A case of identity: Ethnogenesis of the new Houma Indians

Throughout the twentieth century, anthropologists and historians have regar ded the Houma Indians of southern Louisiana as the descendants of the Houma Indians encountered along the Mississippi River by French explorers and se ttlers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Oral history of the con temporary Houma traces the group's origin to Native Americans of the Houma and other tribes who moved into the bayou country of southeastern Louisiana during the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries. However, anthrop ologists and historians from the Bureau of Indian Affairs have concluded th at there is no documentary evidence of any cultural or genealogical link be tween the modern Houma and the Houma of the French colonial period. Availab le documentary sources indicate that the modern Houma originated in the nin eteenth century as a multiethnic group that included Europeans, African Ame ricans, and some Native Americans, none of whom are known to have been Houm as. The genesis of the modern group's identity as Houma Indians can be unde rstood as a response to legally sanctioned racial classifications and race discrimination in Louisiana from the late nineteenth century on.