Early Chickasaw Culture

Recently, the Chickasaw Nation announced they would build a cultural center southwest of Sulphur. One of the challenges of the development of the Arbuckle Mountain area and the state of Oklahoma has been the clash of the Indian and white cultures.

Often, a simple problem became quite complex when the ideas and concepts of the two cultures collided. In the Chickasaw and Choctaw cultures, there were also fatal clashes when concepts of what was right and wrong for the tribe occurred between the mixed bloods and the full bloods.

The full bloods wanted to be totally separated from the white man's culture while the mixed bloods could see the good in mixing the old traditions of their tribes with the modern trade goods, medicines and implements offered by the European traders. Our subject today is the very early culture of these most capable ancestors before the coming of the white man.

The Chickasaws closest cultural ally is the Choctaw. Their language is Muskogean and was described by early European explorers and traders as "very agreeable to the ear, courteous, gentle and musical".

Chickasaw legend says that the two tribes originated from two brothers named Chata and Chicsa. These two brothers led their respective clans, or Iksas, from the far west, across the Mississippi, to the east following a sacred pole that showed them the path they should follow.

Just after they crossed the Mississippi River, the brothers surveyed the new land and decided to split up and explore for a suitable place to build their communities. Chicsa moved first and ten days later Chata followed. A heavy snow covered the trail of Chicsa and the brothers separated, never to reunite again.

At the beginning of the 1700's, the Chickasaw population in Tennessee was estimated to be between three and four thousand making it a much smaller tribe than their cousins, the Choctaw.

The early Chickasaw government was a clan system such as the old Scottish clans. Each village and town was self governing and bound into the tribe. A chief called a Minko governed the tribe. The principle chief of the tribe was called the High Minko and his number one assistant was called the Tishu Minko, or chief adviser, who assisted him.

The Chickasaw towns consisted of a few or many houses with some reported by early traders as numbering over two hundred houses. Each household consisted of a summerhouse, winter house, grain storage building and a menstrual hut.

The winter house was circular, about twenty-five in diameter and excavated about three feet deep with a dirt floor. It was framed with pine logs and lashed together with bark or thongs. The walls and roof were covered with mats made of hickory, oak or cane. The inside and outside of the walls were covered with a plaster made of clay and grass. The plaster was often whitewashed with a paint made of decayed oyster shells.

The summer house was about twelve by twenty two feet partitioned into two rooms and had woven mats on the walls for ventilation. When a house was built the whole community pitched in to help. One of the plaster houses could be completely built in one day according to early traders.

The beds were elevated off the floor using skins and poles. Other furnishings consisted of wooden and clay bowls, wood furniture, buffalo horn scoops and shell scoops. Each house also had it's own sanitation facilities for garbage and other waste.

Each village also consisted of a council house, a ball field, a log fort to take refuge when attacked and a ceremonial house.

The Chickasaw National Council was not as much of a law making body as it was a policy making body. The High Minko ruled his people with a light yoke. There were no words in their language for a ruler who was arbitrary or despotic.

The Chickasaw people did not, however, take lightly their responsibility of citizenship. Every major issue concerning the nation was hotly debated. They were satisfied that their natural way of living was the best. They loved the common ownership of their land and shared common fields. The yield of the fields was stored in public granaries.

Chickasaw law was very specific concerning murder, blasphemy, robbery and adultery. The clan council passed judgment on the violator and punishment was passed down in either public or private manner that included public whipping and execution.

An early trader among the Chickasaw said that these people would go a thousand miles to exact revenge on the murderer of a relative. In the case of retribution, the council acted only as a tribunal to see that the retribution was within Chickasaw custom.

Blasphemy was both religious and personal. The early Chickasaw culture dictated that the body be cleaned daily and the women had to wash their hair daily. Failure to keep the body clean and one's house well kept would result in having one's flesh raked with dried snake teeth.

Adulterers would suffer a special humiliation. Both parties to the indiscretion would be forced to run naked through the village as the outraged citizens beat them with whips. By the mid 1700's, the punishment was reduced to the male offender being beaten by the aggrieved husband. The wife could also suffer a beating, hair cropping and facial disfigurement.

The Chickasaw males were considered the very best hunters and warriors of the eastern woodlands. It was not uncommon for the warriors to run for several hundred miles in pursuit of an enemy. The young boys were turned over to village elders at an early age for training in these arts.

When the hunter had great success, the custom was to give most of the hides and meat to the household with some reserved for a feast and some given to the elderly. Some of the meat would be eaten fresh and the rest smoked for winter use. Antler tips were used for arrow points and the sinew used for bowstrings and as sewing thread and fishnets.

Heavy winter robes were fashioned from bearskins and deer brains were used to tan deerskins. Bear gut was a favorite of the hunters for bowstrings and the hides were also used for heavy winter hunting boots. These winter boots came up to the knee to protect from the deep snow.

The bear claws were used in ornamentation as the Chickasaws pierced their ears. The thick bear fat was rendered into a fine oil that was used for cooking and as a body rub for common complaints. The bear oil was mixed with wild cinnamon and sassafras and kept in buried earthen jars for up to a year. The women used this perfumed oil as a hair dressing. The daily hair care required of the women was excused when the woman was in the menstrual hut or was in mourning.

During the summer, the wild fruits, berries and nuts were gathered for storage and winter use. Wild plums and grapes were dried into prunes and raisins. They boiled sassafras root, which was a popular tea. When a bee tree was found, it was cut down and the comb and honey was stored in a sewed deerskin bag.

Corn was the principle crop but the Chickasaws also raised melons, pumpkins, sunflowers, beans, peas and tobacco. The corn was eaten green as roasting ears and dried for winter storage. The corn was ground using a mortar and pestle and used as meal for bread or cooked as porridge.

One food they enjoyed was hominy. First a hole was burned in a tree stump. The ashes were removed and the corn kernels were placed into the hole. Water and the ashes were added to form a lye solution. When the husk slipped from the kernel it was boiled.

The Chickasaw spun yarn and thread from the inner husk of the mulberry tree and animal hair. Feathers of wild birds were fashioned into decorations and worn in the hair roaches that the Chickasaw warriors wore with pride.

They colored their woven fabrics and finely tanned deer hides with yellow dye from the sassafras root, red, yellow and black from the sumac, walnut hulls provided the dark dye for their finely woven baskets.

Large logs were burned out to make boats and the pine tree furnished framing materials for their homes and the pitch for lights at night. The hickory tree was used for woven walls on their homes, as arrow shafts and bows, and the mortar and pestle for grinding grain.

The Chickasaw kept slaves captured during their wars with the neighboring tribes. The women did most of the menial work such as cooking, cleaning and keeping the family fields. The slaves were under the women's care and they constantly urged their husbands to get a little more hostile and go on more raids and bring home more slaves. To keep the slaves from running away they would cut the nerves in the instep of the foot of the slave.

Chickasaw warriors labored in the community fields, built houses and made tools and hunting and fighting implements. An early trader observed that the Chickasaw warrior was the "readiest and quickest of all people in going to shed blood". Before going into battle the warriors purged themselves and fasted for three days drinking a tea made from the snakeroot. The Chickasaw warriors so frequently defeated the French army from Louisiana that the French finally gave up trying to quash them.

The demise of the Chickasaw nation came as the white traders came and happened within fifty years. The tradition of the elders teaching the young ones the ways and customs broke the chain of continuity. Once that one generation was skipped, the customs and lifestyle were lost to the new European ways.

I hope you have enjoyed this short look at the early Chickasaw culture. This has been one of the more difficult articles that I have written. It was too easy to start wondering about how this calamity or that one caused the loss of their culture. I have worked on this article, on and off, for two months trying to stick to the issue.

For those of you who haven't figure it out yet, the last warrior chief of the Chickasaws was named Tishu Minko or Tishomingo, the namesake of that city and national capital.

For more reading on these fascinating people and their history please consider "The Chickasaws" by Arrell Gibson.

© - Contributed by Dennis Muncrief - December, 2003