HUM 221: '5 Civilized Tribes' in Oklahoma

While most of us think of the Trail of Tears as a tragedy that befell the Cherokee Nation, they were only one of five tribes that were forced to move to what is now Oklahoma in the 1830s and 1840s. The others were the Creeks (Muscogee), who lived in Georgia and Alabama; the Seminole, who lived in Florida; the Choctaw, who lived mostly in Mississippi; and the Chickasaw, who lived in northern Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. White Americans of the 19th century knew them, without conscious irony, as the "Five Civilized Tribes" because they had adopted European-American forms of agriculture, government, religion and culture. In the Indian Territory (as Oklahoma was known before statehood), they joined the Osage, the Kiowa and other tribes already living there.

In class today, we will focus on the smallest of the five tribes that settled Oklahoma in the 1830s, the Chicakasaw. Closely related to the Choctaw, they once lived along the Tennessee River and west to Memphis, and now live in southeastern Oklahoma.

Read first Wikipedia's overview of the Chickasaw people and the historical overview and the cultural resources page on the official website of the Chickasaw Nation. The "Legend of the Big White Dog and the Sacred Pole" tells how the people got to their traditional homeland, and is also an unforgettable example of how myth and oral history relate to each other. Click on "Customs" and read the pages of marriage, religion and especially social dance. Pay special attention to the "Stomp Dance." One of the traditional festivals of all the "Five Civilized Tribes" was the Green Corn Ceremony, held when sweet corn ripens and the new year (in the traditional way of thinking) begins when the new crop comes on. Read the Wikipedia entries on the Green Corn Ceremony and the Stomp Dance. While people of the "Five Tribes" largely embraced Christianity, some elements of the traditional religion are preserved in the Stomp Dance and dance is properly considered to have religious overtones -- something like an old-fashioned gospel singing in the majority culture, which was both a religious and social event.

We will watch three videos. One shows Gary White Deer, explaining his work with a revival of Chickasaw and Choctaw song and dance. Listen for what he says about a "community of spirit" in the music. A very old clip shows men taking part in ceremonial dancing and (I believe) "going to water," a purification ritual. More recent is a video of a stomp dance at a pow wow in Oklahoma. Notice how everyone, of all ages, joins in the dance.

You knew you were going to get to write something, didn't you? Let's return to the (prose) poem "Autobiography" by Joy Harjo. She is of Muscogee heritage, and she speaks of her people's history and ends with "the Muscogee season of forgiveness, time of new corn, the spiraling dance." You were asked to respond to it several weeks ago. Now that you know more more of the poem's cultural and historical background, is your response any different? Ask yourself the same three questions: (1) What stands out? (2) What in your background makes you feel that way? (3) What, specifically, in Harjo's poem do you respond to?