NACACHAU INDIANS. The Nacachau (Nacachao, Nacaha, Nacachua) Indians, a tribe of the southwestern or Hasinai division of Caddo Indians, lived in eastern Texas during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Their settlements were east of the Neches River in the area now occupied by Cherokee County. In 1716 the San Francisco de los Neches Mission was built for the Nacachau Indians and other nearby Hasinai tribes. After this very little is heard of the Nacachaus, and it is probable that they were absorbed by one or more neighboring Hasinai groups. On the basis of sound correspondences in the names, J. R. Swanton has suggested that the Hacanac, Lacane, Nacachau, Nacaniche, Nacau, Nacono, and Nakanawan Indians were probably fragments of the same Caddoan tribe. This cannot be verified by such documentary evidence as is now available.

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