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SWANTON] CHOCTAW SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL LIFE 99
Something will also be said about Choctaw councils in connection
with the ceremonies connected with war and the restoration of peace.
The following excerpts have been taken from Cushman:
In their ancient councils and great national assemblies, the Choctaws always
observed the utmost order and decorum, which, however, is universally charac-
teristic of the Indians . . . In those grave and imposing deliberations of years
ago convened at night, all sat on the ground [?] in a circle around a blazing
fire called The Council Fire. The aged, who from decrepitude had long retired
from the scenes of active life, the war-path and the chase, formed the inner
circle; the middle age warriors, the next; and the young warriors, the outer
circle. The women and cliildren were always excluded from their national
assemblies. The old men, beginning with the oldest patriarch, would then in
regular succession state to the attentive audience all that had been told them
by their fathers, and what they themselves had learned in the experience of
an eventful life—the past history of their nation ; their vicissitudes and changes
what difficulties they had eucountei'ed, and how overcome ; their various suc-
cesses in war and their defeats ; the character and kind of enemies whom they
had defeated and by whom they had been defeated, the mighty deeds of their
renowned chiefs and famous warriors in days past, together with their own
achievements both in war and the chase; their nation's days of prosperity and
adversity ; in short, all of their traditions and legends handed down to them
through the successive generations of ages past ; and when those old seers and
patriarchs, oracles of the past, had in their turn gone to dwell with their fathers
in the Spirit Land, and their voices were no longer heard in wise counsel, the
oldest occupied the chairs of state, and in turn rehearsed to their young braves
the ti'aditions of the past, as related to them by the former sages of their
tribes, together with their own knowledge.'^
Whether the Choctaws assembled for social conversation or debate in council,
only one spoke at a time, and under no circumstances was he interrupted.
This noble characteristic belongs to all the North American Indians, as far as
I have been able to ascertain. In the public councils of the Choctaws, as
well as in social gatherings and religious meetings, the utmost decorum always
prevailed, and he who was talking in the social circle or addressing the council
or lecturing in the religious meeting, always had as silent and attentive hearers
as ever delighted and blessed a speaker. A noble characteristic. And when
a question had been discussed, before putting it to a vote, a few minutes were
always given for slient meditation, during which the most profound silence
was observed ; at the expiration of the allotted time, the vote of the assembly
was taken; and which, I have been informed, is still kept up to this day [1899],
For many years after they had arrived from their ancient homes at their
present place of abode [in Oklahoma], no candidate for an office of any kind
ever went around among the people soliciting votes ; the candidate merely gave
and had a candidate asked
notice by public announcement, and that was all ;
a man for his support, it would have been the death knell to his election.
On the day of the election, the names of all the candidates were written
in regular order upon a long strip of paper, with the office to which each
aspired written upon it, was handed to the voter when he presented himself
at the polls to vote, who commenced at the top of the list and called out the
name of the candidate he wished to support for the different offices; if the
voter could not read, then one of the officers in charge of the election, who
«" Cushman, Hist. Inds., pp. 205-206.