HACANAC INDIANS. The Hacanac Indians were a Caddoan people encountered by the Moscoso expedition in 1542 somewhere in the area of northeastern Texas or in the adjoining parts of Arkansas and Louisiana. They may be the same as the Lacane Indians, also mentioned in the records of the same expedition, whose name was regarded by J. R. Swanton as an early name for the people later known as Nacaniches. On the basis of sound correspondences in the names, Swanton has suggested that Hacanac, Lacane, Nacachau, Nacao, Nacaniche, 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: 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).
