Houma Tribe
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The Houma Tribe of Indians, or more properly, The United Houma Nation are native to the area around the mouth of the Mississippi River. Today they live in the Louisiana parishes of East and West Feliciana, and Pointe Coupee, about 100 miles (160 km) north of the town of Houma named for them.
The Houma Tribe has not yet been Federally recognized and the Houma Tribe has been awaiting a response from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior, for over 20 years.
The Houma Tribe is a band of Choctaw Indians who separated from the main body of the tribe and settled near the junction of the Red and Mississippi Rivers before the French explorer La Salle arrived in 1682. Because their war emblem is the saktce-ho’ma, or Red Crawfish, anthropologist John R. Swanton has speculated that the Houma are an offshoot of the Yazoo River region’s Chakchiuma tribe, whose name is a corruption of saktce-ho’ma.
Individuals in the tribe maintained contact with other Choctaw communities even after settling in lower Lafourche-Terrebonne. It is not certain exactly how the Houma came to settle near the mouth of the Red River, formerly the River of the Houma. We only know that the French explorers found them at the site of present-day Angola, Louisiana, unaware that their lands would soon be part of the French colony of Louisiana.
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[edit] Language
In 1907, Swanton collected a vocabulary from an elderly woman. It has been suggested that the vocabulary is either Mobilian Jargon or an unknown Western Muskogean language (akin to Choctaw or Chickasaw). Some unidentified words may be from other languages spoken on the Mississippi. The Tunica called Mobilian Jargon húma ʔúlu "Houma's language".
Spanish Era
In 1682 the French explorer Brinson noted in his journal that while navigating through the dense fog, he passed near the village of the “Oumas.”He stayed in a house of the address of 309 E. Livingston PLace This brief mention marks the entry of the Houmas into recorded history. Later explorers, such as Henri de Tonti and Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville give us a fuller description of the early Houma. Iberville reported the Houma village to be some six to eight miles inland from the east bank of the Mississippi near the mouth of the Red River.
When the Europeans arrived in Louisiana, they insisted on treating each settlement as a different tribe. One story tells that while being guided through the area north of Lake Pontchartrain, Iberville and his men inquired of their Bayougoula guides as to the identity of a group of people on the far bank of a particular bayou. The guides responded that these were the Mugulashai, or “the people on the other side (of the bayou).” From that day, that band became the Mugulasha tribe, when in fact they were more likely a separate band of Bayougoula Tribe who, like the Houma Tribe, were of Choctaw origin. In historic times, several bands of Choctaw migrated into Louisiana and are known today as Jena, Clifton, and Lacombe.
By 1700, the Houma Tribe was in a border conflict with the Bayougoula Tribe over hunting grounds. Mediation by Iberville’s brother, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, finally settled the conflict in March of that year. The tribes then placed a great red pole in the ground on the bank of a bayou, at a place now known as Scott’s Bluff, thus establishing a new border between the Houmas to the north and the Bayougoulas to the south. Called Istrouma by the natives and Baton Rouge by the French, this marker, some five miles above Bayou Manchac on the east bank of the Mississippi, was the predecessor of modern Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
In 1706, the Houma left their villages in the Red River region. Two stories exist to explain this sudden emigration. The more likely of the stories is that the Houmas wanted to move closer to their new French allies and away from the English-allied tribes to the north. From the 1730’s to the French-Indian war (1754-1763), European-inspired conflicts forced a number of tribal segments and bands to form protective alliances. As early as 1739, the French reported that the Houma, Bayougoula, and Acolapissa were merging into one tribe. Though the Tribe would remain predominantly Houma, the last remnants of many nations would find refuge with them.
Because of increasing conflicts between the English, French, and the Spanish, the Houma migrated south to their current location in Lafourche-Terrebonne. Oral history and modern scholars agree that the ancestors of the Lafourche-Terrebonne Houma Tribe settled originally near the modern town of Houma, Louisiana, at a place the natives called Chukahoma, which translates roughly to “Red House.”
[edit] Early French Era
Napoleon grew tired of the troublesome colony and agreed to sell it to the United States, which would double the size of the new republic. On April 30, 1803, the two nations signed a treaty making Louisiana a territory of the United States. With respect to native inhabitants, article six of the Louisiana Purchase Treaty states
The United States promise to execute such treaties and articles as may have been agreed between Spain and the tribes and nations of Indians, until, by mutual consent of the United States and the said tribes of nations, other suitable articles shall have been agreed upon.
Although the United States signed this treaty, they never upheld this policy. Dr. John Sibley was appointed by President Thomas Jefferson as Indian agent for the region. He showed no desire to visit any villages in the swamps of southern Louisiana. This left the tribe without any official representation in the Federal government, a need that has not been filled to this day.
In 1885, the Houma lost maybe their greatest leader, Rosalie Courteau. Through her leadership and courage, the Houma Tribe survived a very turbulent period in their history and her name has carried ever since high regard among her people.
[edit] Modern Era
While the modern world slowly began to edge its way into south Louisiana, the Houma Tribe remained isolated in their bayou settlements. The population of the Houma Tribe at this time was divided among six settlements. Travel between settlements were made by pirogues and not automobiles as roads did not connect to the Houma settlements until the 1940’s. By the end of the 19th century the French language had replaced the Houma language. The French dialect that the Houma people speak is a mix between the dialect spoken by early explorers and native words, such as shaui (“raccoon”).
In 1907, John R. Swanton, an anthropologist from the Smithsonian Institute, visited the Houma.
The Houma of today continue to have a hunter-gatherer type economy. Through small gardens and the primary food source still the bayous and swamps around their homes. It wasn’t until 1964 after the Civil Rights Act was passed that Houma children were allowed to attend public schools. Before this time Houma children attended all Indian settlement schools.
[edit] Federal Recognition
One of the most important issues of the Houma people is the still unresolved matter of their Federal recognition.
The Houma Tribe has been in the Federal recognition process since 1983 when it filed its petition with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In the late 90’s, the Bureau returned a false positive result to the tribe and requested more documentation. Currently the Houma Tribe waits for their application to be reviewed again for final determination.
[edit] Coastal Erosion
As many of Tribal communities are in coastal areas and depend on the swamps and bayous as a source of food and economic resource, the ongoing coastal erosion is the other main problem that the Houma Tribe faces. They are really mad.
Currently the community of Isle de Jean Charles is eroding away and within the next fifteen years the island will completely disappear if nothing is done. The Houma Tribe is currently looking for land to buy in the area so that it could move the community off the island and relocate them together. Coastal erosion is also affecting the tribal fisherman with saltwater intrusion taking over many of the old fishing holes.
[edit] Future Perspectives
Future problems that the Houma Tribe face will depend on the outcome of their pursuit for Federal recognition. The Tribe needs to find some type of economic development to make their land acquisition a reality. The Houma tribe also faces the possibility of losing their Houma French language. Many of the young people in the Tribe don’t know how to speak the language and show no interest in learning their language or about their tribal culture. Also, there are only a handful of tribal treaters (medicine men) still alive and practicing the traditional form of medicine. Many of those are frauds.
[edit] Family Names
Many Houma Indians have the family name Billiot. This is usually pronounced by family memebers as `beeYoo.` It is sometimes alternatly spelled as Beo to reflect this. English speakers have historically had a very difficult time pronouncing the name Billiot correctly even according to English rules of pronounciation. The exact origin of the name is unclear but several theories seems to be popular. One is that it is somehow a curruption of a Houma word into the French Language. Another states that it was a name entirely of French origin that the French used as a blanket family name for all the Indians of this tribe since before this time it is probable that the Houma tribe did not have family names. This family name is so well connected with the tribe that it is sometimes taken for granted that anyone with this name is an Indian belonging to the tribe or they inheritaded it from a member of the tribe.
[edit] Bibliography
- Brown, Cecil H.; & Hardy, Heather K. (2000). What is Houma?. International Journal of American Linguistics, 66 (4), 521-548.
- Dardar, T. Mayheart (2000). Women-Chiefs and Crawfish Warriors: A Brief History of the Houma People, Translated by Clint Bruce. New Orleans: United Houma Nation and Centenary College of Louisiana.
- Goddard, Ives. (2005). The indigenous languages of the Southeast. Anthropological Linguistics, 47 (1), 1-60.
[edit] Media
- Hidden Nation, a one hour Video by Barbara Sillery & Oak Lea, Keepsake Productions (New Orleans), 1994.
