History of the Choctaw Chickasaw and Natchez Indians Collections – Page 3 of 5

Laws of the Chickasaw Tribe

The ancient Chickasaw divisions of the tribe were called Yakissah, (here stops). In reference to family connections in marrying they were the same as the Choctaws, No persons of the same Yakissah were allowed to marry. Also they have been called In Chukka Holhtenah Hochifo, most frequently abbreviated to Inchukka holhte chifo, his house (or clan) is numbered and named; and with the same reference as Yakissah, and also Iksa of the Choctaws. If a man violated the law by marrying a woman of his own Yakissah (or house), he forfeited his own rights and privileges, and also his children … Read more

Indian Wampums

The Indians, having no written language, preserved and handed down their history to future generations through tradition, much of which could have been obtained a century and a half ago, and even a century ago, which was authentic and would have added much to the interest of the history of the continent of which we boast as our inheritance, though obtained by the extermination of a race of people whose wonderful history, had it been obtained as it once could have been, would have been very interesting and beneficial to future generations, throwing its light back over ages unknown, connecting … Read more

Indian Mounds throughout North America

Charlevoix and Tantiboth speak of Indians who inhabited the region of country around Lake Michigan, who were well skilled in the art of erecting mounds and fortifications, Charlevoix also states that the Wyandots and the Six Nations disinterred their dead and took the bones from their graves where they had lain for several years and carried them to a large pit previously prepared, in which they deposited them, with the property of the deceased, filling up the pit with earth and erected a mound over it. A string of sleigh-bells much corroded, but still capable of tinkling, is said to have been found among the … Read more

Indian Mounds in Natchez, Mississippi

On the 18th of May 1838, a party of literary and scientific gentlemen from Natchez, Mississippi, examined two square mounds three and a half miles below the city, between the bluff and the river, about a mile from the river and one-eighth of a mile from the bluff, rising from 11 to 16 feet above the level upon which they are based. The two mounds stood about 500 feet apart, ranging north and south of each other, the larger being 66 feet square, and 16 feet high, and the other 33 feet square and 11 feet high. An excavation was made … Read more

Important Men of the Choctaw Indians

The Choctaw Nation, from its earliest known history to the present time has, at different intervals, produced many great and good men; who, had they have had the advantages of education, would have lived upon the pages of history equally with those of earth’s illustrious great. The first of whom we have any historical account, is Tush-ka Lu-sa, (the heroic defender of Moma Bin-na, a Lodge for All corrupted first to Mobila, then to Mobile) who perished, with many thousands of his people, in that bloody tragedy of three and a half centuries ago, while de fending his ancient city against … Read more

History of the Shakchi Humma Tribe

P.P. Pitchlynn, Speaker of the National Council of the Choctaw Nation and Choctaw delegate to the government of the United States

Oktibbeha county, Mississippi, as well as its sister counties, has been the scene of many hard struggles between the contending warriors of the different tribes, who inhabited the noble old state in years of the long past; not only from the statements and traditions of the Choctaws, who were among the last of the Indian race whose council-fires lit up her forests, and whose hoyopatassuha died away upon her hills, but also from the numerous fortifications and entrenchments, that were plainly visible, ere the ploughshare had upturned her virgin soil, and her native- forests still stood in their primitive beauty … Read more

History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Natchez Indians

First published in 1899, “History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Natchez Indians” remains a seminal work on the indigenous tribes of the American Southeast. Authored by Horatio Bardwell Cushman, who was born to missionary parents and raised among the Choctaws starting in 1820, the book offers a unique and personal perspective on the lives and histories of these tribes. Cushman’s proximity and intimacy with the Choctaw and Chickasaw peoples, over nearly eighty years, lends his narratives an authenticity and depth seldom matched in other historical accounts.

Gov. Perier and Bienville

While the English east of the Alleghany mountains were adopting active, but secret measures, to stop the progress of French colonization on the banks of the Mississippi river, their traders were meeting the French traders every where among the southern Indians, and their mutual animosity and competition causing frequent quarrels, oft terminating in collisions, in which the unfortunate Indians always became involved on the one or the other side. But the French, at an; early day had excited the animosity of the Chickasaws by failing to protect a band of their warriors who had solicited an escort from Mobile to … Read more

Gen. Anthony Wayne’s Campaign

In April 1792, General Anthony Wayne was appointed by the general government to take command of the Northwestern Army. On the 5th of the following November a hundred men from Kentucky, under Adair as captain, made a raid across the Ohio River into the Indians country, but the indefatigable Little Turtle and his band of heroes met him and, in a severe fight: defeated him, with heavy loss, and drove him back to his own. In the spring of 1793, during the arrangements that were being made for Wayne’s campaign, Congress sent commissioners to the Northwest Indians to negotiate a … Read more

Family of Peter Folsom

The following is from the pen of a missionary who has long labored among the Choctaws and knew of what he spoke, and is sufficient testimony of the moral worth of him of whom he wrote: “Choctaw Nation, April 9, 1885. “Dear Brother Murrow: I write you a sad letter. Our old Brother Peter Folsom is dead. He was taken sick the first day of April, and has been growing worse ever since. He died today. I am writing by his beloved body. His spirit is in heaven. I can write no more. Please publish his death in the Champion that … Read more

Early Exploration and Native Americans

De Soto and his band gave to the Choctaws at Moma Binah and the Chickasaws at Chikasahha their first lesson in the white man’s modus operandi to civilize and Christianize North American Indians; so has the same lesson been continued to be given to that unfortunate people by his white successors from that day to this, all over this continent, but which to them, was as the tones of an alarm-bell at midnight. And one hundred and twenty-three years have passed since our forefathers declared all men of every nationality to be free and equal on the soil of the North … Read more

Dutch Johnnie

Several Choctaw companies joined Washington’s army during our Revolutionary war, and served during the entire war; some of them were at the battle of Cowpens, under General Morgan; others, at the battle of Stony Point, under General Wayne, and others, at the battle of Tilico Plains, under General Sullivan, sent by General Green to punish the Tories and northern Cherokees (at that time the only Cherokees hostile to the Americans) for the destruction of Fort Loudon, situated on the Tennessee river in the territories then of North Carolina, whom he overtook at Tilico Plains, engaged and routed, with great loss on the part of the stories and Cherokees, also securing the women and … Read more

Death of Cyrus Kingsbury

Early in the year 1820, an English traveler from Liverpool, named Adam Hodgson, who had heard of the Elliot mission when at home, visited the mission, though he had to turn from his main route of travel the distance of sixty miles. He, at one time on his sixty miles route, employed a Choctaw to conduct him ten or twelve miles on his new way, which he did, then received his pay and left him to finish his journey alone. Of this Choctaw guide Mr. Hodgson, as an example of noble benevolence and faithful trust, states: “After going about a … Read more

Choctaws Views on the Dead

In the disposition of their dead, the ancient Choctaws practiced a strange method different from any other Nation of people, perhaps, that ever existed. After the death of a Choctaw, the corpse wrapped in a bear skin or rough kind of covering of their own manufacture, was laid out at full length upon a high scaffold erected near the house of the deceased, that it might be protected from the wild beasts of the woods and the scavengers of the air. After the body had remained upon the scaffold a sufficient time for the flesh to have nearly or entirely … Read more

Choctaws views on God and Murder

Among every North American Indian tribe from their earliest known history down to the present, there was and is a universal belief in the existence of a God, and Supreme Being, universally known among all Indians as the Great Spirit; and with whose attributes were associated all the various manifestations of natural phenomena; and in point of due respect and true devotion to this Great Spirit their acknowledged God they as a whole today excel, and ever have excelled, the whites in their due respect and true devotion to their acknowledged God. Never was an Indian known to deny the … Read more

Choctaws and their Beliefs about the Great Flood

The Choctaws, at the time of their earliest acquaintance with the European races, possessed, in conjunction with all their race of the North American Continent, a vague, but to a great extent, correct knowledge of the Oka Falama, “The returning waters,” as they termed it The Flood. The Rev. Cyrus Byington related a little incident, as one out of many interesting and pleasing ones that frequently occurred when traveling through their country from one point to another in the discharge of his ministerial duties, over seventy years ago. At one time he found night fast approaching without any visible prospect of … Read more

Choctaw’s Endurance & Music

That the fore-fathers of the present Choctaws, Chickasaws, Cherokees and Muscogees migrated ages ago from Mexico to their ancient abodes east of the Mississippi River there can be scarcely a doubt; and that they were a branch of the Aztecs there is much in their ancient traditions and legends upon which to predicate, at least, a reasonable sup position, if not a belief. The Aztecs are regarded by some as the first of the human race that came to the North American continent, and by others as one of the oldest races of the human family upon earth, whose records … Read more

Choctaw Warpath & Dress

There were many natural orators among the ancient Choctaws when living in undisturbed prosperity and happiness east of the Mississippi River. Their orations were very concise, animating and abounding in many beautiful metaphors; and who, had they possessed the embellishments of a refined education, would have compared well with any race of mankind that ever existed. The Choctaws, like all their race, deliberated with great dignity and solemnity on national affairs; and in all their assemblies, both, national and social, everything was carried on in the best order and unassumed decorum. Their treaties were ratified by smoking the pipe of peace an … Read more

Choctaw War Against the Osage and other Legends

There were many traditions among all North American Indians, many of which bordered on the poetical and from which I will select one or two more, which shall suffice as examples of a few of the peculiarities of this peculiar yet interesting people. Thus says the tradition of “Ohoyo Osh Chisba,” (The Unknown Woman.) In the days of many moons ago, two Choctaw hunters were encamped for the night in the swamps of the bend of the Alabama River. But the scene was not without its romance. Dark, wild, and unlovely as a swamp is generally imagined to be, yet … Read more

Choctaw Traditions – The Council Fire, The Nahullo

The faces of the Choctaw and Chickasaw men of sixty years ago were as smooth as a woman’s, in fact they had no beard. Sometimes there might be seen a few tine hairs (if hairs they might be called) here and there upon the face, but they were few and far between, and extracted with a pair of small tweezers whenever discovered. Oft have I seen a Choctaw warrior standing before a mirror seeking with untiring perseverance and unwearied eyes, as he turned his face at different angles to the glass, if by chance a hair could be found lurking … Read more