NASONI INDIANS. The Nasoni (Assony, Nasoui, Nassonite, Nisohone, Nazone) Indians, a Caddoan tribe of northeastern Texas in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was divided into two parts that may be designated as Upper Nasoni and Lower Nasoni. The Upper Nasoni Indians were associated with the northern or Kadohadacho group of Caddoan tribes and lived along the Red River in what is now northern Bowie County. The Lower Nasoni Indians were among the southwestern or Hasinai group of Caddoan tribes and lived in the vicinity of present Rusk County. The Upper Nasonis were under French influence from 1719 until 1762 (a French post was built in their main settlement), but the Lower Nasonis were under Spanish influence (San José de los Nazones Mission was founded among them in 1716). In the latter part of the eighteenth century both groups were greatly reduced in numbers by disease and warfare and by 1880 seem to have lost their identities among neighboring Caddo groups. It seems likely that the Upper Nasoni Indians were absorbed by the Kadohadachos and the Lower Nasonis by the Anadarkos. If so, unidentifiable descendants of both groups may be represented among the surviving Caddo Indians, who today live in Caddo County, Oklahoma.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Herbert E. Bolton, "The Native Tribes about the East Texas Missions," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 11 (April 1908). Frederick Webb Hodge, ed., Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico (2 vols., Washington: GPO, 1907, 1910; rpt., New York: Pageant, 1959). John R. Swanton, Source Material on the History and Ethnology of the Caddo Indians (Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 132, Washington: GPO, 1942).

Thomas N. Campbell