A Choctaw Tale

This is the story of the Choctaw, a Native American People who live in Mississippi, as they tell it.

Far to the west, there lay a land that had grown dry and barren. It could no longer provide food for the people who lived there. So, two brothers, Chata and Chiksah, led the people in search of a new home. In their travels, they were guided by a magic pole. Every night the people would strike camp. They would place the pole in the ground, and in the morning, it would be leaning in one direction or the other. And the people would then travel in the direction in which it leaned.

Their travels went on for a very long time. Finally, when they reached one place, the pole did not lean anymore and remained upright. Here, they buried the bones of their ancestors. They had carried the bones in buffalo sacks throughout their long sojourn. From that great burial came the mound that is called Naniah Waiya. When the burial was over, the two brothers surveyed the land around them and found that it could not support all the people who had come with them.

This was settled by Chiksah taking half the people and moving North, where they came to be known as the Chickasaw tribe. Chata and the rest of the people lived near the mound, and are called the Choctaw.