We are currently working on a review for Moving Beyond the Page that focuses on Native Americans. In the first lesson, we were asked to explore local Native American tribes. So, we took off to the Mayborn Museum and searched the internet to see what we could find about this little known subset of Caddo Indians.
The Hueco Indians were a relatively small group of Indians. They are part of the Wichita Indians that were pushed south into Central Texas. The Wichita Indians are part of the larger Caddo Indians, if I followed it all correctly. From spring to fall, they lived in large grass huts that were 30-40 feet high and 20-30 feet across. They farmed and raised crops on about 250 acres. These crops included melons, pumpkins, corn, squash, and beans. When the weather turned colder, they closed up their grass huts and became nomadic for the winter. They followed the buffalo, hunting them and moving around as Plains Indians. They lived in teepees and moved their belongings as needed to hunt the buffalo. As the spring returned, they also returned to their grass huts to begin farming once more.
At The Mayborn
On The Internet
Information on the Hueco Indians is difficult to find, since they were such a regionalized group and very small. The best information we found indicates that there were only about 250 members of this group and they lived in one village of about 150-200 and another small village of about 50 that was close by.
What we did find is located on the Texas Indians site.
We researched George Catlin a bit since he spent so much of his life living with the Native Americans and painting scenes of their lives. He did spent some time with the Hueco Indians so it was interesting to see a painting that documents their life. We found copies of the paintings on the Wichita Indians page of the Texas Indians site.
We also visited the George Catlin Complete Works site. It was interesting to see all of his work, though the paintings attributed to him on the other site is not found on the Complete Works site, which I found odd. Also, a word of caution – there are some graphic depictions of rituals in a few of the paintings so you may want to pick and choose what your students see.
We had fun with this short mini unit on a local Native American tribe. What tribes are close to you? Have you spent any time studying them? We are going to be working on Native Americans most of the summer with mini units like this and are looking for others to study. Please share ideas with us! At Home.
Linking up with ABC Blogging at Ben and Me.
We were featured!
Tagged: ABC blogging, Elementary, field trips, history, PK/K
At Home 
Interesting. We live close to where the Tuscarora Native Americans lived in NC, but we haven’t studied them very much, yet.
I think Native American studies are just so much fun. I hope you enjoy studying them when you get around to it.
Fun! We will be studying Native Americans this coming year too! Thanks for sharing at FTF!
We are having a fun time with Moving Beyond The Page. They have done a good job with their Native American study. Enjoy your time this coming year learning about them.
I’ve never heard of the Hueco Indians before (have heard of Wichita though). We enjoy learning about native Americans, so thanks for introducing us!
Thanks for linking up with #abcblogging. We’ve featured this post as one of this weeks favorites! http://benandme.com/2014/06/abc-blogging-favorites-letters-g-h.html
Thank you Marcy. The Hueco (also known to a few as Waco) were a small group but we enjoyed learning a bit more. Thanks for featuring us! We are loving the #abcblogging series.
[…] visited a local museum to learn more about a local tribe. (You can see more about that in the post H is for Hueco Indians.) This unit was a lot of fun and the girls learned so much. I am really pleased with this study, […]
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We recently learned about George Caitlin. I found him very interesting!
Yes, quite interesting.
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