakes with copper and Cahokia Mounds, Spiro Mounds and all the way down into Mexico City and over to Santa Fe,” says Lauren Toho-Murrow Haupt, an Indigenous anthropologist and citizen of the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma.

“These were really wide networks of trade that really speak to how diverse Caddo were and how influential we were.”

The Caddo even influenced the name of the Lone Star State. “Texas comes from the Caddo word tejas, which means friend,” she explains.

Many centuries after the Caddo became established in the area, pressure from Anglo colonization efforts increased, and the Caddo were forced to leave Texas for Oklahoma in the 1850s. Today the Caddo Nation is headquartered in Binger, Oklahoma.

In 1982, a portion of the ancestral home of the Caddo Nation became the 397-acre Caddo Mounds State Historic Site, which is owned and overseen by the Texas Historical Commission.

The grounds include a section of the El Camino Real de los Tejas and three earthen mounds created about 1,000 years ago—one for burials, one for ceremonies and a third, a low platform, that doubled as a plaza space for meetings and gatherings. The mounds were one of the few features to survive the tornado unscathed.

Rising Again

The Caddo term for a tornado experience is shahó, a word shared with the nation by Alaina Tahlate, a Caddo Nation citizen and language preservationist—and a survivor of the tragedy.

“That’s one of the gifts of that kind of tragedy—that shared experience,” explains Galan, whose husband, archaeologist Victor Galan, was paralyzed as a result of the tornado. “For many of us, it just deepened our relationship to the place and our commitment to the place.”

One of the main efforts of the restoration was rebuilding the site’s replica grass house, originally constructed in 2016. Traditionally, a grass house would have been built in a day, but the fundraising and rebuilding process after the tornado took roughly 18 months due to the pandemic, weather and supply shortages.

Five female Caddo apprentices were hired to rebuild the house with funding from the Texas Historical Commission and Friends of Caddo Mounds, an advisory nonprofit that supports the site.

Caddo society is matriarchal, with women being central to social organization, and matrilineal, with family lineage traced from the mother’s side. While choosing female apprentices wasn’t necessarily planned, Toho-Murrow Haupt, one of the apprentices, considers it “reflective of the significance of female participation through all dimensions of Caddo culture.”

Rachel Galan recalls the “really powerful experience” of witnessing the rebuilding process and “having the house rise again” thanks to the five apprentices—Toho-Murrow Haupt, Jackie Bullard, Kay O’Neal, Katelyn De Anne Polly and Debbie Turner.

Traditional Caddo houses are beehive-shaped structures with a tiered, multilayered exterior and a pointed top. “The grass houses were the place that the families came together,” Toho-Murrow Haupt says. “It’s where children got to listen to stories in the winter … they were a place of connection.”

A hundred volunteers—Caddo and non-Indigenous—donated time and labor to assist through the nine-month rebuilding process. The grass house was completed in 2022.

“It was a special process of engaging in the matriarchy rite of looking to an elder to guide us maternally through the process and nurture and facilitate this growth of a house, which eventually became a home,” Toho-Murrow Haupt says.

“To be doing Caddo things with Caddo people was a really special experience that I wish every Indigenous person got to have. It was making new relationships and hearing stories from people I’d never met before.”

Lasting Commitment

The completion of the $2.5 million visitor center was also part of the first phase of the reconstruction efforts. The interior roof features a conical dome mirroring the structural shape of the grass house. The center includes tornado shelters and a berm for safety.

The site is currently raising money to build an education activity center, cisterns for rainwater collection and an open area for workshops and programs.

In addition, Galan has implemented a braided land conservation plan that weaves together Western-based science with traditional ecological knowledge acquired by Indigenous groups over generations.

The first programs “center on the revitalization and preservation of Caddo traditions: pottery, split-cane basket making, tending wild spaces and more that have led to nonextractive opportunities for Caddo citizens along with unique learning opportunities for visitors,” Galan says.

The programming includes weekend talks and workshops such as ancient pottery techniques and the cultural importance of bead art. Educational activities include a free six-day family experience held over a series of three consecutive weekends and a six-week family garden camp.

These events are just one more way that shahó has brought more Caddo people to the site and increased their involvement while also bridging the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous visitors.

“By creating opportunities for authentic partnerships between Caddo citizens and the site, engaging Caddo citizens with the goal of being less extractive, and supporting cultural revitalization and preservation efforts, we have witnessed how an increase in Caddo participation with Caddo Mounds State Historic Site directly impacts visitation and interest in the site,” Galan says.

Caddo Mounds attracted 6,756 visitors last year—a 33% increase over 2023, with a notable bump after the rebuilding of the grass house and reopening of the visitor center.

Sustainability and land conservation are an integral theme of these new initiatives and a vital part of Caddo culture. Toho-Murrow Haupt says the Caddo coevolved with the land and maintained a healthy and balanced ecosystem.

“To truly live sustainably means to not leave a mark,” she says. “It means to allow for the full process of returning to the earth and completing that cycle.”

Though structures like the grass house are impermanent, the 2019 tragedy showed that the Caddo Nation and community’s commitment to the site is everlasting.