Choctaw

Choctaw

ETHNONYMS: Chacktaws, Chaquita, Chat-Kas, Tchatakes, Tchiactas

Orientation

Identification. The Choctaw are an American Indian group who lived aboriginally in Mississippi. "Chahta," the Choctaw's name for themselves, is probably a term of native origin derived from Hacha Hatak, "River People."

Location. In the eighteenth century, the Choctaw population was centered in central and southern Mississippi. Most Choctaw now live in Oklahoma and Mississippi.

Demography. Historically, the Choctaw were one of the largest tribes in the Southeast. In spite of major population losses through warfare and disease in the early historical period, the population in 1831 was 19,554. In 1980, there were 6,000 Choctaw in Mississippi and 10,000 in Oklahoma. Over 100,000 people in Oklahoma claim some Choctaw ancestry, however. Small numbers of Choctaw have migrated to urban areas in Texas, California, and Illinois.

Linguistic Affiliation. The Choctaw language belongs to the Muskogean family, which also includes Creek and Chickasaw.

History and Cultural Relations

Choctaw origin legends describe a migration of the Choctaw and Chickasaw from farther west, but there is no known archaeological evidence for this. Native groups bordering the Choctaw territory at the time of European contact included the Creek east of the Tombigbee River, the Chickasaw in northern Mississippi, and the Natchez to the west on the Mississippi River. Along the Gulf Coast were closely related Choctaw-speaking tribes: the Pascagoula, the Acolapissa, and the Bayogoula. Choctaw relations with other major tribes were characterized by customary warfare associated with the receiving of young males into adulthood.

The first written account of the Choctaw is in the chronicles of the Hernando de Soto expedition in 1540. Permanent European contact began with French settlements on the Gulf Coast in 1699. The Choctaw were rapidly plunged into a complicated colonial rivalry as European powers sought to utilize Indian allies to carry out their territorial designs and to profit from the trade in guns, deerskins, and slaves. The Choctaw allied with the French operating from New Orleans in efforts to get European goods as well as guns to protect themselves from the English and their allies. With the ending of colonial rivalry and the establishment of the American nation, warfare was curtailed.

The Choctaw joined with the United States in the War of 1812 against their traditional enemies, the Creeks, and the British. But the Treaty of Fort Adams in 1801 had begun a pattern of progressive loss of Choctaw land, which resulted in removal thirty years later. In each treaty, the Choctaw were forced to cede more land and more prerogatives to the United States. Choctaw leaders such as Pushmataha were aware of the threat imposed by the growing number of White settlers in the Southeast and consciously decided to adopt White ways as a means of survival. Missionaries established schools in response to a Choctaw request. With the spread of literacy, the Choctaw adopted formal written rules passed in district councils in the place of customary law. But these changes did not affect the demand for Indian removal that resulted in the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1831 requiring the removal of the Choctaw to Oklahoma.

Under this treaty, Choctaws could elect to remain in Mississippi with individually owned lands, but when large numbers attempted to use this provision, the treaty agent deliberately failed to record their claims. In the coming years, the remaining Choctaw were robbed of their possessions, and most eventually were forced to go to Oklahoma. Some Choctaw remained as subsistence farmers on unoccupied marginal lands in east central Mississippi. The descendants of these two groups compose the current Oklahoma and Mississippi Choctaw populations.

Settlements

The basic Choctaw social unit was the town, usually located along tributaries of major rivers. Approximately ninety towns were divided into three major districts clustered in the upper reaches of the Pearl River, the western tributaries of the Tombigbee River, and the Chickasawhay River in southern Mississippi. Settlements ranged from fifty to five hundred people. Larger towns were fortified and had a physical center including a council house and field for stickball. These larger towns served as social, economic, and religious centers for surrounding settlements. With the end of colonial warfare, the population dispersed from the towns and from the centers of the Districts. Following removal to Oklahoma, the more acculturated mixed-blood Choctaw settled in the rich bottomlands, while the more traditional Choctaw settled in isolated Communities in hill country. The Mississippi Choctaw remained on marginal land protected by hills and swamps. The Purchase of lands for the current Mississippi Choctaw Reservation centered on lands where Choctaw were located, resulting in a dispersed pattern of six major reservation communities. In Oklahoma, the Choctaw are concentrated in what was the old Choctaw Nation in southeastern Oklahoma. Here traditional Choctaw rural communities still exist on more Marginal lands.

The aboriginal Choctaw house was of wattle-and-daub construction, oval or square, with a single door, no windows, and a steeply sloping roof of thatch. This was usually accompanied by one or more open roofed structures, referred to as summer houses, and by granaries. In this century, most rural Choctaw have lived in poorly constructed frame houses, but public housing programs have made great improvements.

Economy

Subsistence and Commercial Activities. In the latter half of the eighteenth century the Choctaw were among the most accomplished farmers in the Southeast, but this was only an intensification of the basic Southeastern pattern of maize, beans, and squash cultivation supplemented by hunting, fishing, and collecting. The arrival of Europeans brought additional vegetables, cattle, horses, and cotton. During the eighteenth century the trade in deer skins resulted in first an expansion of hunting and then an increase in agriculture and cattle as the deer population declined. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, rural Choctaw remained Subsistence farmers, often in debt to the cotton sharecropping System. Agriculture was supplemented by work in forestry and agricultural day labor. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Mississippi Choctaw successfully established tribal industries Including construction and electronic component and greeting card assembly. Lacking a reservation land base, the Oklahoma Choctaw have been less successful in establishing Economic enterprises and are largely dependent on employment in forestry, seasonal wage work, and governmental assistance.

Industrial Arts. Aboriginal crafts included pottery, carving of wood, stone, and shell, and basket and textile weaving. Today basket weaving continues among the Choctaw, but the number of skilled craftspeople is declining because of limited markets. Making traditional nineteenth-century Choctaw clothing to wear at special events remains important.

Trade. The Choctaw participated in the complex of aboriginal trade linking the shell of the coastal areas with stone and related products of the interior. Competition over the trade for deerskins and guns was a major factor in eighteenth-century Choctaw affairs. By the nineteenth century, the replacement of Indians by African slaves and the decline in deer led to an expansion of peaceful trade in agricultural products and cattle.

Division of Labor. Aboriginally, women and children cared for the crops, while the men cleared fields and helped with planting and harvesting. Women prepared food, made clothes, pottery, and baskets, and cared for the children. Men hunted, built houses, and performed ritual activities. Both women and men practiced medicine. Men became more involved in agriculture with the use of domesticated animals for cultivating crops, but subsistence farming involved both men and women in major shared activities. With the rise of an industrial economy, men and women were able to gain employment outside the home.

Land Tenure. Aboriginally, individual ownership was Limited to use rights for homesites and lands under cultivation or improvement. Although men cleared land and built houses, these were the property of the wife and her female descendants as long as the land and house were being utilized. Those Choctaw remaining after removal had to register land in the name of the male head of household, but most of these land titles were quickly lost, leaving the Mississippi Choctaw largely without land until the establishment of the Choctaw Agency in 1918. The reservation is held by the federal Government as trustee for the Mississippi Choctaw. Individual homesites are allocated by the Tribal Council. In the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma, the traditional land use patterns were lost with the abolishment of the Choctaw Nation and allocation of Choctaw lands to individuals by the U.S. government. Most of this land soon passed to White ownership leaving the Oklahoma Choctaw without a reservation land base.

Kinship

Kin Groups and Descent. Choctaw society was divided into two matrilineal exogamous moieties and six matrilineal clans. The remaining kinship unit was the locality group similar to the "house names" of the Chickasaw. Members of different clans lived together in the same town. But since Inheritance rules followed the female line, it is probable that residency was matrilocal. With the disruption of removal and increasing White contact, the clan system was undermined, and matrilineality was largely replaced by patrilineality.

Kinship Terminology. Traditional terminology followed the Crow system.

Marriage and Family

Marriage. In the traditional marriage system, exogamy applied to the matrilineally based moieties. Marriages were Usually monogamous, but polygyny was permitted. Marriage required the consent of the bride and her mother, and involved a ceremony involving members of both kinship groups. Divorce was common and could be obtained easily by either party.

Domestic Unit. Until this century extended families were common. While the nuclear family predominates, three-generation families often occur because of poverty and illegitimacy.

Inheritance. Traditionally, all property except individual personal property passed through the female line. After the abolishment of Choctaw governments in Mississippi in 1830 and Oklahoma in 1906, patrilineal patterns of inheritance came to dominate.

Socialization. Children are raised permissively with little direct punishment or direct orders. Ridicule, ignoring, and threat of external forces are used to discipline children. Direct aggression and hostility are discouraged. Parents encourage their children to continue their education, but such encouragement rarely is expressed directly or forcefully.

Sociopolitical Organization

Social Organization. Choctaw social organization was based on two geographic units: the three districts and ninety towns, and three social units: moieties, clans, and locality groups. The relationships among these units are not completely clear. Early descriptions of the Choctaw show a confusion of names of geographic division, moieties, clans, and locality groups. At all levels, leadership was by older proven warriers called "beloved" men.

Political Organization. The two matrilineal exogamous moieties of the Choctaw resemble the White, or peace, Moiety and the Red, or war, moiety of other Southeastern tribes. The moiety and clan divisions were basic to kinship, Ceremony, and political affairs. The heads of respective clans were responsible for adjudicating disputes. If the principal men in two divisions could not agree on the outcome of a case, it was referred to the leading men of the next larger divisions. Major officials within a town were selected from the leaders of the local groups within the town. Each town had a chief who, with his spokesman, supervised civil affairs and ceremonies. A war chief and his assistants led the men in time of war. The leadership pattern at the town level was duplicated at the District level. Early in the eighteenth century there may have been a central district and head chief for the tribe as a whole, but if so this had been abandoned by midcentury as a result of civil strife. The primary means of achieving consensus on major courses of action was the council. District councils were called by the district chief, and national councils were called by the three district chiefs acting jointly. In 1834, the Choctaw adopted a constitution for the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma that was in force until the Choctaw Nation was abolished as a territorial government by the U.S. Congress in 1906. Nevertheless, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma continues to exist as a nonterritorial organization conducting activities and enterprises for the Choctaw there. The remaining Mississippi Choctaw did not adopt a constitution until 1945, but since then they have operated a tribal government with jurisdiction over the reservation lands in Mississippi.

Social Control. Avoiding direct conflict, gossip, and avoidance have been important forms of social control. Witchcraft declined in importance in the eighteenth century. Tribal judicial authority was ended in Mississippi with removal, and in Oklahoma with the abolishment of the Choctaw Nation in 1906. But local judicial control under Tribal courts was reestablished on the Mississippi Choctaw Reservations in 1978 through a ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Conflict. In the eighteenth century the Choctaw were Divided over the proper relationship with European powers. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the expansion of the money economy resulted in conflicts over participation in the White-dominated market economy. While this social class discord involved conflict between mixed-bloods and full-bloods in Mississippi prior to removal and later in Oklahoma, the same dissension exists among the predominantly full-blood Mississippi Choctaw. For the latter a major external conflict arose from the acute racism of surrounding White Society, which did not noticeably improve until the 1970s.

Religion and Expressive Culture

Religious Beliefs. Choctaw traditional religion was largely unrecorded before early nineteenth-century Christian missionaries influenced traditional practices. The Choctaw maintain a deep faith in supernatural forces linking humans and other living creatures. The importance of maintaining harmony with nature, fellowmen, and the supernatural world is central to Choctaw beliefs. The status of a supreme being in traditional Choctaw religion prior to the spread of Christianity is not clear. Their belief in numerous animal and anthropomorphic spirits who influenced human affairs continued, however, after the coming of Christianity. Today the Baptist denomination predominates among Choctaw in Oklahoma and Mississippi.

Religious Practitioners. In aboriginal times, the influence of Choctaw prophets and doctors was considerable, and the belief in witchcraft was strong. By the nineteenth century, the influence of Christian Choctaw pastors was important in most Choctaw communities in Oklahoma and Mississippi.

Ceremonies. Choctaw ceremonies were similar to other Southeastern tribes, with the Green Corn ceremonies being most important. Observers noted that the Choctaw held fewer religious ceremonies and more social dances than their neighbors. Both dances and ceremonies were closely associated with the very popular stickball game similar to lacrosse.

Arts. In addition to their industrial arts, the Choctaw were well known for singing and storytelling. In addition to traditional music, the Choctaw enjoy country music.

Medicine. The Choctaw believe serious persistent illnesses to be a product of spiritual evil often associated with witchcraft. Curing consisted of herbal medicines, ritual purifications, and the enlistment of spirit helpers to drive out evil forces. Western clinical medicine is generally used today, but native Choctaw doctors are still consulted.

Death and Afterlife. Death, like disease, could be the result of either natural or supernatural forces. Choctaw believed in an afterworld to which spirits of the dead go and in which individuals experience reward or punishment depending on their life on earth. Funeral ceremonies are the most important life cycle ritual.

Bibliography

Debo, Angie (1934). The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Republic. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

DeRosier, Arthur H., Jr. (1970). The Removal of the Choctaw Indians. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.

Kidwell, Clara S., and Charles Roberts (1981). The Choctaws: A Critical Bibliography. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Peterson, John H. (1979). "Three Efforts at Development among the Choctaws of Mississippi." In The Southeastern Indians since Removal, edited by Walter L. Williams, 142-153. Athens: University of Georgia Press.

Swanton, John R. (1931). Source Material for the Social and Ceremonial Life of the Choctaw Indians. U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin no. 103. Washington, D.C.

JOHN H. PETERSON