Project MUSE®: Native South - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/475
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in Native South.daily12026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 1 (2008) through current issueLatest Articles: Native SouthTWOProject MUSE®Native South2152-40251943-2569Latest articles in Native South. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Introduction
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979307
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The contributors to this special issue are an interdisciplinary and inter-institutional group of historians and linguists who have been working together to translate and analyze nineteenth-century court documents from the Choctaw (or Chahta) Nation. The historians are Christina Snyder, W. Tanner Allread (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma), Frankie Hiloha Bauer (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma), Edward P. Green, Jamie Henton, Julie L. Reed (Cherokee Nation), and Jesse Tarbert (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma). The linguists are George Aaron Broadwell, Michael Fischer, and Seth Katenkamp.1This project focuses on the Choctaw National Records microfilm collection within the American Indian Archives held by the Oklahoma Historical
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/475/image/coversmallIntroduction2026-01-08text/htmlen-USIntroduction2026-01-082026TWOProject MUSE®184772026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-01-08"Angry in the House": The Criminalization of Whooping in the Choctaw Nation
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979308
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On Halloween night in 1885 a group of Choctaws gathered for a funeral service in Kiamichi County, Chahta (Choctaw) Nation. An uninvited guest, Ellis Christy, disrupted the ceremony. One attendee, Bissill McCann, said Hattak hochchifo Ellis Christy ilappat oka ishko hosh ona cha anumpoli itakhapolit ahʋnta ka pisali mʋlhi tok. ("I saw this man Ellis Christy come up drinking and talking trouble.") Thereafter, according to McCann, Tasahʋt pih Takalichi tok. ho haklolile tok. ("I heard him 'hang a whoop' one time"). Christy talked loudly, "he really seemed mad," and "he appeared to be drunk."1 In response, according to another eyewitness, "those that were gathered there seemed to be very afraid." Someone fled and
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/475/image/coversmall"Angry in the House": The Criminalization of Whooping in the Choctaw Nation2026-01-08text/htmlen-US"Angry in the House": The Criminalization of Whooping in the Choctaw Nation2026-01-082026TWOProject MUSE®812642026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-01-08Choctaw Literacy
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979309
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The collection of Choctaw-language documents used in this project demonstrates the centrality of literacy in the Choctaw Nation in the nineteenth century. Literacy rates within the Choctaw Nation, both in English and in Choctaw, surpassed those in surrounding territories.1 The Choctaw Nation's school system, taught in both English and Choctaw, was the largest west of the Mississippi River.2 This high level of Indigenous literacy is especially remarkable considering Choctaw only became a written language in the 1820s. Choctaw people rapidly and intentionally adopted and modified written literacy, resulting in a uniquely Choctaw style of writing by the late 1800s.There is no record of Choctaw written literacy before
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/475/image/coversmallChoctaw Literacy2026-01-08text/htmlen-USChoctaw Literacy2026-01-082026TWOProject MUSE®229002026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-01-08How to Read a Choctaw Legal Case
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979310
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The creation of a large corpus of Choctaw government records gives those interested in the Choctaw language a valuable opportunity to study legal language in use. After the Removal period, the Choctaw established their own government in Indian Territory that included a constitution and a court system. This government persisted till its dissolution in 1905, and thus there are about seventy years of Choctaw language governmental records. The functions of this government required many people to be literate in Choctaw, to interpret Choctaw laws, and to argue cases before the Choctaw courts.Legal language is an understudied topic within Choctaw language study, with Marcia Haag's valuable discussion of language in the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/475/image/coversmallHow to Read a Choctaw Legal Case2026-01-08text/htmlen-USHow to Read a Choctaw Legal Case2026-01-082026TWOProject MUSE®221082026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-01-08Lack of Prestige in Use of English Borrowings in Nineteenth-Century Choctaw Society
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979311
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Due to the sudden integration of foreign technology (both social and material) into Choctaw life after contact with Europeans, there was demand for a large number of new words (neologisms) to refer to these technologies. While the simplest way to do this might have been to borrow the names of new animals, machines, and social ranks from the European languages that introduced them, Choctaws often preferred using only Choctaw words to neologize. Developing Choctaw-only compound words and phrases often resulted in longer words than their European equivalents might have been, yet forms like issuba haksobish falaia (literally 'horse (with) long ears') became the canonical word for 'mule' with negligible competition from
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/475/image/coversmallLack of Prestige in Use of English Borrowings in Nineteenth-Century Choctaw Society2026-01-08text/htmlen-USLack of Prestige in Use of English Borrowings in Nineteenth-Century Choctaw Society2026-01-082026TWOProject MUSE®395472026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-01-08"Learn Your Laws and It Will Save You Many a Dollar": Towards a Social History of the Choctaw Court System
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979312
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In 1903 a Choctaw resident of Bok Tuklo County, J. W. Castilow, wrote to Green McCurtain, Principal Chief of the Nation, with an important request. He had heard rumors that the county judge, P. N. Ishcomma, planned to sack the county sheriff, E. M. Ward, and replace him with one of his brothers. Castilow wrote in defense of Ward, assuring McCurtain that "this county has never had a better sheriff." If the judge did choose to file charges against Ward, then he was motivated "purely from spite and nothing more." Castilow asked McCurtain to pursue a full investigation of the case, both as a matter of justice and as a personal favor between friends to "oblige one who has worked for you."1McCurtain did not remove Ward
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/475/image/coversmall"Learn Your Laws and It Will Save You Many a Dollar": Towards a Social History of the Choctaw Court System2026-01-08text/htmlen-US"Learn Your Laws and It Will Save You Many a Dollar": Towards a Social History of the Choctaw Court System2026-01-082026TWOProject MUSE®443232026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-01-08Choctaw National Courts and Choctaw Society in the Late Nineteenth Century: Chahta Anumpa and History
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979313
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Late nineteenth-century Choctaw court documents hold promising insights into the internal and external changes shaping Choctaw law. In the late nineteenth century as embattled Choctaw leaders sought to preserve their nationhood and lands, new laws departed from traditional practices. An example of this shift comes from a Kiamichi County court case within the Choctaw Nation that dealt with matrilineal property rights. After the death of Sampson Folsom, a Choctaw man who left a piece of property to each of his children, his widow sold the farm allotted to their two youngest daughters to a white man. The daughters challenged the legality of this sale, but ultimately, his widow, Merilda Folsom, was allowed to sell the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/475/image/coversmallChoctaw National Courts and Choctaw Society in the Late Nineteenth Century: Chahta Anumpa and History2026-01-08text/htmlen-USChoctaw National Courts and Choctaw Society in the Late Nineteenth Century: Chahta Anumpa and History2026-01-082026TWOProject MUSE®247262026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-01-08Conclusion: Not the Last Word …
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979314
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During the pandemic, when other people embraced sharing sourdough starter and bread making skills or watched YouTube videos to learn to knit, I joined this interdisciplinary and multi-institutional team comprised of graduate students, emerging scholars, Indigenous scholars, and ally scholars to think deeply about another Native nation's Indigenous language legal records. Preliminarily, what we found is that these legal records offer a more complex view of how the Choctaw people were negotiating external and internal legal changes during the late nineteenth century in the period following the Civil War but before allotment and statehood. When the Choctaw Nation passed laws outlawing whooping, it did so partly to
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/475/image/coversmallConclusion: Not the Last Word …2026-01-08text/htmlen-USConclusion: Not the Last Word …2026-01-082026TWOProject MUSE®137332026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-01-08Appendix—Two Sample Cases
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979315
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In this appendix, we offer two of the cases analyzed by our working group. In these cases, the first line shows the original Choctaw spelling; the second line shows the Choctaw with a normalized spelling separated into morphemes; the third line shows the meaning of each morpheme in Choctaw. This is followed by the Hudson translation and the literal translation. When Hudson did not translate some portions, we put (none) in this line. Illegible characters are shown by X.Bissill McCann's Testimony, ctn 34: 766L (Line 10) to 766L (Line 37)corresponding English translation by Hudson begins on page 977 of the pdf1. Case No 25 was taken up, witness sworn in and given the following Testimony XXX2. [Line 12] Bissill
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/475/image/coversmallAppendix—Two Sample Cases2026-01-08text/htmlen-USAppendix—Two Sample Cases2026-01-082026TWOProject MUSE®909902026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-01-08