In the Present County of Cherokee

Hasinai means 'our own people.' The confederacy centered on the Hainai village, one of its eight tribes, and the xinesi who led it held both civil and religious authority and presided over the Hainai temple near the Angelina River. The Hasinai lived in the middle Neches and upper Angelina valleys. They were forced out of their homeland at the end of the Cherokee War in 1839, and in 1859 the agent Robert S. Neighbors oversaw their removal to Oklahoma. The Handbook says they live today in Caddo County, Oklahoma.

What the plaque says

In the Present County of Cherokee Was the home of the exalted grand xinesi - chief priest and custodian of the sacred fire of the Hasinai Confederacy of Indians. If fire was allowed to die out, it was his duty to carry more fire with proper ceremony to their homes to be rekindled. It was to the Hainai -- the principal tribe of this Confederacy, that the word "Texas" was generally applied. Erected by the State of Texas 1936

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Caddo Mounds State Historic Site — 6.5 mi
  Three earthen mounds of an ancestral Caddo village and ceremonial center on the old El Camino Real, settled about A.D. 800 and still sacred to Caddo people, with a grass house and visitor center.

More markers nearby

• A. Frank Smith United Methodist Church — 1.9 mi
• Robert F. Mitchell — 2.2 mi
• Old Palestine Baptist Church — 2.6 mi
• Site of the Delaware Indian Village — 2.7 mi