Crossing Bok Chitto: A Choctaw Tale of Friendship and Freedom (review)

Choctaw storyteller Tingle draws on bits and pieces of songs, traditional stories, and local histories to craft this legend of Native Americans helping African-American slaves to freedom. Martha Tom, a Choctaw girl, lives by the banks of Bok Chitto, a river in Mississippi that separates plantation land from Choctaw territory. If a slave can cross Bok Chitto, he or she is free by law, and the slave owner cannot follow. Disobeying her mother's rule not to cross the river, Martha Tom traverses via a subsurface stone path and on the other side comes across a forbidden slave church meeting, where she meets and befriends Little Mo, a boy who helps her find her way back to the river. Bonds between Martha Tom and Little Mo grow as Martha Tom attends the slave church services, and when Little Mo's mother is sold, Little Mo enlists aid from the Choctaw. When the Choctaw women, carrying candles and wearing their white wedding dresses, step into the river, their angelic appearance causes the slave-hunters to hold their fire as they watch Little Mo's family walk, apparently on the water itself, to freedom. Native artist Jeanne Rorex Bridges' tranquil images of sienna-hued landscapes and people are imbued with an ethereal serenity undergirded by a fierce determination. She reveals character and emotional quality through full-frontal portraits that beckon readers to empathize through their imploring expressions. Although the story has a legendary quality, young readers will appreciate the explanation of the reality, both in words and pictures, behind what appeared to the white folk as a mystical event. A brief note on the contemporary Choctaw nation and a longer one on Choctaw storytelling follow the text.