Choctaw Chronology

Part I | Part II | Part IIII | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII

Part I - Before 1700
The Choctaw Indians of Mississippi bear a rich and lively culture.It is evident in their living language and daily activities. They celebrate high days and holidays with favorite foods and festivals. They cherish and perform their tribal dances. They fashion blowguns and baskets of native cane, and they play the old game kabocha toli - stickball, with its handmade hickory sticks and balls.

The Choctaws were reckoned to be the most numerous of the Muskhogean linguistic family having once numbered, perhaps, a quarter of a million before reduction by repeated ravages of imported epidemic disease. Other Muskhogean tribes include Creeks, Chickasaws, Seminoles, Apalachi and some smaller groupings. The Cherokees,another major southern tribe speak an Iroquois dialect.

Of the Muskhogean languages, Chickasaw is most closely related to Choctaw. On a lexico-statistical analysis of the two languages which I performed 30 years ago only one word in a one hundred word test differed: For the generic term "bird", the Choctaws use "hushi", the Chickasaws "fushi". An early English trader, James Adair, who spent nearly 20 years in the land of the two tribes commented on their similarity. There was some commerce between not only the Muskhogean Indians, but northern and western tribes as well. Chickasaw hunters swapped hides to Choctaw farmers for corn. There were trade routes (some of which became "roads" later) throughout the south; A part of the Warriors Path, a major north-south link, is preserved as a State Park in Northeast Tennessee. The trade language was "mobilian" - which one author called a kind of pidgin Choctaw.

Choctaw and Chickasaw traditions indicate a close relationship. One legend holds that Choctaw and Chickasaw were the names of two brothers who like Abraham and Lot, moved their followers into separate lands. As mentioned, the languages are almost identical. (A present-day Choctaw told me that he can understand Chickasaw, but not Creek.) Chickasaw phrases as recorded by Adair shortly after 1700 are easily understood by today's Choctaw. It has been conjectured that Chickasaws and Choctaws were one tribe just before the coming of the white man. There was no "northern" province of the Choctaw nation - just southern, central, eastern and western. The Chickasaws inhabited the area which would have reasonably constituted a northern Choctaw district. Further there is the consideration of Nanih Waiya.

The fortified mound group clustered around the high mound Nanih Waiya (Sloping Hill) stood between Choctaw and Chickasaw country. The Choctaws considered it a holy place. Their origin myths, of which there are several always include it in some degree. One version holds that the Choctaws emerged from the ground at a nearby cave. Another holds that it was the site on which a sacred "guiding pole" stood erect - a sign that they had arrived in the promised land. Even the isolated Choctaws of Bayou Lacomb in Louisiana, visited by Bushnell in 1909 and by myself in 1962, seemed to know of the holy status of Nanih Waiya. (They referred to it as Nanih Chaha - high hill.) When the Chickasaws were part of the main body, the location of Nanih Waiya would have been centered in the nation where it would be safest. Nanih Waiya is in Winston County, about ten miles southeast of Noxapater. As a State Park it is now in the protection of the State of Mississippi.

Early writers mention enmity between Choctaws and Chickasaws as "hereditary". It is very likely, however, that the enmity was stirred to fever pitch by the Europeans themselves as they vied for trade with the two tribes, pitting one against the other. Before that time there may have been little more than a rivalry between the two groups.

In the literature, we have a lot of "one-liner" descriptions, a few of which I will include here. It is written that the Choctaws were active people, peacefully inclined, who loved games and were eager to make friends. Adair said the Chickasaws were amazed at the rhetorical skill of the Choctaws. The Choctaws were said to be the fastest runners of all southern Indians - able to out distance an enemy either in pursuit or in flight. They were excellent defensive fighters and for this reason their homeland was seldom disturbed. They were reluctant to go warring in distant territory -- stating that they would probably have to be satisfied with killing only women or children. While if they waited at home for an all-male enemy party to attack them, they would be assured of more worthy adversaries and, therefore, more worthy trophies. Not only did a man's status within the nation depend upon his ability as a warrior, but his name as well.

Adair described the "war names" as follows:

"They crown a warrior, who has killed a distinguished enemy... and Abi is their constant war-period, signifying by their rhetorical figure "one who kills another". It signifies also to murder a person or beat him severely...The following is a specimen: One initiating in war-titles, is called "Tannap Abi, 'a killer of the enemy'; - he who kills a person carrying a kettle, is crowned Asonak Ai Tushka; the first word signifies a kettle, and the last a warrior. Shulush Humma Asht Abi, the name of the late Choktah great war- leader, our firm friend Red Shoes, is compounded of Shulush....deer skin shoes, Humma, red Ash....T....

"They give their children names, expressive of their tempers, outward appearances, and other various circumstances; a male child they will call Chula, the fox; and a female, Pakanle, the blossom, or flower. The father and mother of the former are called Chula Inki, and Chula Ishke, the father and mother of the fox; in like manner, those of the latter, Pakahnli Inki and Pakahnli Ishke; for Inki signifies the father, and Ishke the mother."

The words and usage as recorded by Adair in the early seventeen hundreds are the same today. In the latter part of the 19th century, Halbert noted the following use of the word Abi: Onakma, abi hoke! Tomorrow we will win! Also: Towa itonla achukma, abi hoke! The ball lies good. We will win. Abi is preserved in modern Choctaw names as "Tubby". The following excerpt from Swanton illustrates how the change took place:

"The chief also had a pipe. It was given by Simpson Tubby's great-grandfather, Mashulatubbi to his grandfather, Aliktubbi, and then passed to his (father) Lewis Tubby."

Simpson later loaned the pipe to a museum and it is said to have been lost.

The Acts of the Choctaw nation state that on December 8, 1891, James Carlubbee and his family of seven, newly arrived in Indian Territory from Mississippi, were made citizens. There are other instances of the word abi being made part of a family name. Each preserves a memory of the time when a warrior was known by his deeds.

The Choctaws are said to have practiced head-flattening for a while although we have only ethnographic data for this assumption. Archaeological studies underway now by the tribal archaeologist may shed some light on this. Some have conjectured that the word Chahta, the tribal name, may have come into the language from the Spanish word chata meaning flattened. The tribal members refer to themselves as Okla.

The Choctaw "scaffold burial" for their dead is mentioned often by early writers. The following account by Bossu, a Frenchman, is a fair summary:

"After a Chacta has died, his body is put into a bier made of cypress bark expressly for the purpose and placed on four forked sticks about fifteen feet high. After the worms have consumed the flesh, the entire family assembles. The bone-picker comes and dismembers the skeleton. He tears off the muscles, nerves and tendons which may be left. Then they bury the latter and deposit the bones in a chest after having painted the head with vermillion."

"Bone pickers" may also be rendered "bone gatherers". Cushman records their title as Hatak Fullih Nipi Foni; in other places they are called Iksa Anumpali and Na Foni Aiowa.

Hernando Desoto, leading his well-equipped Spanish fortune hunters, made contact with the Choctaws in the year 1540. He had been one of a triumverate which wrecked and plundered the Inca empire and, as a result, was one of the wealthiest men of his time. His invading army lacked nothing in equipage. In true conquistador style, he took as hostage a chief named Tuscaloosa (Black Warrior), demanding of him carriers and women. The carriers he got at once. The women, Tuscaloosa said, would be waiting in Mabila (Mobile). The chief neglected to mention that he had also summoned his warriors to be waiting in Mabila. On October 18, 1540, DeSoto entered the town and received a gracious welcome. The Choctaws feasted with him, danced for him, then attacked him. In the course of battle, the city was burned before the Spaniards were routed. In November, when his wounded were able to travel, DeSoto burned some more of the Choctaw domain, seized corn for his supply, and departed into Chickasaw country. Across the Mississippi, Desoto vanished from history.

Since DeSoto found no gold and the fur trade was not developed, the Choctaws were not seriously threatened by Na Hollo (white man) until about 1700.

Continued