Choctaw mythology
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The Choctaw are a tribe of Native Americans from southeastern United States, mostly near the Mississippi River.
The Choctaw venerated Sint Holo, a horned serpent which visited unusually wise young men.
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[edit] Creation Myths
[edit] Version 1
The Choctaw who remain in Mississippi tell this story as an explanation of how they came to the land where they live now and of how Naniah Waiya Mound came to be.
Two brothers, Chata and Chicksah led the original people from a land in the far west that had ceased to prosper. The people traveled for a long time, guided by a magical pole. Each night, when the people stopped to camp, the pole was placed in the ground and in the morning the people would travel in the direction in which the pole leaned.
After traveling for an extremely long time, they finally came to a place where the pole remained upright. In this place, they laid to rest the bones of their ancestors, which they had carried in buffalo sacks from the original land in the west.
The mound grew out of that great burial.
After the burial, the brothers discovered that the land could not support all the people. Chicksah took half the people and departed to the North and eventually became the Chickasaw tribe.
Chatah and the others remained near the mound and are now known as the Choctaw.
(Taken from Choctaw Creation Myth where it is listed as being in the public domain)
[edit] Version 2
At the beginning there was a great mound. It was called Nanih Wiya. It was from this mound that the Creator fashioned the first of the people. These people crawled through a long, dark cave into daylight and became the first Choctaw.
[edit] Animal Myths
Animals figure significantly in Choctaw mythology, as they do in most Native American myth cycles. For example,in Choctaw history, solar eclipses were attributed to black squirrels, and corn was a gift from the birds [1]
[edit] External links
- Grandmother Spider Steals Fire - creation myth of the Choctaw People of Tennessee and Mississippi
- Choctaw legends and stories
- Choctaw Creation Myth
