Pathways, Arteries, and Currents — Caddo Lifeways Across Time

For the Caddo people, pathways have always been more than trails – they are living networks that carry family, food, knowledge, and memory across the homelands. These daily routes reflect an ethic of sustainability, where tending fire, shaping clay, and gathering food are inseparable from responsibilities to family, community, and land. From these pathways emerged arteries of exchange that carried seeds, salt, tools, and stories across the continent, connecting Caddo communities to distant Nations. Alongside exchange, enduring currents of diplomacy tied the Caddo with neighboring peoples, sustaining balance and ensuring survival through even the most difficult times. Today, these pathways, arteries, and currents continue to guide Caddo well-being, identify, and cultural continuity.

Join Lauren Toho-Murrow Haupt, a citizen of the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma and a descendant of the Creek and Seminole Nations, and a consultant on the National Park Service, Texas Historical Commission, and the Friends of the THC project to reinterpret the El Camino Real de los Tejas through a Caddo lens. Lauren is a professional anthropologist and is currently pursuing her Ph. D. in Native American Studies at the University of New Mexico. Her research is rooted in Tribal sovereignty and Indigenous resource management through community-engaged research and cultural revitalization throughout ancestral Caddo homelands. Lauren’s work at Caddo Mounds centers around developing culturally-responsive policies for approaches to collaboration between Native Nations, state agencies, and federal agencies.