The northern parts of Mississippi State contain the earliest homes of
the warlike tribe of Chicasa Indians which historical documents enable
us to trace. Pontotoc county was the centre of their habitations in
the eighteenth century, and was so probably at the time of the
Columbian discovery; settlements of the tribe scattered along the
Mississippi river, in West Tennessee and in Kentucky up to Ohio river,
are reported by the later chroniclers.
In the year 1540 the army of Hernando de Soto crossed a portion of
their territory, called by its historians "Chicaça provincia," and
also visited a town of this name, with a smaller settlement
(alojamiento) in its vicinity named Chicaçilla.
Two rivers anciently bore the name of "Chicasa river," not because
they were partially or exclusively inhabited by tribes of this
nationality, but because their headwaters lay within the Chicasa
boundaries. This gives us a clue to the topographic position of the
Chicasa settlements. Jefferys (I, 153), states that "Chicasa river is
the Maubile or Mobile river, running north and south (now called Lower
Alibama river), and that it takes its rise in the country of the
Chicasaws in three streams." When L. d'Iberville traveled up the Yazoo
river, the villages on its banks were referred to him as lying on "la
rivière des Chicachas."[55]
[Footnote 55: Margry IV, 180.]
The most lucid and comprehensive account of the Chicasa _settlements_
is found in Adair's History.
James Adair, who was for several years a trader among the Chicasa,
gives the following account of their country and settlements (History,
p. 352, sq.): "The Chikkasah country lies in about thirty-five degrees
N. Lat., at the distance of one hundred and sixty miles from the
eastern side of the Mississippi ... about half way from Mobille to the
Illinois, etc. The Chikkasah are now settled between the heads of two
of the most western branches of Mobille river and within twelve miles
of Tahre Hache (Tallahatchie).... In 1720 they had four contiguous
settlements, which lay nearly in the form of three parts of a square,
only that the eastern side was five miles shorter than the western,
with the open part toward the Choktah. One was called Yaneka, about a
mile wide and six miles long ...; another was ten miles long ... and
from one to two miles broad. The towns were called Shatara,
Chookheereso, Hykehah, Tuskawillao, and Phalacheho. The other square,
Chookka Pharáah or "the long-house," was single and ran four miles in
length and one mile in breadth. It was more populous than their whole
nation contains at present ... scarcely 450 warriors." From Adair's
text it appears that the three towns were but a short distance from
the fortified places held by them at the time when he composed his
History (published 1775). They were about Pontotoc or Dallas counties,
Mississippi.
The Chicasa settlements are referred to in detail by B. Romans, East
and West Florida, p. 63: "They live in the centre of an uneven and
large nitrous savannah; have in it one town, long one mile and a half,
very narrow and irregular; this they divide into seven (towns), by the
names of Melattaw 'hat and feather,' Chatelaw 'copper town,'
Chukafalaya 'long town,' Tuckahaw 'a certain weed,' Ashuck hooma 'red
grass.' Formerly the whole of them were enclosed in palisadoes."
Unfortunately, this list gives only five towns instead of the seven
referred to.
D. Coxe, Carolana (1741) says, when speaking of the Tennessee river
(p. 13. 14): "River of the Cusates, Cheraquees or Kasqui river ...; a
cataract is on it, also the tribe of the Chicazas." An early French
report alludes to one of their villages, situated thirty leagues
inward from a place forty leagues above the mouth of Arkansas river.
"From Abeeka to the Chickasaw towns the distance is about one hundred
and fifty-nine miles, crossing many savannahs;" B. Romans, E. and W.
Florida, p. 313.
Through all the epochs of colonial _history_ the Chicasa people
maintained their old reputation for independence and bravery. They
were constantly engaged in quarrels and broils with all their Indian
neighbors: sometimes with the cognate Cha'hta and with the Creeks, at
other times with the Cheroki, Illinois, Kickapu, Sháwano, Tonica,
Mobilians, Osage and Arkansas (Kapaha) Indians. In 1732 they cut to
pieces a war party of the Iroquois invading their territory, but in
1748 coöperated against the French with that confederacy. J. Haywood,
in his Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee (1823), p. 240,
alludes to a tradition purporting that the Chicasa had formerly
assisted the Cheroki in driving the Shawanese from the Cumberland
river; the Cheroki desired war, and attacked the Chicasa shortly
before 1769, but were utterly defeated by them at the "Chicasa Old
Fields," and retreated by way of Cumberland river and the Cany Fork.
On the authority of chief Chenubbee, the same author states (p. 290)
that a part of the Chicasa established themselves on Savannah river,
opposite Augusta, but that misunderstandings with the Creeks made them
go west again. In 1795 the Chicasa claimed the land opposite Augusta,
and sent a memorial to the United States Government to substantiate
that claim. Another fraction of the tribe, called the Lightwood-Knots,
went to war with the Creeks, but were reduced by them, and have lived
with them in peace ever since. These facts seem to have some reference
to the settlement of a Chicasa band near Kasíχta, and east of that
town; cf. Kasí'hta.
Pénicaut mentions an intertribal war between them and the Cha'hta, and
relates a case of treason committed by a Cha'hta chief in 1703.[56] A
war with the Creeks occurred in 1793, in which the Americans stood on
the Chicasa side.
[Footnote 56: Margry V, 433 sqq.]
The policy of the Chicasa in regard to the white colonists was that of
a steady and protracted enmity against the French. This feeling was
produced as well by the intrigues of the British traders residing
among them as by their hatred of the Cha'hta, who had entered into
friendly relations with the French colonists, though they could not,
by any means, be called their trusty allies. By establishing fortified
posts on the Yazoo and Little Tombigbee rivers,[57] the French
threatened the independence of these Indians, who began hostilities
against them in 1722, near the Yazoo post, and urged the Naktche to a
stubborn resistance against French encroachments. They sheltered the
retreating Naktche against the pursuing French,[58] besieged the
commander Denys at Fort Natchitoches, though they were repulsed there
with considerable loss, defeated the French invading their country at
Amalahta (1736), at the Long House, or Tchúka faláya (Adair, p. 354),
and other points, and in the second attack of 1739-40 also baffled
their attempts at conquering portions of Chicasa territory.
[Footnote 57: The site once occupied by Fort Tombigbee is now
called Jones' Bluff, on Little Tombigbee river. Cf. Dumont in B.
F. French, Histor. Coll. of La., V, 106 and Note.]
[Footnote 58: Adair, History, p. 353, asserts that the real
cause of the third Naktche-French war lay in the instigations of
the Chicasa. On the causes and progress of the hostilities
between the French and the Chicasa, cf. pp. 353-358. They
attacked there his own trading house, cf. p. 357. Cf. also
Naktche, in this vol., pp. 34-39.]
The relations of these Indians with the United States were regulated
by a treaty concluded at Hopewell, 1786, with Pio mico and other
Chicasa chiefs. Their territory was then fixed at the Ohio river on
the north side, and by a boundary line passing through Northern
Mississippi on the south side. They began to emigrate to the west of
Arkansas river early in this century, and in 1822 the population
remaining in their old seats amounted to 3625. Treaties for the
removal of the remainder were concluded at Pontotoc creek, October
20th, 1832, and at Washington, May 24th, 1834.
After their establishment in the Indian Territory the political
connections still existing between them and the Cha'hta were severed
by a treaty signed June 22d, 1855. The line of demarcation separating
the two "nations," and following the meridian, is not, however, of a
binding character, for individuals of both peoples settle east or west
of it, wherever they please (G. W. Stidham).
No plausible analysis of the _name_ Chicasa, which many western
tribes, as well as the Chicasa themselves, pronounce Shikasa,
Shíkasha, has yet been suggested. Near the Gulf coast it occurs in
many local names, and also in Chickasawhay river, Mississippi, the
banks of which were inhabited by Cha'hta people.
In language and customs they differ but little from their southern
neighbors, the Cha'hta, and must be considered as a northern branch of
them. Both have two phratries only, each of which were (originally)
subdivided, in an equal manner, into four gentes; but the
thorough-going difference in the totems of the 8-12 gentes points to a
very ancient separation of the two national bodies.
The Chicasa _language_ served as a medium of commercial and tribal
intercourse to all the nations inhabiting the shores of the great
Uk-'hina ("water road"), or Lower Mississippi river. Jefferys (I,
165), compares it to the "lingua franca in the Levant; they call it
the vulgar tongue." A special mention of some tribes which spoke it is
made by L. d'Iberville[59]: "Bayagoula, Ouma, Chicacha, Colapissa show
little difference in their language;" and "The Oumas, Bayogoulas,
Theloël, Taensas, the Coloas, the Chycacha, the Napissa, the Ouachas,
Choutymachas, Yagenechito, speak the same language and understand the
Bilochy, the Pascoboula." As we have seen before, three of the above
tribes, the Naktche portion of the Théloël settlements, the Taensa and
the Shetimasha had their own languages, but availed themselves of the
Chicasa for the purposes of intertribal barter, exchange and
communication. The most important passages on this medium of trade are
contained in Le Page du Pratz, _Histoire_ (II, 218. 219): "La langue
Tchicacha est parlée aussi par les Chatkas (sic!) et (corrompue) par
les Taensas; cette langue corrompue est appelée _Mobilienne_ par les
Français," etc., and in Margry V, 442, where Pénicaut alleges to have
studied the languages of the Louisiana savages pretty thoroughly for
five years, "surtout le Mobilien, qui est le principal et qu'on entend
par toutes les nations." Cf. the article Naktche.
[Footnote 59: Margry IV, 412 and 184.]
A few terms in which Chicasa differs from main Cha'hta are as follows:
Chicasa kuíshto _panther_, Cha'hta kuítchito
kóe _domestic cat_, káto (Spanish)
ísto _large_, tchíto
iskitinúsa _small_, iskitinĕ
húshi _bird_, fúshi
The Chicasa trade language also adopted a few terms from northern
languages, as:
píshu _lynx_, from Odshibwē pishīu; also an Odshibwē totem-clan.
piakímina _persimmon_, changed in the French Creole dialect to
_plaquemine_.
shishikushi _gourd-rattle_ or _drum_, Margry IV, 175.
sacacuya _war-whoop_, la huée.
Lewis H. Morgan published in his _Ancient Society_ (New York, 1877).
p. 163, a communication from Rev. Chas. C. Copeland, missionary among
the Chicasa Indians, on the totemic _gentes_ observed by him. Copeland
states that the descent is in the female line, that no intermarriage
takes place among individuals of the same gens, and that property as
well as the office of chief is hereditary in the gens. The following
list will show how considerably he differs from Gibbs' list inserted
below:
_Panther phratry_, kóa. Its gentes: 1. kó-intchush, _wild cat_; 2.
fúshi, _bird_; 3. nánni, _fish_; 4. issi, _deer_.
_Spanish phratry_, Ishpáni. Its gentes: 1. sháwi _racoon_; 2. Ishpáni
_Spanish_; 3. míngo _Royal_; 4. huskóni; 5. túnni _squirrel_; 6.
hotchon tchápa _alligator_; 7. nashóba _wolf_; 8. tchú'hla
_blackbird_.
Further investigations will show whether the two gentes, Ishpáni and
mingo, are not in fact one and the same, as they appear in Gibbs'
list. This list is taken from a manuscript note to his Chicasa
vocabulary, and contains nine "clans" or iksa, yéksa:
Spáne or _Spanish_ gens; míngos or chiefs could be chosen from
this gens only, and were hereditary in the female line;
shă-é or _racoon_ gens; second chiefs or headmen were
selected from it; kuishto or _tiger_ gens; ko-intchūsh or
_catamount_ gens; náni or _fish_ gens; íssi or _deer_ gens;
halóba or? gens; foshé or _bird_ gens; huⁿshkoné or
_skunk_ gens, the least respected of them all.
An account in Schoolcraft, Indians I, 311, describes the mode of
tribal government, and the method by which the chiefs ratified the
laws passed. Sick people, when wealthy, treated their friends to a
sort of donation party (or pótlatch of the Pacific coast) after their
recovery; a custom called tonshpashúpa by the tribe.