Chickasaw, a Muskogean name referring to the act of sitting down. The Chickasaw were culturally similar to the Choctaw. Along with the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole, the Chickasaw were one of the so-called Five Civilized Tribes.
Location Chickasaws traditionally lived in northeastern Mississippi as well as northern Alabama, eastern Arkansas, western Kentucky, western Tennessee, and throughout the Mississippi Valley. Many Chickasaws now live in southern Oklahoma.
Population There were about 5,000 Chickasaws in 1600. In the mid-1990s, roughly 26,000 people identified themselves as Chickasaw.
Language Chickasaw is a Muskogean language.
Historical Information
History The Chickasaw may once have been united with the Choctaw. The people encountered Hernando de Soto in 1541. At first welcoming, as their customs dictated, they ultimately attacked the Spanish when the latter tortured some of them and tried to enslave others.
In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, warfare increased with neighboring tribes as the Chickasaw expanded their already large hunting grounds to obtain more pelts and skins for the British trade. Increasingly dependent on this trade, they did not shrink from capturing other Indians, such as the Choctaws, and selling them to the British as slaves. In general, the Chickasaws’ alliance with the British during the colonial period acted as a hindrance to French trade on the Mississippi.
Constant warfare with the French and their Choctaw allies during the eighteenth century sapped the people’s vitality. In part to compensate, they began absorbing other peoples, such as several hundred Natchez as well as British traders. A pattern began to emerge in which descendants of British men and Chickasaw women (such as the Colbert family) became powerful tribal leaders. Missionaries began making significant numbers of converts during that time.
Tribal allegiance was divided during the American Revolution, with some members supporting one side, some the other, and some neither. The overall goal was to preserve traditional lands. The tribe did not rally behind Tecumseh in 1809 (see Shawnee entry in Chapter 8). With game growing scarce, many Chickasaws became exclusively farmers during the early to mid-nineteenth century. Some also began cotton plantations, and the tribe owned up to 1,000 African American slaves during that period. By 1830 they had a written code of laws (which banned whiskey) and a police force.
As non-native settlement of their lands increased during the 1820s, many Chickasaws migrated west, ceding land in several treaties (1805, 1816, 1818) during the period. Finally they ceded all lands east of the Mississippi in 1832. Roughly 3,000 Chickasaws were forcibly removed to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) after 1837, where many died of disease, hunger, and attacks by Plains Indians who resented the intrusion. The Chickasaw fared somewhat better than did the Cherokee, being able to purchase many supply items, including riverboat transportation, with tribal funds. Most settled in the western part of Choctaw lands.
Survivors of the ordeal resumed farming and soon, with the help of their slaves, grew a surplus of crops. However, as a tribe the people had lost most of their aboriginal culture. Their own reservation and government were formally established in 1855 and lasted until Oklahoma statehood in 1907. In the years before the Civil War, the people operated schools, mills, and blacksmith shops, and they had started a newspaper. Chickasaws fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. Unlike some other Oklahoma tribes of southeast origin, the Chickasaw never adopted their freed slaves.
Their lands were allotted around 1900. All tribal governments in Oklahoma were dissolved by Congress in 1906. By 1920, of the roughly 4.7 million acres of preallotment Chickasaw land, only about 300 remained in tribal control, a situation that severely hampered tribal political and economic development well into the century. Many prominent twentieth-century Oklahoma politicians were mixed-blood Chickasaws. From the 1940s on, individuals received payments from the sale of land containing coal and asphalt deposits.
Religion The supreme deity was Ababinili, an aggregation of four celestial beings: Sun, Clouds, Clear Sky, and He That Lives in the Clear Sky. Fire, especially the sacred fire, was a manifestation of the supreme being. Rattlesnakes were also greatly revered, and the people recognized many other lesser gods as well as evil spirits.
Two head priests, or hopaye, presided over ceremonies and interpreted spiritual matters. They wore special clothing at such times. Healers (aliktce), who combated evil spirits by using various natural substances, and witches were two types of spiritual people. Men painted their faces for ceremonies. People used charms and observed various food taboos.
Government Political leadership was chosen in part according to hereditary claim but also according to merit. The head chief, chosen from the Minko clan, was known as the High Minko. Each clan also had a chief. There was also a council of advisers, which included clan leaders and tribal elders. The fundamental units were local groups.
Customs Key Chickasaw values included hospitality and generosity, especially to those in need. Two divisions were in turn divided into many ranked matrilineal clans. The people played lacrosse, chunkey, and other games, most of which included gambling and had important ritual components. Tobacco was used ritually and medicinally. Murder was subject to retaliation. Chickasaws liked to dance, both on social and religious occasions.
Boys were toughened by winter plunges and special herbs. Women were secluded in special huts during their menstrual periods. There was some childhood betrothal. Marriage involved various gift exchanges, mainly food or clothing. A man might have more than one wife. Men avoided their mothers-in-law out of respect. In cases of adultery only the woman was punished, often by a beating or an ear or nose cropping. Chickasaws practiced frontal head deformation.
The dead were buried in graves under houses, along with their possessions, after an elaborate funeral rite. They were placed in a sitting position facing west, with their faces painted red. After death they were only vaguely alluded to and never directly by name.
All social activities ceased for three days following a death in the village. Chickasaws maintained the concept of a heaven generally in the west, the direction of witchcraft and uneasy spirits.
Dwellings Chickasaws built their villages on high ground near stands of hardwood trees. They were often palisaded and more compact during periods of warfare.
Rectangular summer houses were of pole-frame construction, notched and lashed, and clapboard sides, with gabled roofs covered with cypress or pine-bark shingles. They were whitewashed in and out with powdered oyster shell or white clay. Outside materials included grass or cane thatch, bark, and hide. A small doorway, usually facing east, offered protection against insects. The people also built several outbuildings for fowl, corn, sweating, and other purposes.
Winter houses were semi excavated and circular, about 25 feet in diameter, with a narrow, 4-foot-high door. They were plastered with at least 6 inches of clay and dried grass. Bark shingles or thatch covered conical roofs with no smoke holes. Furniture included couches and raised wood-frame beds, under which food was stored. Town houses or temples were of similar construction.
Diet Crops—corn, beans, squash, and sunflowers— were the staple foods. Corn was made into a variety of foods, including an unfermented drink. Men also hunted buffalo, deer, bear, and numerous kinds of small game, including rabbits but probably not beaver or opossum. Hunting techniques included shooting, trapping, and using animal calls and decoys. Birds and their eggs were included in the diet.
Women gathered nuts, acorns, honey, onions, persimmons, strawberries, grapes, and plums. Tea was made from sassafras root. Chickasaws ate a variety of fish, including the huge (up to 200 pounds) Mississippi catfish.
Key Technology Earthen pots of various sizes and shapes served a number of purposes. Men stunned fish with buckeye or green walnut poison. Women wove mulberry bark in a frame and used the resulting textile in floor and table coverings. Other material items included stone axes, fire drills, wooden mortars, and various cane baskets, some of which could hold water. Musical instruments included drums (wet skins over clay pots), gourd rattles, and flutes.
Trade Chickasaws traded as far away as Texas and perhaps even Mexico. Among other items, they traded deerskins for conch shell to use as wampum. Vermilion may have been counted as a basis of wealth.
Notable Arts Cloth items (from woven mulberry inner bark) were decorated with colorful animal and human figures and other designs. The people also made exceptional dyed and decorated cane baskets.
Transportation Men hollowed dugout canoes out of hardwood trees. Caddo Indians brought horses in from the Red River region; some were also stolen from the early Spanish. Eventually, the Chickasaw developed a horse breed of their own. Some chiefs may have been carried in litters.
Dress Most clothing was made of deerskin, although other hides, including beaver, were also used. Wild mulberry bark formed material for items of "cloth." Men wore breechclouts, with deerskin shirts and bearskin robes in cold weather. Most kept their hair in a roach soaked in bear grease. There were also high boots for hunting. Women wore long dresses and added buffalo robes or capes in winter. They tended to tie up their hair.
People generally went barefoot, although they did make moccasins of bear hide and occasionally elk skin. Women made turkey feather blankets. Some young men slit their ears and expanded them with the use of copper wire. Other personal ornamentation included nose rings, head bracelets, and body paint.
War and Weapons Chickasaws were known as fierce, enthusiastic, and successful warriors. Their enemies included the Choctaw and the Caddo. In the early eighteenth century, the Chickasaws joined with the Cherokee to drive the Shawnees from the Cumberland Valley, but they often fought the Cherokee as well.
Raiding parties usually consisted of between 20 and 40 men, their faces painted for war. They engaged in ritual preparation before they departed as well as ritual celebration, which might include the bestowal of new war names, upon their return. Weapons included bows and (sometimes flaming) arrows, knives, clubs, spears, tomahawks, and shields. The party carried along a sacred war ark, or medicine bundle. Particularly respected warriors were tattooed, usually with the picture of an animal.
Contemporary Information
Government/Reservations Over 9,000 Chickasaws (mid-1990s) lived in a 13-county area in southern Oklahoma. Their headquarters is located in Ada, Oklahoma. Congress granted the right in 1970 to elect their own leadership. A 1983 constitution provides for a tripartite government, including a 13-member legislature. The Chickasaw Nation’s land base, held in trust, is about 77,600 acres.
Economy With a $15 million annual budget (1990), the Chickasaw Nation itself provides many employment opportunities. It owns recreational parks, tobacco shops, and bingo parlors. There is some industrial development. Payments are anticipated from the settlement of disputed control of resources under the Arkansas riverbed, but this situation is still being argued, and no settlement has been achieved. In the early 1990s, roughly 20 percent of Chickasaw families in Oklahoma were living below the poverty line.
Legal Status The Chickasaw Nation is a federally recognized tribal entity.
Daily Life Most Chickasaws are Methodists or Baptists. About 500 mostly older people still speak the language, which is taught with the aid of a dictionary. Tribal celebrations, especially the annual festival in September/October, feature traditional foods such as cracked corn and pork, corn grits, and poke greens. There is a tribal museum and library, as well as a tribal newspaper, the Chickasaw Times. The Nation controls its own schools.
