siOBX; - Smithsonian Institution

28 BTJEEATJ OF AMERICA^ ETHNOLOGY [Boll. 103
happiness. The evening before their departure a " Fabussa " (pole) was
firmly set up in the ground at the centre jwint of their encampment, by direc-
tion of their chief medicine man and prophet, whose wisdom in matters pertaining
to things supernatuml was unquestioned and to whom, after many
days fasting and supplication, the Great Spirit had revealed that the Fabussa
would indicate on the following morning, the direction they should march by
its leaning ; and, . . . would indicate the direction they must travel day by day
luitil they reached the sought and desired haven ; when, on the following morn,
it would there and then remain as erect as it had been placed the evening
before. At the early daAA-n of the following morning many solicitous eyes were
turned to the silent but prophetic Fabussa. Lo ! it leaned to the east. Enough.
Without hesitation or delay the mighty host began its line of march toward
the rising sun, and followed each day the morning directions given by the talismanic
pole, which was borne by day at the head of the moving multiude, and
set up at each returning evening in the centre of the encampment, alternately
by the two renowned chiefs and brothers, Chahtah and Chikasah. For weeks
and months they journeyed toward the east as directed by the uudeviating
Fabussa, passing over wide extended plains and through forests vast and
abounding with game of many varieties seemingly undisturbed before by the
presence of man, from which their skillful hunters bountifully supplied their
daily wants. Gladly would they have accepted, as their future asylum, many
parts of the country through which tliey traveled, but were forbidden, as each
returning morn the unrelenting pole still gave its silent but comprehended
" Eastward and onward."
command :
After many months of wearisome travel, suddenly a vast bodj' of flowing
water stretched its mighty arm athwart their path. With unfeigned astonishment
they gathered in groups upon its banks and gazed upon its turbid waters.
Never before had they even heard of, or in all their wanderings stumbled upon
aught like this. . . . But what now says their dumb talisman? . . . Silent and
motionless, still as ever before, it bows to the east and its mandate " Onward,
beyond Misha Sipokni " " is accepted without a murmur ; and at once they pro-
ceed to construct canoes and rafts by which, in a few weeks, all were safely
landed upon its eastern banks, whence again was resumed their eastward
march, and so continued until they stood upon the western banks of the Yazoo
river and once more encamped for the night ; and, as had been done for many
months before, . . . the Fabussa . . . was set up ; but ere the morrow's sun had
plainly lit up the eastern horizon, many anxiously watching eyes that early
rested upon its straight, slender, silent form, observed it stood erect as when
set up the evening before. And then was borne upon that morning breeze
throughout the vast sleeping encampment, the joj ful acclamation, " Fohah
hupishno Yak I
Fohah
hupishno Yak! ['here is where we rest']."
Now their weary pilgrimage was ended. . . . Then, as commemorative of this
great event in their national history, they threw up a large mound embracing
three acres of land and rising forty feet in a conical form, with a deep hole
about ten feet in diameter excavated on the top, and all enclosed by a ditch
encompassing nearly twenty acres. After its completion, it was discovered
not to be erect but a little leaning, and they named it Nunih (mountain or
mound) Waiyah, leaning. . . .
Several years afterward, according to the tradition of the Choctaws as nar-
rated to the missionaries, the two brothers, still acting in the capacity of
J* Cushman tries to derive the name of the Mississippi River from two Choctaw words,
misha, "beyond" (in space or time) and sipokni, "old"; in fact it is from two
Algonquian words, missi, " big," and sipi, " river."