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The Houma Indian nation were originally a part of the Chakchiuma, a people living in central Mississippi. In 1682, however, they separated to became an independent people and situated themselves to the south of their former brothers on the modern day Mississippi / Louisiana border. In the early eighteenth century the Houma were besieged by neighbouring tribes and, as a result, uprooted themselves and headed towards New Orleans. By the 1720’s white settlement was encroaching upon Houma territory and they were again forced to move, this time going just upstream to Ascension Parish. Over the next fifty years they drifted towards the southwest of New Orleans, where their modern day descendants can be found.
When the Houma separated from the Chakchiuma they numbered somewhere in the vicinity of three thousand people. In the year 1700 a bout of dysentery ran through the tribe and numbers were reduced dramatically. By 1730 epidemics introduced by the Europeans had taken their exacting toll on the Houma. These once numerous people were now down to just four hundred strong.
The name Houma means ‘red’ and is, apparently, a shortened form of the name for their original parent tribe, the Chakchiuma, which was ‘red crawfish.’ The Houma have also been known by the names Ouma and Huma and by the derogatory term ‘sabine.’ They spoke the Muskogean language.
The villages of the Houma were built on hillsides away from the Misissippi River to prevent flooding. The houses were wattle and daub construction mound type dwellings which were built into the hillsides. They were arranged in a circular pattern of two rows with a large public area in the middle. The Houma were an agricultural people who planted maize, beans, squash and melons. They were also hunters and fishermen. The Houma were once practicers of the flattened heads custom but this died out in the 1700s. They continued to make extensive use, however, of tattooing of the face and the body. Men wore breechcloths to their knees while the women wore a short skirt. Both sexes wore nothing up top. Both men and women wore their hair loose.
First European contact occurred for the Houma in the relatively late year of 1686. At that time they were encountered by French explorer Henri de Tonti. In the ensuing years the Houma learnt to associate a white face with death and destruction, either through the British slave traders or the diseases that seemed to inevitably follow wherever the white man went. In 1721, a smallpox epidemic cut their numbers by half. By 1768, there were just 250 Houma left.
Even the above figure is not a true reflection of the low number of Houma as, at that time, large numbers of eastern tribes were moving into the Mississippi area to escape British rule. The Houma absorbed some of these refugees. By the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, there were only about 60 Houma remaining. During the 1800s the Houma language disappeared and was replaced by Cajun French. Intermarriage with both whites and blacks in the 1800s made it difficult to keep a reliable track on the numbers during this time. However the 1910 Census puts the figure at 120. By 1930, however, that figure had jumped markedly to 639. Today there are about 11,000 members of the Houma Indian Nation living on reservation lands in Lousiana. This makes them the largest tribe in the state. They have been unable, however, to achieve Federal recognition despite the filing of a petition for Federal status. The finding was that there was insufficient evidence to show that the modern day Houma were, in fact, the descendants of the historical Houma Indian tribe. The United Houma Nation is currently seeking to have this decision overturned.
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