Talk:Choctaw
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In the story about the possum and racoon, the line reads, "There say rd after friendly greetings". That doesn't make any sense. I don't even know what they are trying to imply there. --Royalite
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Just wondering if "occupied by the southeastern United States" is NPOV. Danny
- Well, it's quite literally true in the sense of occupying space. Whether that's the intended or likely interpretation, and whether other interpretations are to be considered NPOV, is another question. --Brion VIBBER
Funny how everybody who claims descent from any Native American tribe is descended from a "chief" or "leader". Isn't anybody descended from the common run-of-the mill foot soldier? It would be nice to put a name to Meredith's supposed "leader" ancestor. -- Zoe
- Heh heh... probably most people are descended from both "leaders" and "common people," somewhere along their family line. --Aaron Walden
17:05, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, funny that you're writing about Native American tribes, but don't seem to know much about Native Americans. As a descendent of the Mississippi Band, let me inform you a bit. Leadership in the Choctaw tribe, as in most Native American tribes, was not hereditary but based on skill/ability. With each village having it's own leader and there being many villages, most families probably can trace their lineage back to at least one village leader at some point in time. Also, being descended from native leaders is not the opposite of being descended from "common people" considering the lack of hereditary leadership roles. Most tribes didn't have nobles/commoners as in European society. Even tribes with hereditary leadership would not have expressed the divisions in their societies in that manner, nor would native leaders have looked down on the "common people" as European leaders did. Due to the particularities of native culture, there was very little if any difference (in most tribes) between the standard of living for an average warrior and the chief.
According to this source, not at all NPOV, the Rogue's Gallery of an integrationist civil rights group, Meredith's "Choctaw" claim came after Meredith endorsed white racist David Duke for Congress and was trying to change his own background in some sad way. In the same speech he said African Americans should be taught English as a Second Language. Source also states that the Mississippi Band of Choctaws is both unassimilated and intact.
Many black people have Indian ancestry, of course, and Meredith says he does too, but this comes from his genealogical research and he says Oprah Winfrey and O.J. Simpson are also Choctaws. Lots of people down South, and elsewhere, claim Indian ancestry.
The web page of the Mississippi Band of Choctaws does not mention any of these notables.
I hope it was not presumptuous of me to strike the last paragraph; it seems that to cite one member is superfluous. Mr. Meredith perhaps belongs on the List of Native Americans page if anyone wishes to restore him.KJ Sam 08:34 26 May 2003 (UTC)
Wondering if this should mention one of the more interesting characteristics of the choctaw language, the presence of different words to indicate "verifiably true" and "second hand/hearsay"
(I've never done this before, I hope this is how it goes)
Why does it call them one of "the five civilized tribes"? Are they implying that all of the other American Indian nations are uncivilized, or is it a name that has a story behind it? Did this person mean the Choctaw are one of a main five tribes who were influenced by and/or accepted relations with the invading peoples?
I didn't want to remove it and seem too easily offended, but it sounds wrong to me. Besides, who's deciding what's "civilized" anyway? More than likely a nation who's so "civilized" that they take over (and obliterate) other "heathen" nations?
I, I am not an it, used the "Five Civilzed Tribes" name because history names the tribes so. I didn't come up with the term. Many tribes intergrated European technology, and many did sucessfully, especially the Cherokee. If it weren't for the State of Georgia's greedy appetite for Cherokee country in the 1800s, there may have well been many advanced Indian Nations on par with Japan, Mexico, Russia, and the U.S.
Photo of gravestone shows the named spelled like this : Push-Ma-Ha-Ta - Ted Wilkes 12:41, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
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[edit] Chocktaw
The article name "Chocktaw" needs to be redirected here. When I entered the actual URL in the Address Bar of the browser, I got a message saying it was not found. Mattderojas 16:26, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Prank
The Choctaw language is spoken of as being related to piglatin. This needs to be fixed.
[edit] References
We need to get some references for the quotes. I don't know where to begin on some of them (like the Ferguson ones).--Cúchullain t/c 20:45, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Again on the tracing of lineages to chiefs
I must point out that since, first, chiefdoms were an elected position as far back as even oral histories recount, and second, the size of the tribes are quite small, it is statistically likely that any randomly chosen person of Choctaw lineage will be able to trace their heritage to one or more chiefs. This is the same effect as that in Europe, where after twelve centuries the probability of being descended from Charlemagne is higher than 50%; however, the much lower population of the Choctaw enhances the effect.
Consider the Choctaw population of 1820, just prior to the Removal. There were three chiefs and a population of about 20,000. It is recorded that Pushmataha had five children; let's take that as an average. Therefore your chances of being directly descended from an 1820 chief were about one in 800, never mind earlier chiefs. With each following generation, this probability rises. 3 chiefs x 5 kids x 2 people/couple = 30 people in the first generation whose children could claim 1820 chief lineage. In the second generation, therefore, upwards of a hundred people (statistically speaking) could claim 1820 chief lineage. That rises to several hundred in the next generation, and several thousand in the sixth -- maybe 1 in 20 of the whole of the Choctaw.
And that's just for the three chiefs of 1820. Chiefs changed about once every generation in those days, so every generation is another shot at having a chiefly lineage... and the further back you go, the better the odds get.
So no, being able to trace chiefly lineage is not much of a problem... especially when you take into account the bias that a chiefly lineage is more likely to be remembered in oral tradition than a foot-soldier's. Alba 14:34, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
