Although they formerly had the skills to weave finely decorated cane baskets similar to Chitimachan baskets, this skill was lost and replaced with palmetto, cypress and cane weaving and moss mat making. Many of the men are skilled wood carvers.
By 1940 they supported themselves almost exclusively by trapping muskrats and raccoons in the coastal marshes, by fishing with nets for shrimp and other fish in season, gathering oysters, and in a small part hiring out to cane and rice growers in the lower parishes. Thus their traditional agricultural economy evolved into a hunting and fishing one on the coastal fringes.
Today tribal members are concentrated primarily in Terrebonne, Lafourche and Jefferson Parishes with the majority located in Terrebonne Parish.
They have historically held the concept of each community retaining a large measure of autonomy, existing separately and possessing different outlooks and goals. With such tradition it is not surprising that two distinctly separate tribal governments currently exist. The Houma Tribe Inc., domiciled in Golden Meadow in Lafourche Parish serves Lafourche, St. Bernard, St. Tammy, Orleans, Plaquemine, Jefferson and Terrebonne Parishes while the Houma Alliance Inc., is domiciled in Dulac, in Terrebonne Parish.
The Houma Alliance, Inc. was a founding member of the Inter-Tribal Council.
Acotapissa—
In 1699 this tribe was living on the Pearl River about 11 miles from its mouth. It is said to occupy 6 villages and the Tangipahoa occupied one which had formerly constituted a 7th.
In 1702 or 1705 they moved to Bayou Castine on the North shore of Lake Pontchartrain, six months later the Natchitoches, whose crops had been ruined, were settled beside them by the commanders of the Mississippi fort.
In 1718 they moved to the Mississippi River and settled 35 miles above New Orleans on the east bank. In that year a Frenchman described their village and said the chief’s house was 36 feet in diameter. Six feet more than that of the Natchez Great Sun.
A little higher up the river they had a small village, then abandoned. In their old town was a temple which they rebuilt after they moved to the Mississippi River.