By Sandra Knispel
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkno/local-wkno-956388.mp3
Oxford, Mississippi – Since pre-historic times, Choctaws and other Native Americans have lived in what is now Mississippi. Once on the brink of extinction, they are now once again a thriving tribe.
In 1830, under considerable pressure from Congress and President Andrew Jackson, three Choctaw chiefs signed the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, agreeing to resettle the tribe some 550 miles to the west. They hoped that moving to the newly created Indian Territory -- in what is now Oklahoma -- would safeguard the tribe. Instead, the poorly planned governmental removal, the so-called Trail of Tears, spelt death for many hundreds of Indians on the way.
"The removal part here was a very disgracing time for our tribal members," said tribal member Wilma Simpson.
Independence and solitude in the new territory was relatively short lived. A tiny minority, however, stubbornly refused to leave Mississippi, even in the face of incarceration and fines.
"The ones who remained here, they hid. They hid in the woods, they hid in the swamp area. And they had every intention to remain here. To show that nobody could never remove them," said Simpson.
What made them stay was a large, flat-top earth mound preserved to this day in Winston County in east-central Mississippi. It dates back well over a thousand years, possibly even 2,000.
"Personally I pronounce it Nanih Waiya. Which means a place where things grow or a place of creation. In our legend it says that our tribe was the last one to come out from the center of the earth. And they also talk about other tribes coming out before us, like Cherokees, Seminoles and the rest and we stayed in this area," said Captain of Operations for the Choctaw Police Department Harold Comby.
Barely a mile away lies its cave and depending on whom you ask, it was either from here or the mound that the tribe emerged, from the womb of mother earth. Its small entrance barely a yard wide, the cave faces the headwaters of the Pearl River not much more than a trickle. Comby's parents took him here every year, a pilgrimage of sorts. According to oral history, Nanih Waiya had also been used as a burial mound.
"My mom would tell us stories about the spirits' singing songs at night, or babies crying and stuff like that. And then she also said that if our people ever left that site, this area, we would fail to exist as a tribe," Comby said.
It was around this nucleus of tribal members who refused to leave, that the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians began to reconstitute itself at the end of World War II. Life was hard, abject poverty the norm and education rudimentary. In a society strictly segregated between black and white, brown had no place in the spectrum. While a large majority of Choctaw have converted to Christianity, traditional beliefs continue to play a role.
"I do certain things like smudgin', which means actually smoking, making smoke, burning sage or cedar. That's for prayers. I did it this morning inside the car. Just put it in a small container and let the smoke go out and it's supposed to bless the area around you and purify," Comby said.
Today the Mississippi Band of Choctaw has risen from the ashes of Dancing Rabbit. From those roughly 1,000 who in the 1830s refused to leave, the number has grown to 10,000. Mason Farmer, a 17-year-old high school student, is proud to be a Choctaw.
"You know we're still here and all that after all those years. I like being brown for some reason. I couldn't imagine myself being lighter or darker," Farmer said.