Choctaw Tales
Stories from the Firekeepers
From the earliest stories recorded among the Choctaw in the 1700s to the most recent stories being told today, Choctaw Tales: Stories from the Firekeepers amasses the most comprehensive collection of oral traditions of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians ever published. Originally published in 2004, Choctaw Tales was a celebration of the art of storytelling, including myths, legends, supernatural tales, prophecies, historical anecdotes, tall tales, and animal stories. Through these stories, which include fifty new stories in this edition, Choctaw narrators create, express, and negotiate their beliefs, values, humor, and life experiences, as well as those of their ancestors before them. Their stories display the intelligence, artistry, and creativity of storytellers past and present. Choctaw Tales includes new and expanded materials to keep this valued resource current.
Nestled in the middle of Mississippi woodlands, the Choctaw have long been an elusive community to outsiders. Racial prejudice and historical mistreatment made the Choctaw wary of their neighbors. Many of their stories address this tension, both subtly and boldly. Virtually all the stories tackle either cosmological, historical, relational, or personal questions about the world and its inhabitants, offering complex responses in the guise of seemingly simple stories. For the Choctaw audience, the stories often need little explanation. However, a series of essays on Choctaw storytelling, coupled with careful annotation of each story and short biographies of each storyteller, help make this vibrant oral tradition understandable to today’s general audiences.
PRAISE FOR THE FIRST EDITION:Choctaw Tales is a fine addition to Tom Mould’s oeuvre on verbal art among the Choctaw, a large and important Native American people of the Southeastern United States. Viewed more broadly, it is also a major addition to the folklore literature of the Native peoples of Eastern North America.
PRAISE FOR THE FIRST EDITION:This is a good and intelligent collection of tales of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw people. It will be of value and interest to an academic audience and the general reader. It deserves a wide readership who will find the collection an engaging and thought-provoking read.
PRAISE FOR THE FIRST EDITION:[This book] adds to the knowledge and interpretation of Native American history and literature. Mould makes available narratives collected by ethnographers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, along with contemporary narratives. As he shows, oral traditions still serve this community.
PRAISE FOR THE FIRST EDITION:The stories in this landmark volume were collected from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, one of eight Choctaw bands in the state, by Mould, a professor of folklore, and his fieldworkers. Teachers, health workers, counselors at a Choctaw language camp, artists, basket makers, and elders—some speaking only Choctaw—contributed stories that have been passed on for centuries. These include two creation stories, one telling of the tribe’s migration to Mississippi from the West, the other telling of its emergence from a sacred mound, led by divine providence. Then there are the shukha anumpa (‘hog talk’), humorous stories that are either exaggerations of human foibles, often with a Christian moral, or animal stories, where cleverness is rewarded and pride punished. There are supernatural stories revolving around the devil, historical legends recounting the Choctaw removal to Oklahoma in 1830, and prophetic tales telling of coming disasters. Included are short biographies of all the storytellers and sixteen tales transcribed in Choctaw as well as English—making them especially valuable for future scholars.
Tom Mould is professor of anthropology and folklore at Butler University. He is author of Choctaw Prophecy: A Legacy of the Future; Still, the Small Voice: Narrative, Personal Revelation, and the Mormon Folk Tradition; and Overthrowing the Queen: Telling Stories of Welfare in America, which won the Brian McConnell Book Award and the Chicago Folklore Prize. Rae Nell Vaughn is a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and has served as chief justice for the Choctaw Supreme Court, chief of staff for the tribal chief, chairwoman of the board of directors of a tribally owned business, and tribal archivist.
