Presently, the archaeological picture seems to support the hypothesis that the Yatasi included a number of small autonomous bands. A cluster of sites is located around Chamard Lake: the Arnold or Bead Hill site (Gregory and Webb 1965), the Wilkinson site (Ford 1936), and the Eagle Brake site (Gregory 1974). These sites have fairly large, deep middens and all have yielded Natchitoches Engraved sherds and trade goods. This is somewhat different from the scattered shallow sites nearer Natchitoches and suggests more clustered populations, but still a dispersed settlement pattern. None of these archaeological sites seems to correspond to the Red River-Bayou Pierre sites, though they shared the drainage. Although it is known that the Lafittes, Poisot, and Rambin claims were near the Yatasi villages, and all of these settlers traded with the tribe (Pintado Papers:82-84), their documented sites remain to be found.
Contemporary Caddo, most of whom are Kadohadacho or Hasinai, frequently mention the Yatasi when asked about other groups and know they once existed. However, it remains obscure whether the Yatasi were one or many little groups. They seem to have been absorbed by the Kadohadacho, but it is hard to trace them after the American land sales.
THE KADOHADACHO
The Kadohadacho (“Great Chiefs” in the Caddoan languages) were the dominant Caddoan-speaking group in the Red River Valley. They occupied a widely dispersed settlement with a temple and a mound, in northeastern Texas and probably near the Great Bend at Texarkana. The Petit Caddo, Nasoni, Nanatsoho, and Upper Natchitoches were absorbed by the Kadohadacho, and the tribes abandoned their Great Bend villages (at least four archaeological sites there seem related to these groups) and shifted south to Caddo Lake. Once there, their chief, Tinhiouen, dealt politically with both the Spanish (Bolton 1914) and the Americans.
The Kadohadacho language was the most widely understood of all the Caddoan tongues, and, according to early accounts (Sibley 1922), the tribe was the most influential of all the Caddos. They had a sort of warrior class comparable to the “Knights of Malta.” It is, therefore, not surprising that the Kadohadacho became the Caddo Nation of the American Period (Williams 1964).
The Kadohadacho settled, at least by 1797 (Swanton 1942), at a location known as Timber Hill (Mooney 1896:323) near Caddo Lake (Swanton 1942). Williams (1964) has pointed out that this village has never been located archaeologically. However, it should be noted that the Texicans placed the tribe near Caddo Station in 1842 (Gullick 1921).
Immediately after the American land treaty, the tribe apparently split into factions. A group under Tarsher moved to the Brazos River in Texas; the others stayed in Louisiana until at least 1842, when they apparently moved to live with the Choctaw some time that year (Swanton 1942:95).
The late Miss Caroline Dormon (1935, unpublished field notes, Special Collections, Eugene Watson Library, Northwestern State University) recorded a single burial, with a “silver crown, copper, etc.,” which was found near Stormy Point on Ferry Lake by James Shenich, son-in-law of Larkin Edwards. This burial may have been very near the Kadohadacho village. According to the Dormon notes, this was a favorite crossing to Shreveport and the Indian trace was visible as late as the 1860’s. In spite of the fact that “Glendora Focus” artifacts were not present (Williams 1964), it can no longer be said that there were no historic Caddoan sites in the Treaty Cession areas of De Soto and Caddo parishes. In fact there is a good possibility that this was the grave of the powerful chief, Dahaut, who died in 1833 (Caddo Agency Letters).