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Preface Driving west along Highway 19 in the dark, you can imagine how odd the¤rst casino in Las Vegas must have looked: shimmering glass, cool blinking neon, a raucous visual display dropped surreally in the middle of miles and miles of desert. In Mississippi, there is the same jarring effect—an explosion of light in the middle of Mississippi pine. A two-mile stretch of highway links the hotels and fast food restaurants on the outskirts of Philadelphia with the Silver Star Casino run by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. The highway is dark; only a few homes and shops—a palm reader and a trading post—distinguish one hill from the next. Cresting a ¤nal hill, the lights surprise you. If you stop, you ¤nd yourself in a casino that could be any casino. The sound of slot machines dominates. The slow-moving crowd circles the tables, circles the slots, alighting for a moment, moving on. Some players have roosted, glued to their stools, intent, faces emotionless even when the sound of falling coins signals victory. The faces at the tables are more animated. Players alternately cheer and curse the cards. Strangers form implicit bonds, camaraderie for the next ¤ve minutes until luck changes and they move on. You could be in Vegas or Atlantic City. But turn your attention away from the faces of the players and to those of the blackjack dealers, cocktail servers, and ®oor managers, and you might notice the frequency of the dark hair and brown skin. Listen carefully and you might discern a language dramatically unfamiliar. Pay attention to these subtle clues, and you might realize you are among the Mississippi Choctaw, that you are on reservation land. Pay even slightly less attention, be lured and lulled by the lights and shows and siren song of the Big Jackpot, and you could miss the Choctaw completely. Keep driving, on past the casino, and you could also miss the Choctaw. At night, discernment is impossible. But even under the blazing Mississippi sun, the signs are subtle and easily missed. Scattered among eight rural communities , with homes interspersed among the farms of white and black neighbors, Silver Star Casino and Hotel Swamps near sacred Nanih Waiya mound the Choctaw blend into the Mississippi farmland and forest. But reservation land is growing and distinct Choctaw communities can be discerned, if you know what to look for. The low, brick homes, the barren yards bulldozed by government contractors. In Bogue Chitto, where people pride themselves on having maintained the old ways, the homes have a nearby woodpile to feed their wood furnaces. Nearby, you will ¤nd makeshift arbors, ¤re pits, and an assortment of chairs, testament to a preference for socializing outdoors. Particularly in the community of Pearl River, however, the clues are becoming harder to ¤nd. New af®uence has brought new homes. Scattered Jim Walter model homes have been sprouting up throughout the various reservations . In Pearl River, a surveyed neighborhood of these homes has been built, with a playground and walking track in the center. The houses come in ¤ve choices of color and eight choices of design, some with two stories, some with one, some with an open living area, some with bounded rooms. The neighborhoods look like American suburbia, void of regional or cultural distinction . Again, the Choctaw go unnoticed. Perhaps the pack of “rez” dogs roaming along the roads strikes the unfamiliar cord. Or the abundance of dream catchers and miniature stickball sticks hanging from rearview mirrors. But such hints are easy to miss. Visit Mississippi and you could have no idea there is a major American Indian community here. Live in Mississippi and the Choctaw could escape Typical Choctaw reservation home Preface / xxi Backyard arbor with ¤re ring A new home in the River Oaks subdivision in Pearl River you as well. Just a few years ago, you could browse a local bookstore in Meridian , a short thirty miles from the tribal center at Pearl River and the largest city nearby, and ¤nd a wall of books labeled “Local Interest” with only one book that mentioned the Choctaw in more than a footnote. Had you asked the store clerks about books on the Choctaw, not only would you have found no books, you may have found yourself explaining who the Choctaw were and why this bookstore might carry something about them. This invisibility to the outside world is slowly changing. The out-migration in the 1950s and 60s...

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