Author’s Note: The following are glimpses of Chickasaw village life at a crucial time in tribal history, the mid-18th century, when the tribe was imperiled in its Old Town settlement by attacking Choctaws and other French allied Indians. Fortunately, English trader and friend of the Chickasaws, James Adair, who had been living and trading off and on with the tribe, was taking notes for what would become in 1775 his big book, History of American Indians. Adair also traded with other tribes, so the glimpses are assumed for the most part to apply to the Chickasaws, although some could apply to other tribes. No other first-hand witness to 18th century Chickasaw culture wrote about it so extensively. His accounts are far from perfect or comprehensive (see series on Adair, July-September 2004 Times), but his observations and information are a treasure trove which can be read, digested, dissected and discussed by succeeding generations of Chickasaws and other interested persons.

The villages of Old Town undoubtedly contained more women than men. The number of Chickasaw warriors had decreased after years of warfare with the Choctaws and others. After the Choctaw civil war ended in 1750, the French induced their Indian allies to increase their raids on Chickasaws, and the death toll mounted little by little.

This forced most of the dwindling number of warriors to remain in the villages to defend them. This was true even during the fall and winter seasons, when the tribe customarily sent out war and hunting parties. Probably fewer and smaller war parties continued their missions: to exact revenge against their enemies as custom dictated while other warriors patrolled the Mississippi River looking for Frenchmen and their allies. It was essential to kill them and capture their cargoes to cut New France’s supply and communication lines between Louisiana and the French colonies to the north.

One or more of the villages would have housed British traders such as James Adair and James Colbert. For the greater protection of their wares during this perilous time, they resided in houses near the center of the village. In the spring, the traders returned to British settlements to obtain another supply of trade goods, especially the armaments that were essential to the tribe’s survival. The traders left behind the mixed-blood children whom they had sired with their Chickasaw wives.

These children were raised like full-blood children by their mothers and their extended families as members of their clan. Other than that, Adair wrote very little about children, including whether he himself had any. Because traders had been coming to Chickasaw country since at least the latter part of the 17th century, it would be reasonable to assume that mixed-blood adults would also be living with their clans. A few mixed-blood Chickasaws, having been taught English by their fathers, also may have become traders, or sought their fortunes in other ways primarily in white society.

Like the warriors, Chickasaw hunters ran substantial risks away from the villages. They were obliged to travel great distances to shoot deer, both for food, and for skins to help offset their mounting trade deficit with British traders. The risks to both warriors and hunters resulted from the virtual encirclement of the Chickasaw settlement (today’s north Tupelo) by hostile forces looking to avenge deaths and captives taken during prior raids or to capture French rewards in return for Chickasaw scalps.

Aside from the obvious changes in the settlement meant to bolster Chickasaw defenses (palisade walls and ditches built around each village for instance), many aspects of Chickasaw life in the villages probably were very similar to the pre-contact look. As then, women did all the work connected with running the household. But with European tools the work was less burdensome and time-consuming. With metals pots, they need not spend so much time fashioning pottery for cooking. With cloth, they need not spend hours processing and brain tanning deerskin for clothes. Historian Wendy St. Jean wrote that some Chickasaw women married traders to obtain these convenience items for themselves and their kin.

While documentary and archaeological evidence illustrate the wide-spread use of these trade goods, what is usually not considered is the likelihood that some Chickasaw women, powerfully influenced by certain Chickasaw matriarchs or by virtue of being in a very conservative clan or just by their own choice, refused to use these trade goods. Although Adair did not mention such Indians, many post-Removal Chickasaws used traditional tools, according to Joshua Hinson, a Chickasaw cultural historian. So, why, he asks rhetorically, would every 18th century Chickasaw have relinquished their use. Hinson cited the discovery of post-Removal basketry, some pottery and traditional wooden tools such as the corn pounder, horn spoon, the bow and arrow, and the blow gun. He also mentioned that Chickasaws are known to have passed down knowledge of traditional food preparation, tanning methods and planting techniques.

For the latter, Adair described a day in early May, preordained by a “beloved man,” who gave the order for spring planting to begin. An orator shouted, “that the new year is far advanced,-- that he who expects to eat, must work,--and that he who will not work, must expect to pay the fine according to the old custom, or leave the town,” as the others will not work for “an healthy idle waster.” On this task, both men and women worked, even “war-chieftains” such as Paya Mattaha and numerous others, labored in the fields.

An hour after dawn, Adair wrote, residents of the several villages began with the field that has been agreed upon and fell “to work with great cheerfulness.” An orator “cheers them with jests and humorous old tales, and sings several of their most agreeable wild tunes, beating also with a stick in his right hand, on the top of an earthen pot covered with a wet and well-stretched deer-skin. Thus they proceed from field to field, till their seed is sown.” (This is useful information, but imagine how much more meaningful this would have been if Adair had taken extra minutes to have recorded the jests, tales and lyrics.) They planted different beans, peas and three types of corn, small niblet Indian corn, “hommony-corn,” and a white corn called “bread corn” which in July the women pound and knead with chestnuts and wrap the contents into green corn blades and boil into a bread that Adair said was “very tempting to the taste.”

He also provided descriptions of other culinary concoctions, all prepared by women. One, a thin cake mixed with bear oil, used to be baked on thin broad stones placed over a fire but “now they use kettles.” The bread loaf is placed over glowing coals that have been swept to opposite sides of the hearth and is covered with an earthen basin until done. Apparently thinking that Indian fare might consist of little more than endless meals of deer and bear, corn and beans, Adair wrote he was surprised to see (and taste) the “great variety of dishes they make out of wild flesh, corn, beans, peas, potatoes, pompions [a type of gourd], dried fruits, herbs and roots.” He said the diversity of the meals rivaled the European varieties.

Women, too, can be seen doing virtually all of the manufacturing work, though Adair did not say if every woman did all of the kinds described or if some women specialized in certain crafts for clan or tribal members. Women, particularly in winter, produced small carpets out of hemp that grew to six feet in length. They also spun buffalo hair into a fine yarn and added bits of dye that resulted in different designs. They also made serviceable and sometimes beautiful stone pipes although the most attractive varieties found in Chickasaw archaeological sites are thought to have come from other tribes--as trade goods. For baskets, they split large swamp canes into narrow slivers, dyed and thatched them together into a “beautiful variety of pleasing figures,” Adair wrote.

By 1750, most families presumably would have accumulated some metal pots, pans, and containers. But these were heavy and bulky and therefore difficult and expensive to transport over hundreds of miles and by then, English traders were mainly bringing only the essentials, guns and ammunition. Adair said the women still fashioned earthen pots from two to ten gallons, a large variety of pitchers, bowls, basins, and “a prodigious number of other vessels.” Some women simply preferred to make their own. The raw material was literally at their feet in the clay soil. After the vessel was fashioned largely undecorated, they placed it over a large fire of smoky pitch pine, which made them “smooth, black and firm.”

Older women, standing in wooden towers, risked their lives by guarding the cultivated fields against birds and the villages against enemy warriors. But younger women also risked being captured or killed through their traditional task of gathering firewood and water. This was especially dangerous in the 1750s because these resources had been depleted near the villages. This meant round-trips of two miles for water and perhaps even longer distances for firewood.

As much as 18th century Chickasaw women contributed to the well-being of their clans and tribe, it is incredible and sad to realize that we don’t know them. Of course with just a few exceptions, the same is true of Chickasaw men. The lack of names and personal details about individuals in the colonial documents and even in the writing of Adair--who repeatedly said how much he admired the tribe- -conveys the unfortunate image and impression of Chickasaw people as being amorphous and reactionary.

But to continue, aside from contributing to village activities like spring planting and the construction of houses, men displayed their skill in two very popular games that they played with relish, stickball and chun key. The latter game probably was played by every Southeastern tribe as durable disc-shaped chunkey stones have been found in historic as well as pre-historic sites across the Southeast. Since stickball equipment—wooden two-foot-long sticks and small balls made of deerhide stuffed with deer hair--was not durable, none of the equipment is known to have been found in pre-contact sites. The first account of stickball was recorded by a Jesuit missionary in 1636.

Although both games were played with great seriousness and intensity and with religious overtones, part of the objective was to win bets placed on the stickball teams or chunkey participants. Adair wrote that some tribal members gambled raucously and recklessly on the games--sometimes risking everything they owned. He listed items that might seem like trinkets today. But among people with few possessions, the gamblers might have attached considerable value to their silver ornaments, nose, finger and ear rings, breast, arm and wrist plates and clothing. Adair wrote partial descriptions of each game, so that anyone unfamiliar with the games still would not understand how to play them. The two games were no more alike than football and bowling.

Stickball was played by two opposing teams. Though Adair wrote nothing about team makeup, it is likely that most of teams were clan based. In a 2006 painting by Chickasaw artist Brent Greenwood, two stickball combatants face off; one is wearing a raccoon tail, the other a panther tail. These symbolized the clan and the characteristics of their totem animals. Greenwood’s players also wear accoutrements such as a shell necklace and bracelet, horsehair collar, and copper bracelet presumably prescribed by religious authorities.

Some post-Removal (date unknown) stickball-related items are stored in a warehouse of the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in Suitland, Maryland. These items were obtained by agents representing philanthropic individuals from collectors. The wealthy men eventually donated the material to the Smithsonian Institution, which administers NMAI. Among them are a belt, breechcloth, pants and a cloth collar. Adair didn’t mention stickball ceremonial dress; the game he described was being played on a hot summer day by players wearing only breechcloths. But it is reasonable to assume that these big stickball games, an important part of Chickasaw culture, would have included special dress as well as ritualistic symbols painted on their bodies.

Just how important is indicated by the way the participants prepare, according to Adair. The night before, they fast, purge their bodies with button snake root, refrain from sleep and invoke the deities “to bless them with success.” Not that they could sleep anyway, as Adair wrote that their female relatives “dance out of doors all the preceding night, chanting religious notes with their shrill voices…” This preparation, not coincidentally, resembled in an abbreviated manner the way warriors prepared for war. The Creeks called it “the little brother of war.”

Adair wrote that the stickball field was up to 500 yards long with goalposts at either end. The objective of the game was to score points by tossing the ball between the goalposts. The game began early in the day and lasted until 1 or 2 p.m. with players running and battling full bore. Each player carried two two-foot long ballsticks, with which they caught and hurled the ball to their teammates running toward their opponent’s goal. Adair wrote that they maintained such “constancy” through “custom” and their “love of virtue,” which was the path to success. He called it “severe exercise” and wrote that the game could be quite violent. He described one game in which he saw some “break the legs and arms of their opponents, by hurling them down…running at full speed.” He had learned, however, that these injuries may have had something to do with a long-standing family dispute that “might have raised their spleen, as much as the high bets they had then at stake…”

The other game, chunkey, was usually played by two or four men. In Adair’s account, the game was played near the village council house on a square of ground that had been swept clean and sanded to facilitate the rolling of the chunkey stone, a wheel-shaped disk about two to three inches in diameter and “two fingers” in breadth. To begin, one man would roll the carefully polished stone toward the center of the court. When it was about to stop rolling, the players would hurl their poles at the stone. These poles were about eight feet long, tapered at both ends, and anointed with bear’s oil. The man whose pole landed nearest the stone scored a point, or two points if the pole touched the stone. The first one to reach an agreed-upon total won the game.

Adair said the game a “stupid drudgery,” a simple game from ancient and presumably simpler times. But numerous sources state that the game and its many variations were very popular among tribal peoples. Since Adair clearly didn’t believe that the Chickasaws were stupid, perhaps his opinion of the game reflected his ignorance of it.

A key to understanding that chunkey had more importance to the tribe than a source of gambling was Adair’s own observation that the chunkey stones were kept with the “strictest religious care from one generation to another, and are exempted from being buried with the dead.” He thought that they belonged to the town were they are used, but it is probably more accurate to say that some were preserved by the tribe and others were retained by families and clans. Some chunkey stones that have been unearthed, Charles Hudson wrote in The Southeastern Indians have been “so beautifully crafted that they are virtually works of art.”

Bibliography James Adair, History of American Indians, Kathryn Braund, editor, (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2005). Earlier editions are available in some libraries.

Patricia Galloway, editor, Mississippi Provincial Archives, French Dominion, Volume 4 and 5, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984)

Charles Hudson, The Southeastern Indians, (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1976)

Wilbur R. Jacobs, editor, Indians of the Southern Colonial Frontier, The Edmond Atkin Report and Plan of 1755, (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1954)

James Atkinson, Splendid Land, Splendid People, (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004)

Wendy St. Jean, “More Than a Love Affair,” The Journal of Chickasaw History, Volume 1, Number 4, 1995.

Patricia Woods, French Indian Relations on the Southern Frontier (Ann Arbor, MI: AMI Research Press, 1980)