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32 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 103
Time passed on, and the Choctaw nation became so powerful that its hunting
grounds extended even to the sky. Troubles now arose among the younger
warriors and hunters of the nation, until it came to pass that they abandoned
the cabins of their forefathers, and settled in distant regions of the earth. Thus
from the very body of the Choctaw nation have sprung those other nations
which are known as the Chickasaws, the Cherokees, the Creeks or Muskogees,
the Shawnees and the Delawares. And in process of time the Choctaws founded
a great city, wherein their more aged men might spend their days in peace ;
and,
because they loved those of their people who had long before departed into
distant regions, they called this city Yazoo, the meaning of which is, home of
the people who are gone.'^
In his history of Mississippi Claiborne, has published a version of
the legend which had been collected by Mr. H. S. Halbert in 1877.
" It was taken down from the lips of Mr. Jack
The latter says of it :
Henry, an old citizen of Oktibbeha County, he stating that he had
received it in early life from an Irishman, who had once lived among
the Choctaws, and had heard the legend from an old Choctaw wom-
an." It appears, then, that the legend was transmitted through sev-
eral memories and mouths before being finally recorded in printer's
ink. It did not come directly from Choctaw lips, and no doubt was
unconsciously colored, or its details imperfectly remembered in its
transmission through the memories of the two white men." It runs
as follows
The Choctaws believed that their ancestors came from the west. They were
led by two brothers, Chactas and Chics-a, at the head of their respective Iksas
or clans.'^ On their journey they followed a pole which, guided by an invisible
hand, moved before them. Shortly after crossing the Mississippi, the pole
stood still, firmly planted in the ground, and they construed this as an augury
that here they must halt, and make their homes. . . .
The two leaders concluded to reconnoitre the country. Chics-a moved first,
and ten days thereafter Chactas followed, but a tremendous snow storm had
obliterated his brother's trail, and they were separated. He went southerly
to Nanawyya, on the head-waters of Pearl River, about the geographical centre
of the State, and the other brother, it was afterwards ascertained, settled
near where Pontotoc now stands. At the first meeting of the brothers it was
determined that the two clans should constitute separate tribes, each occupying
their respective territories, and the hunters of neither band to encroach on
the territory of the other. The present Oktibbeha and the Nusicheah, were
indicated as the line of demarkatlon.
The Choctaws preserve a dim tradition that, after crossing the Mississippi,
they met a race of men whom they called Na-hon-lo,^^ tall in stature and of fair
complexion, who had emigrated from the sun rise. They had once been a
23 Extract from Adventures in the Wilds of the United States and British American
Provinces
457-459.
(collected
Pitchlynn
1846-1856), by Charles
derives Yazoo from ya
Lanman. Vol. ii, Philadelphia,
or ia,
1856, pp.
" to go," and asha, " to sit," " to
remain," but it is probably not a Choctaw word.
2* Halbert in Pub. Miss. Hist. Soc, ii, p. 228.
=» In view of the repeated references to these two brothers it Is surprising to read that
in 1842 an old Chickasaw chief named Greenwood, while recognizing tlie fact that his
tribe and the Choctaw were once the same people, knew of no tradition regarding it.
2« Cf. NahuUo, p. 199.