THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 213 



MR. CATLIN'S NOTES ON THE CHOCTAW INDIANS. 



CHOCTAWS AND CHICKASAWS, FORMERLY ADDICTED TO FLATTENING THE HEADS OF 



CHILDREN. 



With No. 107 Mr. Catlin notices the fact that some few years before 

 1832 the Choctaws and Chickasaws flattened heads in the same manner 

 as the Nez Perce or Upper Columbia Indians. He comments on it, 

 after speaking of the fact (see 3So. 197) that the Choctaws then and 

 now living did not, and do not, flatten their heads. 



The distance of the Choctaws from the country of the Chinooks is certainly between 

 two thousand and three thousand miles ; and there being no intervening tribes prac- 

 ticing the same "custom, and no probability that any two tribes in a state of nature 

 would ever hit upon so peculiar an absurdity, we come, whether willingly or not, to 

 the conclusion that these tribes must, at some former period, have lived neighbors to 

 each other or have been parts of the same family, which time and circumstances have 

 gradually removed to such a very great distance from each other. Nor does this, in 

 my opinion (as many suppose), furnish any very strong evidence in support of the 

 theory that the different tribes have all sprung from one stock, but carries a strong 

 argument to the other side by furnishing proof of the very great tenacity these people 

 have for their peculiar customs, many of which are certainly not general, but often 

 carried from one end of the continent to the other, or from ocean to ocean, by bands 

 or sections of tribes, which often get "runoff" by their enemies in wars, or in hunting, 

 as I have before described, thus to emigrate to a vast distance is not so unaccount- 

 able a thing, but almost the inevitable result of a tribe that have got set in motion, all 

 the way amongst deadly foes, in whose countries it would be fatal to stop. 



I am obliged, therefore, to believe that either the Chinooks emigrated from the At- 

 lantic, or that the Choctaws came from the west side of the Rocky Mountains, and I 

 regret exceedingly that I have not been able as yet to compare the languages of these 

 two tribes, in which I should expect to iiud some decided resemblance. Theyjnight, 

 however, have been near neighbors, and practicing a copied custom where there was 

 no resemblance in their language. 



Whilst among the Choctaws I wrote down from the lips of one of their chiefs the 

 following tradition, which seems strongly to favor the supposition that they came 

 from a great distance in the west, and probably from beyond the Eocky Mountains : 



Tradition. — " The Choctaws a great many winters ago commenced moving from the 

 country where they then lived, which was a great distance to the west of the great 

 river and the mountains of snow, and they were a great many years on their way. A 

 great medicine-man led them the whole way, by going before with a red pole, which 

 he stuck in the ground every night where they encamped. This pole was every morn- 

 ing found leaning to the east, and he told them that they must continue to travel to 

 the east until the pole would stand upright in their encampment, and that there the 

 Great Spirit had directed that they should live. At a place which they named Nah- 

 ne-wa-ye (the sloping hill) the pole stood straight up, where they pitched their en- 

 campment, which was one mile square, with the men encamped on the outside and the 

 women and children in the center, which remains the center of the old Choctaw 

 Nation." 



The following traditions, relating to the Choctaws, w T ere told Mr. 

 Catlin in 1836, at Fort Gibson, by Peter P. Pitchlynn, a very intelligent 

 and influential man in the tribe (see No. 296) : 



The Deluge.—" Our people have always had a tradition of the Deluge, which hap- 

 pened in this way: There was total darkness for a great time over the whole of the 

 earth ; the Choctaw doctors or mystery-men looked out for daylight for a long time, 

 until at last they despaired of ever seeing it, and the whole nation were very un- 

 happy. At last a light was discovered in the north, and there was great rejoicing. 



