siOBX; - Smithsonian Institution

78 BUEEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 103
was final. But this practice, like some other of their ancient customs, has gone
into disuse."
Halbert repeats and supplements this
Soon after the creation, the Great Spirit divided tlie Choctaws into "iksa,"
the " Kashapa Okla," and the " Okla in Holahta," or •' Uattak in Holahta."
Stationing one iksa on the north autl the other on the west side of the sacred
mound [of Nanih Waiya], the Great Spirit then gave them the law of mar-
.riage, which they were forever to keep inviolate. This law was that children
were to belong to the iksa of their mother, and that one must marry into
the opposite iksa. By this law a man belonging to the Kashapa Okla must
marry a woman of the Okla in Holahta. The children of this marriage belong,
of course, to the iksa of their mother, and whenever they marry it must
be into the opposite iksa. In like manner a man belonging to the Okla in
Holahta must marry a woman of the Kashapa Okla, and the children of this
marriage from being Kashapa Okla must marry into the Okla in Holahta.
Such was the Choctaw lav/ of marriage, given, they say, by Divine authority at
Nanih Waiya ,iust after the creation of their race. The iksa lived promiscuously
throughout the nation, but as every one knew to which iksa he belonged, no
matrimonial mistake could possibly occur.'^
Elsewhere he tells us that
In the ancient days the iksa system was regarded so strictly that a man
was treated with contempt if he should marry into his own iska. Prior to
1820, a woman thus offending was severely whipped by her uncles and brothers
and taken away from her husband. But with the gradual progress of civili-
zation, the law was first broken by the half-breeds, who thus set a precedent
which began to be followed by the full bloods, so that at the present day
among the Choctaws west, the iksa division is now practically extinct."
It will be noted that Halbert applies the term iksa only to the
moieties, but, while this may have been its original usage, it was later
employed for all of the minor subdivisions, and even extended to
include Christian sects.
The trivial note of a British official in 1772 to the effect that a
Choctaw chief named " Concha Oumanstabe " was " of the Immongoulasha
or Peace Family of the Town of Chickasawhays," casts a
flood of light upon the nature of the moieties."* Evidently the Imoklasha
corresponded to the Wliite or peace party among the Creeks and
we are quite safe in assuming that the I"hoIahta had to do with war.
Each moiety also discharged the burial offices for members of the
opposite moiety.
In recent times a kind of town or band moiety system existed
which made itself evident in the ball games. This is described on
" The Missionary Herald, June, 1828, vol. xxiv, No. 6, p. 215.
'2 Pubs. Miss. Hist. Sov., ii, p. 230 ; cf. Claiborne, Miss., i, p. 521. This information is
based on the communication to the Missionary Herald, above quoted, and " conversations
in 1884 with the aged Hemonubbee of Neshoba County, Miss., who clearly remembered the
tradition of the iksa system instituted at Nanih Waiya."
" The facts in this paragraph were abstracted from the records of the " Court of
Claims," p. 927.
" Miss. State Archives, English Dominions, vol. 1.