siOBX; - Smithsonian Institution

202 BUEEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 103
acquired skill in hunting wild beasts,, they began to use the skins of animals
for clothing."
Their social and civil institutions were, according to the same
sources of information, given to the Choctavv^ at Nanih Waiya, and
all of these events were supposed to have been of very recent occur-
rence. " The Choctaws," says Wright, " do not place their formation
at any very remote period of time. The old men, who are now
seventy or eighty years of age, say that their grandfathers and greatgrandfathers
saw and conversed with the first race of men formed
at Nunih waiya^ and they reckon themselves to be only the fourth
or fifth generation from them." ^^
Wright also recorded a version of the origin legend of the Choc-
taw, bringing them from the west, which has been given elsewhere."
Cushman lets in some light on the native view regarding the origin
of the various races of mankind
In regard to the origin of man, the one [view] generally accepted among the
Choctaws, as well as many other tribes was that man and all other forms of
life had originated from the common mother earth through the agency of the
Great Spirit ; but believed that the human race sprang from many different
primeval pairs ei'eated by the Great Spirit in the various parts of the earth in
which man was found ; and according to the different natural features of the
world in which man abode, so their views varied with regard to the substance
of which man was created ; in a country of vast forests, they believed the
primeval pair, or pairs, sprang from the trees ; in a mountainous and rocky
district of country, they sprang from the rocks ; in valleys and prairies, from
the earth ; but [regarding] their views as to the time [when] this creation of
man took place, whether at the same time throughout the various inhabited
regions or at different periods, their traditions are silent."
Bushnell obtained a creation legend which incorporates episodes
from the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel. ^^
Flood legends were naturally of interest to missionaries and
therefore no less than three versions of the Choctaw story are given
by Cushman, two collected directly by himself and a third from the
manuscript notes of Israel Folsom. The Choctaw called this event
Oka Falama, " The returned waters," which would indicate that
they believed water to have covered everything at the first creation.
Following are the three versions just mentioned
In ancient time, after many generations of mankind had lived and passed
from the stage of being, the race became so corrupt and wicked—brother fight-
ing against brother and wars deluging the earth with human blood and car-
nage—the Great Spirit became greatly displeased and finally determined to
"^ The Missionary Herald, 1828, pp. 182-183. «* Cushman, Hist. Inds., pp. 255-256.
'« Ibid., p. 215. '» Bull. 48, Bur. Amer. Ethn., p. 30.
" See p. 11.