The Houma’s Migration

Family in a thatch palmetto camp. The Indigenous people of the delta House found near the New Orleans area. The Houma stayed alongside waterways while migrating for fertile soil and as a source of transportation. Houma Village in Baton Rouge 1699 Timeline of migration and first contact with western explorers. Image by Michael Dardar showing the Houma communities. Previous Next By brody gannon, staff writer While not always welcomed, migration is sometimes necessary for survival. The Houma were one of the native peoples who migrated out of necessity and, ultimately that migration protected the tribe. The first historical record of the Houma is by the French in 1686 and, according to explorer Henri de Tonti, they were “the bravest savages of the river,” according to an article in the Loyola Law Review by Adam Crepelle. The Spanish came later. “The French wanted to work with the Houma, while the Spanish were taking things by force,” says Kirby Verret, a Houma member. “Our people first met the French in the mid 1680’s where the Red River and Mississippi River meet. That’s where the Houma people were.” He says the French were attempting to learn their language and wanted to join the Houma’s active trading system. But European exploration brought disease and alcohol to the Houma, ravaging the tribe’s numbers by 1700, according to Crepelle. In addition, colonial warfare and tribal conflict split the tribe into two groups on the east and west side of the Mississippi. The pressures of living between two colonial powers caused conflict within the tribe and, by the 1820s, the Houma sought refuge toward the South into the marshlands of coastal Louisiana, according to Crepelle’s article. Unlike the Cherokee and other tribes, the Houma had moved far enough south early enough that they were not included in the Trail of Tears, the forced relocation of about 100,000 Native Americans from their ancestral homelands between 1830 and 1850. “We had already moved further south, so we were out of the way already,” Verret says. Yet even in the isolated marshes of South Louisiana, the Houma still faced tensions with white settlers causing them to disperse even more into the bayous. Today, the Houma reside mainly in Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes along with St. Mary, Jefferson, Plaquemines and St. Bernard. Migrations still haven’t stopped. “Even in my lifetime, hurricanes have pushed my family further north from Dulac,” says Roxanna Foret, a Houma member and elementary school social studies teacher. “It fascinates me how they lived and fished near Bayou la Butte. I want my mom’s siblings to bring me down there some day.” She said their homes were washed away over time, and they have been pushed north due to yearly flooding.

The Houma People

By Jade Williams, features editor The native peoples who lived in North America are varied and plentiful. Just in Louisiana, tribes like the Chitimacha, Coushatta, Jena Band Choctaw were the first to make this land home. These tribes have an enormous amount of history. The tribe that eventually settled in the Bayou Region is the United Houma Nation. The people of this tribe have moved around and have been documenting their history for centuries. The first mention of the Houma Tribe is found from La Salle, a seventeenth century French explorer who reported on the existence of the “Oumas” village in 1682, according to an article titled The Native Heritage Project. In 1686, Chevalier de Tonti, a voyager who assisted La Salle, went up the Mississippi River and found the “Oumas tribe, the bravest of all the savages.” The tribe’s location at this time was east of the Mississippi River in West Feliciana Parish. Today, this area is known for being the site of the Angola State Prison. The Native Heritage Project article also states that in 1699, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, who was said to be governor of Louisiana and the founder of New Orleans, noted the conflict between the Houmas and the Bayougoula people. The Bayougoula was another indigenous tribe who took part in the naming of Baton Rouge along with the people of the Houma Tribe. “We are the reason why Baton Rouge got its name. The Houma people. It was named Iti Homma because of the red stick that separated the hunting territory and boundaries between us and the Bayougoula,” says Brittany Jimenez, a Houma Tribe member who lives in Texas, but is originally from Jefferson Parish. An article from Visit Baton Rouge states that this marker on the east bank of the Mississippi River caught the eye of French-Canadian explorer, Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville in 1699. The article states that he and his men saw the bloodied cypress pole on the bluff, adorned with animal parts and stained red from the tribes’ latest haul, and dubbed the area “le bâton rouge,” French for “Red Stick.” In 1817, the town was officially incorporated as “Baton Rouge.” The Houma Tribe also took part in the naming of New Orleans. An article titled Houma History, states that before the tribe came to be what it is today, the tribe seems to have had more than one village, but no names were recorded until the 1720s when they were called Little Houma and Great Houma. The article states that beginning with the Quinipissa in 1698, the tribe survived by absorbing people from almost every small tribe in the region, which combined different cultures of French and Spanish. This had impacted the tribe’s language and traditions. As time passed by, the tribe began to settle into Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes in south eastern Louisiana. Most of their descendents are still there today. An elder of the tribe, Kathleen Bergeron from St. Mary Parish says how much the tribe has overcome and how it reflects on who they are as people and as a tribe. “It’s given me my identity,” Bergeron says. “It rounded me, tells me who I am.” Culture identity is very important within tribes, and hair is known to be one of most significant aspects. Both the men and women had hair that was kept long and straight. The women plaited their hair and would dress it with feathers and beads more than the men would. Although both men and women braided their hair, they each have different reasons as to why. For the women and children, hair braiding was simply a pretty way to style their hair. The men would mostly braid their hair for battle. Often, the status of someone in the tribe could be shown by wearing braids. One of the many practices that can still be seen today within the Houma Tribe is the plaiting of the hair. The hair is to be grown out very long, especially for women. This would enable them to make two braids, one on each side of their head. The Houmas will often decorate the braids with feathers, beads, or leather. Both men and women continue to braid their hair, especially for Powwows. Creating tattoos was not an easy task for Native Americans. The process was extremely painful and can sometimes take hours to complete just one design. Swift hands and soft motions were crucial to achieving such beautiful design. They would use objects such as sharpened bone or rock that would embed the patterns onto the skin. After the design is complete, soot or natural dyes would be placed on the wound to stain it. The practice of the painting of the skin was similar to those shown above. To achieve the color and texture for the face and body paint, the Houmas would use colors gained from natural sources like plants and clays. This practice often is seen during social events like lacrosse games, festivals, religious ceremonies, and for war. Blackening of the teeth was practiced by the Houmas. This photo is an example of what the teeth would look like after blackening. Both sexes would blacken their teeth, mainly for beauty. They achieved this look by rubbing tobacco and wood ash on the teeth.