History and Orgins:

The Choctaw Indian Nation of Oklahoma traces it's ancestry to Mississippi and some sections of Alabama. Legends tell that the Choctaw People originated from "Nanih Waya". A great mound of earth that is often referred to as "The Mother Mound". Legend says that "in the beginning", a Great Red Man came down from above and built up Nanih Waya in the midst of a vast muddy plain. When the mound was completed, he called for the Red People to come up out of the "The Mother Mound".

The Choctaw were the first tribe to be relocated to Indian Territory which is now the State of Oklahoma. In 1830, The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek forcibly removed the majority of the Choctaw Nation from their homeland in Mississippi west to what is now known as southeastern Oklahoma. Over twenty thousand Choctaws were moved on this long journey. Seven thousand survived this removal on what has come to be known as "The Trail of Tears". Those Choctaw who remained in the homeland are now known as Mississippi Choctaw. The Choctaw Indians were the first tribe to arrive in Indian Territory. The Choctaw "Trail of Tears" from Mississippi to Indian Territory began in 1831, with the main removals continuing through 1834. The trip of 550 miles passed through unsettled country of dense forests, swamps, thick cane brakes, and swollen rivers. The suffering, caused by the mistakes and inefficiency of the War Department combined with one of the region's worse blizzards in history, was Indescribable. Wagons were in short supply and many roads became impassable except by foot. Inadequate clothing and supplies caused great suffering and sickness. Choctaw Agent William S. Colquhoun at Vicksburg, Mississippi, reported that a party arrived there after marching nearly naked and barefooted through the sleet and snow for twenty four hours. Colquhoun also stated that an error had thrown together three groups of Choctaws, a total of 2300, which were intended to travel separately. Transportation problems became critical as did the weather. Of the Indians' plight, Colquhoun said: "Their situation is distressing and must get worse, they are often very naked and few moccasins are seen amongst them."

A party of 2,500 Choctaws traveling by steamboat were disembarked at Arkansas Post and kept in open camps throughout the worst of the blizzard. Many had to remain for weeks awaiting horses which were being driven overland from Louisiana. Respiratory diseases and other illnesses which resulted from exposure and shortage of food took a heavy toll of the emigrants.

Provisions and preparations for the continuing migration in 1832 were improved, but a cholera epidemic brought new tragedy to the Indians. The disease which had been gradually creeping westward from India since 1816 reached New Orleans in January, 1832. Along the rivers, steamboats left their dead at every landing. Fear of the cholera had a demoralizing effect and alarmed both the Indians and their agents. Cholera broke out on a boatload of Choctaws nearing Memphis, a transfer station on the Mississippi River, and sickness and death became constant companions. Many panic stricken women and children refused to board another steamboat. They were ferried across the river and continued the journey by land. Incessant rains had made many roads through the swamp impassable, and some of the emigrants traveled thirty miles, knee to waist deep in water. All of the emigrants experienced great suffering and illness due to exposure and cold.

The losses incurred because of the appalling circumstances encountered during the removal permanently decreased the population of the tribe. The health of the Indians in their new home was affected for some time by the rigors of the trip.

The Choctaw population has grown from the original seven thousand survivors to more than one hundred thousand. The Choctaw people have overcome enormous obstacles in their quest for self-reliance in a changing and often hostile world.

In the early days, punishment for breaking the law included fines, whipping and death. No jails were built in early years for Choctaws, and their use was never common. It was a matter of honor for one who was accused of breaking the law to appear for trial and suffer such punishment as the courts might decree. If a Choctaw man was accused of a crime and failed to come to court, he was stigmatized as a coward. If a sentence of death was decreed by the court, the Choctaw was allowed to go free for a period of time. As a matter of honor, he would appear at the appointed hour to suffer the penalty of death by the shot of a rifle.

Murder was the worst crime recognized by the Choctaws, and the life of the murderer was invariably claimed by the friends or relatives of the victim. It is said that the murderers seldom attempted to escape, holding it a duty to their families to receive the punishment of death. To attempt to escape was considered a cowardly act, reflecting on every member of the family. If, however, a murderer did succeed in escaping, another member of the family usually was required to die in his stead.

Culturally, the Choctaws have always honored their women as the head of every family household. They were, and still are today, considered the care-takers of our children, our elders, and the home.

The children grew up in almost unrestrained freedom. Such slight control as was imposed upon them was vested in the mother in the case of the girls, while the maternal uncle had authority over the boys.

Neither boys nor girls were allowed to carry burdens, but they were encouraged to exercise freely to make them active. The boys roamed through the woods from village to village, shooting at birds and small animals with their blow guns, or, with the innate cruelty of little savages, tormenting dogs or other animals that fell into their hands. They began at an early age to play at the two games of ball, and to engage in violent feats of wrestling and running.
They also practiced the use of the bow and arrow, and their skill was noticed and praised by the older men. Even the little boys took delight in proving their hardihood by self-inflicted pain, and when a youth was recognized as a warrior he was required to submit to a severe beating without flinching or showing any sign of suffering.

Choctaw children were usually named after animals, or for some incident connected with their birth. Later in life they received new names as a recognition of some special achievement, or from some incident or adventure, or as an indication of some personal characteristic. Speeches and ceremonials usually accompanied the bestowal of this second title.

Although the Choctaws held no strict notions of sexual morality, it would appear from the testimony of those who lived among them in later years that they were a relatively chaste people whose family life was pure. In cases of adultery the woman was subject to punishment by her husband. If her family chanced to be stronger or more numerous than his own, she usually escaped; otherwise she was cast off by her husband and exposed at a public place in the town as the victim of all the men who chose to be present. To a shocked French visitor the Choctaws explained that "the only way to disgust lewd women is to give them at once what they so constantly and eagerly pursue."

It is evident from all accounts of Choctaw society that the women occupied an honored and important position within the tribe. Sensitive white observers sometimes spoke of the unequal division of labor between the sexes, where the women performed all the drudgery and the men occupied themselves in such pleasurable occupations as hunting and fishing; but such a generalization fails to take into account the importance and difficulty of the chase. The women performed a large part of the labor of the fields, made the clothing, prepared and stored the food, and carried the burdens; the men provided the game, built the houses, manufactured the wooden and stone implements, carried on the governmental activities, and protected the tribe in war.

As might have been expected from their interest in agriculture and their devotion to practical concerns, the Choctaws were an un-warlike people. They rarely made hostile excursions into the territory of their neighbors, but when their own country was invaded they defended their homes with great courage. The women sometimes accompanied their husbands to battle, standing beside them, handing them arrows, and exhorting them to fight bravely. Like other Indians the Choctaws depended more upon cunning than open combat, and they exercised a patience and skill in surprising their enemy that to white men seemed almost supernatural. Their military expeditions were always preceded by much dancing and "medicine," and the return of a successful party was the occasion of village hilarity. They practiced less cruelty to captives than most Indian tribes; they adopted the women and children, and burned the warriors. The Choctaws were primarily an agricultural people, raising corn, beans, pumpkins, and melons in the little plots by their cabins. Their method of cultivation was similar to that practiced all through the Southeast. They cleared their fields by burning the underbrush and girdling the larger trees. Their agricultural implements consisted of crude hoes made of a bent stick, the shoulder blade of a bison, or a piece of flint. Although they owned less land than any of the surrounding tribes, they raised more corn and beans than they needed for their own use and sold the surplus to their neighbors.

So important was corn in their economic life that they invented legends to account for its origin. According to one story it came as the gift of a beautiful woman to a couple of Choctaw hunters who shared their last meal with her. According to another story a child was playing in the yard when a crow flew over and dropped a single grain; the child planted it and in this way became the discoverer of their most important article of food.

Each family's supply of corn was stored in a rude crib raised on poles about eight feet from the ground. Fruits, nuts, seeds, and roots that grew in the woods were also gathered, and stored in the houses. They ground their corn into meal with a wooden pestle, in a mortar which they made by burning a hollow in the side of a fallen tree.

Although hunting, with the primitive Choctaws, was an occupation secondary in importance to agriculture, it was an important source of their food supply. In his knowledge of woodcraft, and his skill in stalking and killing game, the Choctaw hunter showed characteristic Indian strategy. The deer was the main source of meat and clothing. The bear was prized for his fat which was rendered and stored in deerskins. Turkeys, pigeons, squirrels, beaver, otter, raccoon, opossum, and rabbits also abounded in the Choctaw country. The men, of course, used the bow and arrow; but the little boys became adept at killing birds and small animals with a blowgun made of cane and loaded with little arrows.

Fishing was also an important occupation. The Choctaws did not use fishhooks until the coming of the white man, but they killed fish to some extent with spears and arrows. The favorite method was dragging the pools, with a net made of brush fastened together with creepers, or poisoning them with winter-berries, buckeye, or devil's shoestring. The Choctaws never wasted either fish or game; any surplus over the needs of one band was invariably divided with others.

The Choctaw people are very proud of our status as "civilized" Indians. If the Choctaws were to be compared with other Indian tribes of the time, they would be described as of peaceful character and friendly disposition. They were dependent on agriculture in these early days and held a tremendous enjoyment for games, particularly stick-ball, and social gatherings. They were by nature a mild, quiet, and kindly people, practical minded and adaptable rather than strong and independent and fierce. We have been a pragmatic people, quick to accept whatever was good from the people who entered our lives. There is a saying that if the European settlers had brought aluminum foil with them the Choctaws would have been cooking with it while the other tribes were still regarding it with suspicion. But too often, in the rush for progress, we lose a sense of our history, our roots. It becomes hard for us to remember who and what we were before the white man came with his fine clothes, fancy homes and furniture. Perhaps this is nowhere more noticeable that at our annual tribal gathering. We are hosts to people from many other tribes. They wear modern clothing throughout the day, but when we dance, we wear the clothing worn by our ancestors many winters before the civilizing influences took hold of our lives. We're not often seen wearing such garments even though it is a part of our heritage.

The Choctaws were originally worshipers of the Sun. It places the Choctaws into a possible racial relationship with the Mayans, Toltecs, Incas, Aztecs, Polynesians, Japanese and lost peoples of the Easter Island area. All of these people were or are Sun worshipers, believing that the Sun is the deity or the eye of the deity.

The holy number of the ancient Choctaw religion was four, much as three in the holy number of Christianity. Why four? For the Choctaw all things come in fours. Did not the basic government unit ... the family . . . come in fours . . . the mother, the father, the sons and the daughters? There were four elements. . the earth, the water, the sky and the living things (animals and plants), four seasons ... winter, spring, summer and fall, and four directions, north, east, south and west.

The most popular and predominate word used for the ancient Choctaw deity as "Hashtahli," which Swanton says was derived from the word "hashi" which means sun and "tahli," which meant "to complete the action." Other words used by our forefathers when speaking of their God were Achafa Chito (great one), Chictokaka (might one), Hashi Ikba (sun father) and two terms, lshtahullo Chito and Nanishto Hullo Chito (meaning in English doubtful). In later years, as the original religion of the Choctaws waned and as Christianity crept in, the terms Uba Pike or Uba Pisku (our father) and Shilup Chitoh Osh (the great spirit) become more popular and began to make appearances in Choctaw stories or writings.

The moon was called "Hashi Ninak Anya" (little sun that shines at night), and was considered the wife of Hashtahli. The stars were their children, and fire was a blessing bestowed by Hashtahli upon his earthbound children. But it was a mixed blessing, as the fire would report any transgressions to Hashtahli even though it cooked their food and warmed them on cool nights. Once each month, the sun's wife would send the children out to play and begin cleaning house. The full moon was a clean house. And then the children would dirty it up again until (when the last quarter moon arrived) mother again started her monthly cleanup.

The ancient Choctaws recognized evil in the world, but rather than a full blown Satan or Devil such as is known to Christianity, evil and frightening things were invested in a number of lesser beings or spirits. Among these were:

Na Lusa Chito - A big black being which would pounce on and eat any person it found alone in the forest, particularly women and children.Impashilup - The "soul eater," which if you allowed him through evil thoughts or depression, would creep inside you and eat your soul.
Bohpoli - "The thrower," a small man who lived alone in the woods and who would never let himself be seen by man. Bohpoli, also known as Kowi Anukasha (one who stays in the woods) was more mischievous than evil. He would make sudden noises to startle you or toss a stick or stone at you when your head was turned.
Kashehotopolo - A combination of man and deer, noted for great speed and agility. If you angered Kashehotopolo, he would race ahead of you and warn the game or the enemy of your approach.
Okwo Naholo or Oka Nahullo - The "white people of the water," who were almost transparent and invisible when swimming below the surface. These beings reportedly sometimes kidnapped children and turned them into beings like themselves.
Koklo Noteshi - A bad spirit which was able to assume any shape it desired and which had the ability to read men's thoughts.
Naluso Falaya - The "long black being," which resembled a man but had small eyes, long pointed ears and preferred to approach man sliding on his stomach like a snake. His powers were similar to those of Na Lusa Chito.
Hashok Okwa Huiga - "Grass water drop," a being connected with the will-o-the-wisp. Only its heart is visible at night, and if you looked directly at that heart you would become addled and your mind would be led astray.

Thunder and lightning was two great birds. The female, Heloha (thunder) would lay her giant eggs in the clouds and they would rumble as they rolled around atop the clouds. Despite his size, her mate Melatha (lighting) was extremely fast and left a trail of sparks as he streaked across the sky.

To protect himself from evil spirits and assure success in battle, each Choctaw male, upon reaching his manhood, created for himself a totem or medicine bag, which he carried upon his person at all times. Each medicine bag was different, being made, up of items the individual felt would word off evil or bring good fortune ... such as a claw from his first bear kill, a bit of earth from his house, etc. The warrior would never reveal to another the contents of his medicine bag, and if asked what the bag contained, he would probably, answer "You would not be any wiser thereby." If a Choctaw's medicine bag were ever stolen, destroyed or lost, his effectiveness as a warrior, a hunter, a digger, a builder or whatever his profession was gone and he could not operate until he had found or built himself a new totem.

Religiously and politically, the ancient Choctaw Nation was a benign matriarchy. Upon marriage the husband lived with his wife's clan and their children were members of her clan, although the husband was never admitted to full clan membership but remained a member of his own (or his mother's) clan. Woman was considered "the giver of life." Did she not birth the children, cause the corn to grow, cause the vegetables to grow and prepare life giving food for her husband and children.

Conversely, the man was the "taker of life." Did he not kill the game for the family table, fight the enemy of his family and people and stand protectively between his family and the world? When a Choctaw, particularly of the hunting and warring iksas, made his first kill he was allowed to add the word "abi" (killer and pronounced ubbi) to his name. Thus you know when you meet a Choctaw whose surname ends in "obi" or "ubbi" that you are speaking of the descendant of a once mighty Choctaw warrior or hunter who earned the right to have "killer" added to his name.

The family unit was the basis of both political and religious life among the ancient Choctaws. Several families, one of which was hunters, one warriors, one builders, etc., would band together in an "iksa" or clan. The clan adopted a symbol, usually a bird or animal, and a clan color which was worn proudly as each Choctaw was proud of his or her clan. For mutual protection, several "iksas" (or clans) would band together to create a "moiety" (or town).

Several moieties might then band together under a popular spokesman (or Minko) to become a nation, tribe or district. In this manner was created the three historic Choctaw districts: Ahi Apet Okla (potato eating people), Okla Hanalli (six people or six towns) and Okla Falaya (long people).

The ancient Choctaw did not possess a "soul" in the strictest Christian sense of the term. Instead he possessed an inner shadow or spirit, "Shilup" (which now means ghost), and an outer spirit, "Shilombish" (which now means soul). Upon the death of a Choctaw, the Shilup or inner shadow immediately began its long trip to the west toward the "Happy Land." And the Shilombish or outer shadow remained about the place of its abode in life for a more or less indefinite period of time. The Shilombish generally remained around the home until funeral ceremonies had been completed, and then if all were well with its family it would slowly fade away.

However, if the body to whom the Shilombish belonged had been troubled in life or was murdered, the outer shadow would remain around the family until the problem was solved. In this event, the Shilombish would let the family know at night that it was still about by issuing pitiful moans or barking like a fox or hooting like an owl near the house. How did you know that a Shilombish was about your house? When a fox barks or an owl calls, another will answer from a distance away. However, when a Shilombish cries, there is no answer from another fox or another owl.

In the meantime, the Shilup or inner shadow has made the long journey westward toward the "Happy Land." It has felt neither hunger nor thirst nor the need for sleep pressing on westward for days and days until it reached the gateway to the Happy Land. However, to enter the Happy Land, the Shilup had to cross a deep, dark canyon by means of a freshly-peeled and therefore slick "footlog." (This footlog was peeled pine according to what Peter P. Pitchlynn told George Catlin or peeled sweetgum according to Isaac Folsom.) As the Shilup attempted to walk across the slick log, it was bombarded with sticks and stones, thrown by the guardians of the gateway to the Happy Land. If the Shilup was brave and ignored the guardians, it reached the other side of the canyon.

Here was the Happy Land, where existed one continual day and a world where trees are always green and bear fruit and nuts eternally, where the sky has no clouds and where there are fine and continually cooling breezes. Feasting, dancing and rejoicing go on always, there is no pain or trouble and people never grow old but live forever young, enjoying all of the peaceful pleasures throughout eternity.

However, if you were a bad Shilup or were fearful of the guardians of the gateway to the Happy Land and tried to dodge the stones and sticks tossed at you, you would fall off the log into the canyon below. Here you would land in water "which is dashing over rocks and is stinking with dead fish and animals. There you are carried around and brought back to the same place again and again by whirlpools. The trees are all dead and bare and the waters are full of toads, lizards and snakes. The dead in the water are always hungry, but have nothing to eat; are always sick, but cannot die; are always in the dark smelly waters where the sun never shines. From this place, the dead may look into the beautiful country which makes up the Happy Land, see the sunshine from afar and hear the laughter and singing of the souls who reached there, but can never reach it themselves."

Students of religion have called the concepts of the ancient Choctaw "brilliantly conceived and encompassing every detail of existence to form a basic religion worthy of a civilized people." Comparison indicates that it was but a short step for the Choctaws from their ancient religion to Christianity, as there are no major basic differences. In fact, certain concepts of the ancient Choctaw religion . . . particularly in the area of the roles of men and women in society . . . may be superior to the male-rule concepts of Christianity.

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