Description
The Chickasaw territory was in northern Mississippi, northwestern and northern Alabama, western Tennessee and southwestern Kentucky. Chickasaw people have a migration story in which they moved from a land west of the Mississippi River to reach present-day northeast Mississippi, northwest Alabama, and into Lawrence County, Tennessee. They had interaction with French, English, and Spanish colonists during the colonial period. The United States considered the Chickasaw one of the Five Civilized Tribes of the Southeast, as they adopted numerous practices of European Americans. Resisting European-American settlers encroaching on their territory, they were forced by the U.S. government to sell their traditional lands in the 1832 Treaty of Pontotoc Creek and move to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) during the era of Indian removal in the 1830s.
Language
Chickasaw is a Muskogean language, and Chickasaw and Choctaw together form the Western branch of the Muskogean language family.
Culture
The Chickasaw Indians were a tribe of great hunters and warriors whose towns were located near the headwaters of the Tombigbee River in northeastern Mississippi, but who ranged far and wide over the whole Mississippi valley region. The Chickasaw were divided into two moieties, or divisions, which were in turn divided into numerous clans. A person inherited the clan of his mother and was forbidden to marry within that clan. The head chief, or High Minko, was chosen from the Minko clan, and was aided by a council of advisers made up of clan leaders and tribal elders. The supreme deity of the Chickasaw was Ababinili, a composite of the Four Beloved Things Above: Sun, Clouds, Clear Sky and He That Lives in the Clear Sky.