siOBX; - Smithsonian Institution

34 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 103
was the center of their new home and that their long pilgrimage was at last
finished. Chikasa's party, after their separation from their brethren under
Chahta, moved on to the Tombigbee—and eventually became a separate na-
tionality. In this way the Choctav>'s and the Chieliasaws became two separate
tliough kindred nations.^^
To show what may happen to a myth the following may be quoted
from Hitchcock's Diary under date of March 4, 1842. According to
an old man who formerly lived on Tombigbee River
immediately after tlie revolutionary war of '76 there was a division in the
Choctaw Nation under two chiefs, that instead of going into a civil war the
parties separated by mutual agreement, one party living in the north west of
Mississippi and west Tennessee and the other in east Mississippi and Alabama.
That they lived for some short time thus -separated having a boundary however
established. They afterwards by a regular compact changed the line
and the northwest portion took the name of Chickasaws. Jones (the informant)
stated also that at about tlie same time a small portion of Choctaws became
dissatisfied with the Chief and went south and lived at the Bay of Boluxy for a
time and then moved west upon Pearl river and thence over the Mississippi
as far as some villages of Cadoes. Since the emigration of the Choctaws some
of those Indians under the name of Boluxy's have been found ; their history
and almost their language having been for the most part lost.^
The Biloxi were a wholly distinct people and the separation
between the Chickasaw and Choctaw antedated De Soto's expedition.
Probably to this old man the Revolution was as legendary as the
Spanish explorer.
Besides the story furnished by Halbert, Claiborne has this version
They claimed to [have] come, originally from the west. A portion of their
people they left behind them. They traveled (ho-pah-ka) a long way, encouraged
by their Oon-ka-la. These priests marched in the centre, bearing a sacred
book wrapped in skins. From this book they sung in an unknown tongue,
whenever the wanderers became despondent or discontented. They encountered
no other people on the route, and passed over a desolate country. A dreadful
epidemic broke out among them, and all the priests died but the bearer of the
book. They burned their dead, and bore along with them part of the ashes.
At a certain point on their journey, near a great river (called by the Indians
Mec-a-she-'ba, by the French, Mississippi,) owing to the frightful mortality, the
tribe separated. A portion inclined northward, and took the name of Chickasa,
after the great warrior who led tliem. The main body traveled nearly due
south, until they came to the Stooping Hill, Nane-tvy-yah, now in the county of
Winston, Mississippi, on the head waters of Pearl river. There they encamped,
and still continued to dia Finally, all perished but the book-bearer. He could
not die. The Nane-ic^-j/ah opened and he entered it and disappeared. After
the lapse of many years, the Great Spirit created four infants, two of each sex,
out of the ashes of the dead, at the foot of Nanc-ioy-yah. They were suckled
by a panther. When they grew strong and were ready to depart, the book-
bearer presented himself, and gave them bows and arrows and an earthen pot,
28 Halbert in Publ. Miss. Hist. Soc, ii, pp. 228-229. Also given in Amer. Autiq., vol.
XVI, pp. 215-216. In this latter journal Halbert states that Folsom's narrative was obtained
through Mr. James Welch, of Neshoba County.
=" Hitchcock, Diary, in Foreman, Traveler in Ind. Terr., pp. 211-212.