Choctaw Prophecy : A Legacy for the Future [1 ed.] 9780817384159, 9780817312251

Citation preview

Choctaw Prophecy

contemporary american indian studies J. Anthony Paredes, Series Editor

Choctaw Prophecy A Legacy of the Future

Tom Mould

THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS Tuscaloosa

Copyright © 2003 The University of Alabama Press Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380 All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Typeface is AGaramond and Triplex ∞ The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Science-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mould, Tom, 1969– Choctaw prophecy : a legacy of the future / Tom Mould. p. cm. (Contemporary American Indian studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8173-1225-0 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 0-8173-1226-9 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Choctaw Indians—Religion. 2. Prophecy. 3. Choctaw Indians—Folklore. 4. Oral tradition—Mississippi. I. Title. II. Series. E99.C8 .M68 2003 299´.783—dc21 ISBN 978-0-8173-1225-1 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8173-1226-8 (pbk.: alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8173-8415-9 (electronic)

2002015812

Contents

List of Illustrations

vii

Acknowledgments

ix

Preface

xix

Note on the Texts Introduction

xxxv 1

1. Choctaw Verbal Art

19

Storytelling 23 The Generic System of Choctaw Verbal Art

26

2. The Genre and Performance of Prophecy

31

Keying in to Performance 31 Types of Prophecy Based on Time 35 Types of Prophecy Based on Content 61 Validating Unful¤lled Prophecy 68

3. Interpreting Prophecy

71

Interpreting Prophecy with Prophecy 72 Interpreting Prophecy with the World 78

4. The Origin of Prophecy

111

Who Were the Prophets? 113 Who Are the Prophets? 126 Creation through Interpretation of Existing Prophecy 133 Creation through Interpretation of the World 139

5. The Future in Prophecy

156

Predictability and the Negotiation of Belief 157 Tractability and the Didactic Functions of Prophecy 159 Welcomability and a Content Analysis of Prophecy 171 The Focus of Identity 197 The Focus of Prophecy 205

vi / Contents Conclusion

208

Appendix: Summary of Prophecies Notes

223

References Cited Index

257

243

215

Illustrations

FIGUR ES 1. Map of Choctaw communities in Mississippi 2. Structure of Choctaw narrative genres

xviii 27

3. Structure of ful¤lled prophecy highlighting negotiation of truth

40

4. Structure of ful¤lled prophecy highlighting narrative and temporal features 40 5. Structure of ful¤lled prophecy highlighting historical comparison 6. Correlation among types of prophecy

62

7. Correlation between time period and prophecy

152

8. Alternate valences attributed to prophecies of technology

PHOTOGRAPHS Narrators

xi–xvi

Landscape Homes

xx

xxi–xxii

1997 Choctaw fair

xxv–xxvi

193

51

Acknowledgments

This book is a record of the oral traditions of a community, of prophecies known by many but narrated by few. Those men and women who have shared their stories are named throughout this book but deserve speci¤c recognition here not only for their knowledge, skill, and artistry in narration but for sharing their traditions with a larger audience. Personally, I thank them for opening their doors to me, both literally and ¤guratively, in overwhelming expressions of generosity, friendship, and trust. In Bogue Chitto, Billy Amos has been my guide and friend for as long as I have been visiting Mississippi. His passion for chanting and social dance is contagious and invigorating, and though my studies have focused on narrative, he has helped reveal the larger picture of Choctaw culture, leading me through the community to others well versed in the old stories and customs. Also in Bogue Chitto is Bobby Joe, a more recent acquaintance but no less knowledgeable or less generous with his time. In Conehatta, I had the pleasure of spending time with many of the elders in the community, thanks to the stewardship of Glenda Williamson and Meriva Williamson, both of whom led me through the community to speak to the elders they knew. Their introductions were key, their translations crucial. Most of the elders we spoke to prefer to speak Choctaw rather than English. Glenda and Meriva listened carefully and helped me understand what these older women were saying. For this project, my work with Mallie Smith, Odie Anderson, and Jef¤e Solomon was most directly productive, though I learned much from others such as Lillie Gibson, Esbie Gibson, and Donna Denson. I met less often with these women and know them less well, but the wisdom they shared with me in their native language is some of the most insightful and powerful material in this book. In Standing Pine there is Carmen Denson and his father Charlie Denson. I met them both my ¤rst night in Mississippi as they sang traditional Choctaw hymns in a community recreation hall. Charlie is a well-respected elder in the community with a quick wit and a deep knowledge of tribal traditions.

x / Acknowledgments

Carmen is gaining similar respect. Some topics are not open for discussion, such as the details of Choctaw medicine. But Charlie and Carmen recognize that inaccurate stereotypes and false assumptions about the Choctaw and American Indians in general exist, so they share their knowledge generously in order to dispel them. In Tucker, Melford Farve has been my closest friend and advisor. Melford knows stores of great stories, many of which appear in my edited collection Choctaw Folk Tales (1998). While his knowledge of prophetic narratives was less extensive, my debt to him for sharing his knowledge of Choctaw culture and for his friendship is enormous. In Crystal Ridge, I worked with Linda Willis. I met her late in my ¤eldwork as I followed up on information about Cameron Wesley, a man many claim was the last traditional chief of the Choctaw. Linda is one of Cameron Wesley’s grandchildren. The predictions and prophecies she remembers came from him. Crystal Ridge lies to the north of most of the Choctaw communities and has only recently been incorporated into the list of of¤cial communities recognized by the tribe. They do not yet have a council representative, but that will no doubt change in time. Another community, in Henning, Tennessee, just north of Memphis, is based around a circular drive, called “Choctaw Road.” All of the elders here were born in Mississippi and moved to Tennessee as young and middle-aged adults in search of work. Grady John is one of the community’s senior members. He has worked for years at Chukalissa, an archaeological village site that dates to the ¤fteenth century and has been renovated as a museum run by the University of Memphis. Grady revels in learning from the professors and students of this school as he in turns instructs them on contemporary culture. My debt to residents of Pearl River is perhaps the greatest. Harold Comby shares my interest in Choctaw culture and history, far surpassing my dedication to the topic. Harold speaks eloquently, quoting liberally from both his mother and books he has read. When I have a question, I call Harold. No less eloquent is Louise Wilson. Her primary source is her grandfather, John Hunter Thompson. A few decades ago, Choctaw students spoke with him and recorded his stories; I have had the pleasure of doing the same with Louise. Her life has not been easy, buy one would never know it from her amazing optimism. She not only teaches but inspires me whenever we speak. I thank Sally Allen, Regina Shoemake, and Judy Billie as a group since this is how I have had the pleasure of knowing them. Listening to these women share their knowledge and work through the past, building upon each other’s memories and knowledge, makes it possible to understand the frequent ¤reside talks that elders recall from their youth. The social aspect of storytelling

Billy Amos, Bogue Chitto

Odie Anderson and Jef¤e Solomon, Conehatta

Harold Comby, Pearl River

Carmen Denson, Standing Pine

Bobby Joe, Bogue Chitto

Grady John, Henning, Tennessee

Regina Shoemake, Conehatta, and Sally Allen, Pearl River

Mallie Smith, Conehatta

Estelline Tubby, Pearl River

Linda Willis with granddaughter Breanna and photo of her own grandfather, Cameron Wesley

xvi / Acknowledgments

Louise Wilson, Pearl River/Bogue Chitto

is made vivid, not to mention the practical function of interpretation, with the help of so many voices. In thanking them at once, I include Regina Shoemake in the community of Pearl River, though she lives in Conehatta. Then there is Estelline Tubby. She is a renaissance woman of Choctaw culture, as skillful verbally as manually. She quilts, beads, sews Choctaw dolls and dresses, tends a garden, and keeps a diary of the things she has heard and learned about Choctaw culture. She is an ethnographer of her own people. Even today, an elder herself at seventy-three, she still enjoys listening to the old people, forever learning. Her gift, and my luck, is that she remembers and recounts this wealth of knowledge. She has also shared this information with her family, including her son Doyle Tubby. Sadly, Doyle passed away in 1998. His words are memorialized here, but, more important, they will be remembered and passed on by his own family, as it is supposed to be. My ¤nal thanks to the folks in Mississippi go to Harley and Rae Nell Vaughn and their three energetic and vibrant daughters, Megan, Mahliah, and Breanna. When I visit, I often stay with them. This does not merely mean I have a place to lay my head; it means I have a family to be part of. The Vaughns’ hospitality is a true gift. My travels to Mississippi were wedged between my obligations as a student and instructor. However, grants from the American Philosophical Society, the

Acknowledgments / xvii

Jacobs Research Fund, and the Folklore Institute at Indiana University helped immeasurably, and I am exceedingly grateful to them. I owe a great debt to Henry Glassie, Dick Bauman, Ray DeMallie, and Greg Schrempp for their guidance throughout the writing of this work. Henry Glassie in particular read and reread these chapters, forcing me to think about structuring my words to do justice to the concept of a book as well as to the topic at hand. He is both advisor and friend, and I owe him much. I also owe and thank my peers in folklore, Ray Cashman, Michael Evans, and Julie Heath for sharing their time and vast intellects with me. I am proud to call them colleagues, thrilled to call them friends. And ¤nally, I thank my wife, Brooke, and my daughter, Lily. Brooke gave me the love, con¤dence, and support to believe I could tackle this subject effectively and accurately. And the arrival of Lily gave me the most compelling reason to bear down and ¤nish.

1. Map of Choctaw communities in Mississippi

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

Preface / xxi

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

Backyard arbor with ¤re ring

A new home in the River Oaks subdivision in Pearl River

Preface / xxiii

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 of many Choctaw men in search of jobs necessitated interaction beyond the tribal realm. Closer to home, the tribe established a shop in downtown Philadelphia, selling cane baskets, Choctaw dolls, and stickballs sticks. From this center at Pearl River, the tribe has expanded rapidly outward in the past few decades.1 Today the tribe is one of the top ten employers in the state. Choctaw Central High School boys and girls basketball teams have won the state championship numerous times each in the past ¤ve years. The Mississippi Band of Choctaw number around 8,300, hardly a size that could easily be missed. Still, the Choctaw remain a private people. The impulse to keep to themselves, however, seems to have been a fairly recent development. When Hernando DeSoto encountered them—and during the stream of European travelers who followed during the next few centuries—the Choctaw were open and welcoming. This congenial tendency partly earned them status as one of the ¤ve civilized tribes of the American southeast. Their adoption of Anglo dress and religion was further evidence of a group willing to engage culturally and socially with other groups. But the history of the Choctaw is too similar to the history of American Indians across the continent. Broken treaties, removal, and the intense racism that reigned throughout the American South taught the Choctaw to hide to survive. During removal efforts, they hid in swamps. They kept to themselves, a shade of gray stuck in the middle of a region that saw color only in black and white. To be white was to have privilege. To be black was to be a second-class citizen, unworthy of occupying the same buildings as their white neighbors. The Choctaw could not be white and logically would not choose to be black. To be Choctaw was to be invisible. And so they were. And so they have been throughout most of the twentieth century. This wasn’t always the case. Families with mixed Choctaw and white heritage dominated Choctaw leadership during the nineteenth century. Many of these families worked with missionaries and government of¤cials to ensure that removal ran smoothly, sometimes with the tribe’s interests in mind, sometimes only with their own.2 By the end of removal, the dynasty of Pitchlynns, LeFlores, and Folsoms had ended in Mississippi, reestablished at least tempo-

xxiv / Preface

rarily in the Indian Territories. The Choctaw who remained withdrew, isolating themselves geographically and ethnically. The pressure to become invisible as Choctaw, to assimilate into American culture if not society, was strong. The Choctaw were taught to be ashamed of their culture. They were beaten in school for speaking their language, ridiculed by white teachers for adhering to the old beliefs of how sickness could be cured and of what lurked in the woods. Soon, that ridicule came from other Choctaw. Elders refused to tell the old stories, partly out of fear of ridicule, partly because their customs and traditions were disregarded by the youth. Apathy can be worse than opposition. Many elders nonetheless retained the old stories and customs. In Bogue Chitto the elders refused the religion of the missionaries, refused to give up their traditions. Many Choctaw today credit the Bogue Chitto community with preserving much of what is known and still practiced of Choctaw custom. In the past few decades, there has been a revival of interest in Choctaw culture. The tribal council has steadily appropriated larger and larger sums for cultural preservation. The drawback to such revival is that culture risks becoming codi¤ed. Some have tried to re-create Choctaw dancing, for example, in the image of the past, resisting change. Such impulse is the exception. More often, this revival has led to formal venues for continuing those traditions seen as culturally Choctaw. Dancing is taught in schools. Storytellers are brought in and given public forums and generous accolades. The most vibrant and visible declaration of this revival is the annual Choctaw fair. Once a year, the Choctaw open their community to their Mississippi neighbors and visitors from across the nation and globe, and put on a show. The show is for themselves as much as for the outsiders, but it is the only event that explicitly invites non-Choctaws to join them in their lives and entertainments. The fair evolved out of community festivals once attended exclusively by Choctaw. Today, the fair, the biggest event of the year for the community, is scheduled a year in advance and dominates thought, energy, and discussion months beforehand. Choctaw social dancing, stickball, beadwork, and hominy are featured alongside mainstream American country music acts, Midway rides, and carnival food. Both are part of Choctaw life, interests, and notions of entertainment. Of course, accommodations have been made. The cultural traditions are on display. This is not daily Choctaw life in a new context with a new audience but conscious performance. The dances are explained, the tribal history read aloud. Xeroxed sheets are handed out to introduce the visitor to the Choctaw language and culture; posters and kiosks are constructed to educate.

Billy Amos, Bessie Morris, and Crystal Frazier chanting for social dancers

Red Water Youth social dancers

Fighting for the ball

Chief Martin addresses the public, with various Indian princesses and local beauty pageant winners on stage behind him.

Preface / xxvii

Like many festivals the world over, the Choctaw fair is an intensi¤cation of daily life and an exhibition of symbolic life. The hominy that is cooked for family dinners on stoves simmers in large black kettles over an open ¤re during the fair. The beading and basket weaving done sporadically during the year are done sunup to sundown in the open-air pavilion during the fair. Social dancing is for exhibition only. Stickball is reserved for the fair and the occasional public event, though practice extends its play months earlier, and talk of it occurs throughout the year. To fully understand the Choctaw, however, one must look beyond the fair, beyond the moments of public exhibition, to the slower-paced realm of daily life. Wander through the hallways of the new tribal of¤ces, hang around outside the American Greetings plant, settle into a chair under a backyard arbor, and the conversations you will hear are telling. Talk of development dominates. New of¤ces, homes, schools, strip malls, and recreation centers. A manmade lake. A hiking trail. A covered pavilion and dance ground. The money from the Choctaw industrial park has helped, but it is the windfall from the casino that has made so much new construction possible. The ¤rst thing I hear from people when I return to Mississippi is what new projects are under way. People are most excited about construction in their own communities. For outlying communities like Bogue Chitto, Conehatta, and Standing Pine, this usually means new schools. The tribal council has planned new elementary schools in each of the major Choctaw communities. Rather than incite jealousy, each new school engenders equal excitement in those communities who are waiting their turn. Further, the new schools are often viewed as prototypes for what they will be getting in a few years, which means they can evaluate and improve the schools when it is their turn. Recently, the construction project to engender the most discussion has been the new casino. The Golden Moon will sit across the road from the Silver Star, the current moneymaker. For many Choctaw and non-Choctaw, the proposal for yet another casino was held as a religious debate. In Mississippi, deep in the Bible Belt, gambling is not embraced by many devout Christians. There has been fear and outrage that the morals that were put under attack when the Silver Star was built will be further eroded by the Golden Moon. This moral argument, many say, has been touted more strongly by people outside the Choctaw community than within. Many are angered that, once again, as with the missionaries of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Choctaw are under attack from a religious contingent that demands adherence to their value system rather than a Choctaw one. But the debate is more complicated. Many Choctaw have voiced concerns about the casino and the many new construction projects not on moral but on economic grounds. Fear that this growth is coming too fast, that the Choc-

xxviii / Preface

taw will ¤nd themselves with insurmountable debts, also echoes the past, when Choctaw were encouraged to charge as much as they wanted at trading posts, only to lose their land when they were unable to pay. Further, the majority of the Choctaw are themselves Christian. Baptist and Catholic denominations dominate, but new Pentecostal churches are constantly being formed, and smaller congregations of Presbyterians, Methodists, Mennonites, and Mormons also exist, though not with exclusively Choctaw membership. At one time, refraining from conversion to Christianity was viewed as a means of avoiding assimilation and maintaining traditional Choctaw identity. This is the stance of many in Bogue Chitto even today. For most, however, Christianity is no longer a symbol of an outside culture or of being any less traditional. Many of the best storytellers and basket weavers, many of the most traditional elders with respect to their knowledge, customs, and language, are also the most devout Christians. Politically, the Choctaw are generally either pro–Chief Martin or anti– Chief Martin, though these lines blur when people discuss government ideologically according to rate of progress, desire for material wealth, and value placed on culture. Geographically, people are from Bogue Chitto, Bogue Homa, Conehatta, Crystal Ridge, Pearl River, Red Water, Standing Pine, or Tucker. Linguistically there are people who prefer the Choctaw language and those who prefer English. In daily dress, there are older women who wear the traditional Choctaw dresses everyday and those who opt for slacks and blouses. Such differences are under constant negotiation and are vital to personal constructions of identity. Identity at the tribal level is, of course, more about similarity than difference. These similarities are most easily viewed and understood when looking at times when people voluntarily gather together. Ask anyone what the most important part of any get-together is and the ¤rst answer will likely be “food,” with “sports” coming in second. Not surprisingly, events that take these two staples as their focus draw the biggest crowds and dominate the social life of the Choctaw. The importance of food and sociability is as much a sign of regional identity as tribal or ethnic identity. Even the food the Choctaw serve denotes a larger southern identity: chicken, cornbread, collard greens, green beans, and biscuits. The only major variation is hominy, which, while shared by some neighbors, is viewed within the community as a symbol of Choctaw culture. In fact, identity on the regional level is also more about similarity than difference. Despite racial tension and disparities in opportunities in the ¤rst half of the century, life for poor Choctaw was not dramatically different from life for poor whites and blacks. Most were farmers, most gathered around the church as Christians, most spent the majority of their lives focused on feeding

Preface / xxix

their families. Regional similarities continue to be shared, on a number of socioeconomic levels now that the tribe has developed such differences. The establishment of a middle class among the Choctaw has even been touted in tribal pamphlets. The effects can be seen in slow shifts in Choctaw social life. For the most part, family dinners continue to dominate social life. Birthdays, school graduations, wedding anniversaries, and holidays all make for excellent excuses to get together to eat. Since “family” usually means extended family, there are often enough birthdays to warrant a supper every few weeks. The call goes out and people divide up the food list. Fried chicken, hominy, biscuit, green beans, cornbread, boiled cabbage, macaroni and cheese, fry bread, and a cake, most often from the Wal-Mart bakery, to mark the occasion. The menu is ¤xed; the only real decision to be made is where the dinner will be held. The party starts when the food is ready. If the dinner is on a weekend, people often linger, falling into a game of basketball or whif®e ball. Such dinners remain the cornerstone of Choctaw social life, though they are changing with the pressures of dual-career households and the increased opportunities for leisure-time activities. The response has been to formalize these dinners somewhat. Family reunions are now held, planned months in advance, even when all of the members attending live within a few miles of one another. Tribally, there is also the impulse to gather people together to eat. Community dinners are being hosted more often, often for holidays, though they have been a staple of elections, with candidates hosting pig roasts for their communities. School-sponsored festivals are also on the rise. Every school now has a spring festival where the students display traditional Choctaw skills such as beading, dancing, blowgun shooting, and stickball playing. The ¤rst intertribal powwow sponsored by the Choctaw was held in 1996. It has become an annual event, again drawing the community together in the way that less formal gatherings to play stickball and dance once did. Yet on this broader tribal level, except for the annual fair, attendance is greatest at high school basketball games. Between 1996 and 1999, the girls’ team has won the state championship three times, the boys’ twice. With only a few days in Mississippi in which to visit old friends, I had only to attend a high school basketball game to see virtually everyone I knew. The lure of basketball is recent, but the impulse to gather around sporting events is not. Before basketball it was baseball, before baseball, stickball. Nothing comes before stickball. As the “granddaddy of all sports,” stickball claims primacy over everything else.3 Stickball serves as an excellent symbol of the Choctaw, tracing its origins deep into the past and maintaining its relevance and hold on the community in the present. Crossed stickball sticks dominate the Choctaws’ Great Seal and

xxx / Preface

have been incorporated as a common design motif on women’s traditional dresses. To talk about stickball is to talk about the changes to the game. Men over the age of thirty remember a different style of play from their youth, less violent and more skillful. Men over sixty re®ect on the social, economic, and spiritual context of the game. They recall when large scaffolds were constructed to hold all the items bet on the game and when medicine men worked to ensure victory for their teams. People in the community constantly negotiate the past in relation to the present to form a sense of who the Choctaw are today. This negotiation is the fundamental enterprise of history. Time is both linear and eternal. One kind marches forward unceasingly, the other repeats continuously. The two operate simultaneously. Until recently, it has been the habit of writers to construct history out of major events. This history seems to dominate since it is the record we can most easily access. We do not need to travel to Mississippi to talk to the elders to uncover the Choctaw past, to see what people consider meaningful; we need only visit the library and read what surveyors of the past have been able to pull together for us. Such detached histories can be constructed for the Choctaw. We can extend a timeline back through the archaeological record of several thousand years, though we lose sight of the Choctaw at that point. More often, these histories begin with Hernando DeSoto and the ¤rst written records that mention the Choctaw. Visit the tribal of¤ces at Pearl River and you will be given a packet of such a history. From DeSoto, dates continue to be marked where Choctaw and Anglo interact, most often in war or treaty. The historical account ends with removal. The Choctaw that stayed are the Choctaw of today’s Mississippi. From here, the story of the Choctaw is resumed in the glossy brochures and pamphlets recently produced by the tribe: the establishment of the tribal council, the ¤rst industry on the reservation, the casino. Another history exists, one also recorded in writing. This history is dominated by a single book, one so comprehensive as to render much of what was written before 1930 redundant. John Swanton’s Source Material for the Social and Ceremonial Life of the Choctaw Indians for the most part ignores dates altogether in an attempt to construct a general ethnography for the Choctaw. The picture attempted is holistic, of the Choctaw people and the Choctaw culture. The attempt is vastly useful, just as it is inherently ®awed. The impulse of people, and therefore culture, is toward change. A single image culled from over two hundred years of observation cannot possibly provide coherency. Theoretically, this is problematic. In actuality, less so. This single document captures what might be called the Golden Age of Choctaw culture, not because 1770 to 1930 was objectively the most vibrant time for the Choctaw

Preface / xxxi

but because it encompasses traditions that could be remembered by the elders, traditions embraced through memory as vital. These were often traditions that stood in contrast to the Anglo culture that tried so desperately to supplant them. For better or worse, Swanton’s book has memorialized Choctaw culture. It has become a bible for what Choctaw culture was and is today. Of course, it is not the book itself that represents Choctaw history and culture, but bits and pieces of what is recorded in it. Many events and customs described in its pages are ignored by the general populace. Only those pieces resonant with people today are extracted and employed as symbols of tribal identity. It is this extraction, this act of creation, that de¤nes the most pertinent Choctaw history. Some of this history is pulled from books, some from old stories, some from personal experience. But at the heart of it all is a third kind of time: memory. Memory is the history that people make for themselves. It draws from both the linear and the eternal, the event and the custom. Yet in combination, it is more than the sum of its parts. As Kiowa author N. Scott Momaday has suggested, there is no more powerful history than racial memory. There is no Indian except for how he imagines himself. When you cease to imagine yourself, you cease to exist. It is a spiritual translation of René Descartes’s famous dictum “I think therefore I am.” The history of the Choctaw is best understood as tribal memory. That memory is partly shared, partly individual. It exists abstractly in the mind until it is spoken in story. Here we ¤nd a history that hopscotches through time. The long ago past is important; so are the childhoods of today’s elders. These are the times remembered. The long ago past exists only in passed-down stories, whether written or oral. This is the history of greatest cultural symbolism: rabbit sticks and blowguns; prophets and rain men. But quickly, tribal history makes a jump to remembered experience: house dances and stickball games; hog roasts and farming. It is a life and land void of cars, electricity, and running water, a life full of sweat and toil and hunger, a life of the supernatural and the family. In between, there are ®ashes of event-driven history: the great leader Pushmataha and removal to Oklahoma, events and people so dramatic, so memorable, so in®uential, they are remembered within this slower tradition of history. A history of the Choctaw culled from this memory, from the stories, the oral history, still told today, is a tapestry of event and custom, of the personal and the tribal. It could perhaps be plotted on a timeline, but timelines are dangerous; they suggest that that which occurred long ago has less bearing today than more recent events. But when people talk about the morality of

xxxii / Preface

the casino, for example, references to missionary efforts over one hundred years ago are made alongside references to events from the previous day. Time collapses, theme unites. Choctaw oral history, therefore, is more usefully understood thematically rather than temporally. Two themes dominate this history: tribal custom and contact with outsiders. The ¤rst is generally rooted in the childhoods of the narrators but often incorporates traditions that extend farther back to that golden period of Choctaw culture. Here people talk about iyi kowa, when neighbors would gather together to help a sick farmer get his crop in before the ¤rst frost. While the men worked in the ¤eld, the women prepared abundant feasts, boiling rabbits and frying ¤sh. These times were good. But people are not overly romantic. The work was hard. The backaches and dry, cracked ¤ngers from picking cotton all day are remembered vividly. The paths to get water were long and often muddy. But moments of respite are also recalled, such as the stickball games between community teams where people gathered for up to a week at a time to play, dance, and eat, perhaps the precursor to today’s annual fair. Even during those long days of work, there was time for socializing. People gathered on their front porches in the cool night air and told stories, gossiped, and read Bible verses. The other theme addresses encounters with outsiders and is often recorded with speci¤c events and people, points tied to linear history even when dates are generally ignored. The major events and leaders of the past are generally remembered in relation to encroaching whites. The ¤rst such leader is Tuscaloosa, who many remember today in oral legend as having welcomed DeSoto only to be mistreated and eventually killed. Others describe the introduction of alcohol by a generic, faceless ship of Europeans who tempted and tricked the Choctaw and other local tribes with their bitter water. In more contemporary historical narratives, people herald the leader Pushmataha as arguably the greatest Choctaw leader ever. Pushmataha led his people during the uncertain years of the ¤rst half of the nineteenth century, negotiating with the United States, staunchly protecting his people and their land as well as he could, guiding them away from Tecumseh’s revolt and through removal. Government records say Pushmataha died of pneumonia, but many Choctaw suspect that his death in Washington, D.C., while arguing on behalf of his tribe, was murder, either by knife or poison. Part of this linear history involves perhaps the most traumatic event for the Choctaw in recent history: removal. Andrew Jackson, with whom many Choctaw had fought side by side during the ¤rst few decades of the nineteenth century, had declared a new policy for “the Indian problem” whose cornerstone was the creation of reservations in the most desolate areas of the

Preface / xxxiii

Midwest. For the tribes in the Southeast, that meant Oklahoma. Two major removal attempts by the United States between 1830 and 1833 and again in 1903 succeeded in removing as much as three-fourths of the tribe to Oklahoma. People in the community frequently mention removal when talking about Choctaw history, but it is not well documented in concrete narrative. This is only initially surprising. The Choctaw in Mississippi are, after all, the ones who stayed. Removal was not mandatory. Choctaw families could remain in Mississippi if they forfeited their tribal identity. They were promised 630 acres for each head of household, but this promise was rarely kept. The stories the Choctaw tell today are stories about losing their land, hiding out in swamps, and eventually eking out a living sharecropping for white landlords who had taken over their land. The story of removal is the history of the Oklahoma Choctaw, those who left. The history of the Mississippi Choctaw is the slow, continuous history of daily struggle. Family stories, shared broadly, record the struggle between the Choctaw who stayed and the whites who moved in. In one story, the missionaries burned all the stickball sticks, decrying the game and the revelry that surrounded it, in order to save the Choctaw’s souls. They burned all of the sticks, that is, except those of the Bogue Chitto players who, as Estelline Tubby recounts, stated simply, “No. We will not listen to these people. We’ll just keep our things and keep our culture the way it is.” One of the more recent memories seared into stories shared by many is again a combination of both the single, dramatic event and continuous daily life. In the summer of 1964, three young men—one black youth and two white—attempted to register black voters in Mississippi. Their story has been well documented, perhaps most vividly in the movie Mississippi Burning. The boys were killed, their station wagon dumped in the swamp, and their bodies buried and then reburied in unmarked graves. Implicated in the crime were the sheriff and deputy sheriff of Philadelphia, as well as a number of other prominent white men in town. The story is one that has become part of our nation’s history. But it exists also in Choctaw oral history. It was Choctaw men and women who discovered the station wagon in a swamp in Bogue Chitto. It was a Choctaw family who heard strange sounds and saw lights the night the boys’ bodies were reburied in an earthen dam across the road. But perhaps most important, it is the Choctaw who have lived among black and white in Mississippi, a member of neither race in a biracial South. All have personal or family stories of being refused service in restaurants, being ignored in stores, and having racial slurs shouted at them from passing cars. These family stories dominate Choctaw history, stories that interpret both

xxxiv / Preface

event and daily life on the most personal of levels. These stories are speci¤c to individuals but collectively form something akin to a collective history. As Doyle Tubby put it: Each family had their own storyteller and all that, so they would tell a lot of things from their own family. The experiences they’ve had as a family. That’s how they did it. Each family had their own way of storytelling. They had some differences. They told a lot about how they came across something or what happened that tells you—it’s kind of like, you can tell about the experience. In reality, that’s how they would tell you about the past. That’s how they relate. Something happened to them that relates to what’s in the past, but it’s in the story form. Resentment, distrust, and unease around non-Choctaw people persists in the community. Despite, or perhaps because of this tension, race relations are often at the heart of many jokes told in the community. One shared by many is particularly telling, and particularly humorous: Way back when the whites ¤rst came here, this was all Choctaw land. But the whites brought liquor and they tempted the people, got them drunk, and then tricked them out of their land. So Chief Martin is sitting around with the rest of the tribal council trying to ¤gure out how to get the Choctaw land back. They talk about various things until ¤nally Chief Martin says, “Hey, I got it. Why don’t we build a casino? Then we can invite the whites in, get them drunk, and take all their money and land.” Legally, fairly, the Choctaw have in fact been getting their land back. The tribe has purchased nearly ten thousand acres, most since 1992 with revenue from the casino. Coherent community boundaries are being reestablished. So are friendships with people outside the Choctaw community. Trust is once again being extended broadly. This book is a testament to that trust. Choctaw men and women have generously shared their stories, thoughts, and memories, and this book is a record of their knowledge and skill. I take credit and blame for most of the analysis that follows, but the most important part of this book—the stories—will always belong to the Choctaw people.

Note on the Texts

I have used the term “prophetic discourse”—rather than “prophetic narrative,” for example—because of the conversational nature of this genre. While there is clearly a form to how prophecy is performed, there is no simple term to de¤ne it accurately. In this way, the notion of “text” is already problematic. Whether we identify these performances as texts, conversation, stories, or discourse, the problem remains of how to usefully and accurately display them on the page. The majority of the prophecies I recorded were told in English, so the major translation problem is one from oral to written rather than language to language. For those prophecies recounted in the Choctaw language, I have worked extensively with native speakers and translators Pam Smith, Jesse Ben, and Roseanna Nickey to render translations as accurately as possible. In these cases, I have included transcripts in both languages. These translators worked by ¤rst translating the discourse word-for-word and only then moving to a sentence-by-sentence translation. By doing the ¤rst, they minimized the tendency to summarize rather than translate; by doing the second, they rendered Choctaw sentence structure into comparable English syntax. Despite the careful work of the translators, both the translated texts and those texts told originally in English may seem awkward. What sounded rhythmic, natural, and coherent in performance can seem repetitive, stilted, and confused when rendered only in words on a page. There are numerous solutions; none of them universally applicable, none of them wholly satisfactory. In keeping with the conventions of folkloric study, I have not “cleaned up” these performances to make them ¤t the standards of written discourse. This necessarily narrows the available options. To a great extent, I rely on the reader to treat these passages as they were intended to be encountered— aurally. I encourage readers to read them aloud. Often what seems odd to the eye is perfectly clear to the ear. For my part, I have employed one of the most powerful and simple tools of written language: punctuation. I have used commas and dashes in particu-

xxxvi / Note on the Texts

lar to help convey the shifts in voice and topic and train of thought so quick and common in spoken discourse. More generally, I have followed two basic tenets in rendering spoken words on the page. The ¤rst is one fairly well agreed upon by linguists, folklorists, and anthropologists: to employ only those forms, styles, and markers addressed in analysis, apart from basic punctuation. In other words, no special marker is needed for places where one speaker overlaps another, nor the many markers used to indicate exactly where the overlap begins and ends and the duration. While useful for conversation analysis, a simple dash is suf¤cient here. The second is that everyone speaks differently and every genre has its own forms and styles. While etic formats are desirable for comparative analysis, they are less so for the kind of analysis attempted here: the study of the artistry of a verbal genre within a speci¤c community. No single format for putting the spoken word to paper will work for all texts. In fact, no single format will do justice to a single text. There are always other aspects of a narrative one might wish to highlight; it is impossible to accommodate all of them. Accordingly, I have followed two basic styles for most texts as outlined below, but I often adapt this form to address particular features of a text. When I do so, I say so. The two basic forms are as follows: For most texts and general conversation, I have used basic paragraph format. Each new paragraph indicates a new thought. Often these paragraphs are only a sentence long. For some texts, I have indicated the various voices involved in performing prophetic discourse with a line break and a ¤ve-space indention. These generally include the speaker, the elder or elders who told the prophecy to the speaker, and direct quotes of these elders. Within these direct quotes, there are often voices of people within the narrative. Further, commentary by the current speaker can exist in the past as they report their feelings when they were younger and in the present speech event (sitting with me and my tape recorder). A line break and indention indicates all of this embedding; the text aligned to the left is the least embedded (usually the voice of the speaker in the present, speaking to me), the text farther and farther to the right is more and more embedded, as in the example below: Well, but I believe that it might be the ending of a world, or ending of time. I kind of believe it must be that because she said that this will not be the removal by Washington or government or whatever. It will be removal by some person, in a long robes, will be coming at night and tell us

Note on the Texts / xxxvii

that if we stay here we will suffer in days to come. So we need to be gathering up somewhere in north. Line breaks without an indention indicate a distinct thought and almost always correlate to a new sentence. A double return indicates a major scene shift. A long dash indicates either a false start or un¤nished thought, or, if in conversation with other people, an interruption.

Choctaw Prophecy

Introduction

Harold Comby woke up tired. He had spent the previous day and much of the previous night keeping the peace in his role as captain of the Choctaw tribal police. “I was just talking to my mom about that this morning. I didn’t get enough rest last night, with all the people out at the mound. I was tired and she said that they used to say that the nights will get shorter and days will get shorter. That’s what she told me this morning.” Billy Amos drives through the community of Bogue Chitto as my guide, pointing out the new school where he works as a custodian, the recently mowed ¤eld where the Nanih Waiya team practices stickball on the weekends, and the new row of brick homes that have just been completed. He points out the homes of people I might know, providing a human landscape to accompany the somewhat more obvious geographical one. The homes are reserved for Choctaw families, Billy tells me. But that doesn’t always mean full blood. A number of people have married outside the tribe, creating small pockets of ethnic diversity in these communities. “They used to say that there would be no full bloods soon,” Billy says with no malice, only regret, as we drive back home. “I see that happening now.” At dinner in the only ¤ve-star restaurant in the county, Estelline Tubby listens attentively to Chief Phillip Martin, elected chief of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians for the past thirty-two years. The restaurant is housed in the casino he helped construct; the restaurant itself is named after him. He speaks words of warning, that the prosperity of the tribe is uncertain, that they must prepare themselves for darker times. Though he never mentions prophecy or removal, Estelline Tubby recognizes in his speech possible signs that the prophecy of the Third Removal may be ful¤lled soon. The very building she sits in, in fact, is one of the most prominent of those signs. Sitting in their of¤ces in the behavioral health wing of the tribal hospital, Regina Shoemake, Judy Billie, and Sally Allen talk about the things their elders told them when they were young girls gathered on front porches at night.

2 / Introduction

“These things will be coming,” they were told. They, too, are seeing the old prophecies being ful¤lled today. The tradition of prophecy among the Choctaw is not designated with a unique term, though its prophets—the hopaii—were. Those prophets are gone and with them any public performances of prophecy. Yet prophecy plays a powerful role in the community. As spoken word, it is referenced in conversation, used as explanations for the fantastic and the mundane, recounted with deep reverence in the talk of the elders, and performed thoughtfully by practiced speakers. As philosophical contemplation, it is the verbal genre devoted to the discussion of change, its focus as much on the past and present as the future. It is a well-worn tradition, one that locates its roots in a more explicit past of hopaii and prophet-leaders who provided the tribe with guidance from higher powers. The role of the prophet was communally recognized and consistently ¤lled. These prophets worked as a doctor or pastor might, in service to their community. The visions of the future they were given and in turn shared with the rest of the tribe were not isolated phenomena but part of a larger system of Choctaw culture. This tradition could not be extracted and associated with individual prophets and individual messages. Rather, prophecy was an act shared by a number of prophets, each working to provide guidance and balance to the tribe. The Choctaw have lost their hopaii but not their inspiration. Men and women, ful¤lling their roles as elders, are continuing in the tradition of looking to the past, comparing it to the present, and projecting it into the future. This act, too, is rooted ¤rmly in the past, part of a continuous tradition both formal, as in council meetings, and informal, as in family talks in which elders are expected to teach the young. Such wisdom is not merely accumulated through time but is gained both in active thinking and supernatural inspiration. The prophetic tradition today remains a synthesis of past prophecy and contemporary prediction, shared by and among elders in an effort to teach, prepare, and warn younger generations, while interpreting and negotiating the world in which they live. It is a tradition that fundamentally challenges the way historians, anthropologists, and theologians have constructed our understanding of American Indian prophecy. A MER IC A N INDI A N PROPHECY The anthropological scholarship on American Indian prophecy has been dominated by attention to the major millennial prophetic movements of the

Introduction / 3

late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Handsome Lake, Tenskwatawa (the Shawnee Prophet), and Wovoka have become symbols of American Indian prophecy to the virtual exclusion of any other prophetic traditions. An initial survey of the discussion of prophecy around the world suggests a similar bias, where the de¤ning aspect of prophecy is its prophets rather than its predictions.1 These charismatic leaders are unavoidably tied to historical dates and hence historical circumstances as individuals whose life spans are readily demarcated. Accordingly, American Indian prophecy has been interpreted to a great extent historically, tying prophet to national events. The result is a sense of American Indian prophecy as an anomaly, a reaction rather than a tradition. This bias for prophet-driven movements continues today, re®ected in Willard Johnson’s call to revive the study of American Indian prophecy by searching out the next big prophet to come to the fore.2 Yet prophetic traditions exist among American Indian communities that do not lend themselves to such analysis. In fact, prophecy found among the Mississippi Band of Choctaw is dramatically different from that of millennial movements. Where American Indian prophecy has been portrayed as uniquely historical, Choctaw prophecy is stable and continuous. Where American Indian prophecy has been relegated to massive trends with dogmatic proclamations, Choctaw prophecy is shared in verbal discourse, inviting negotiation on the individual level. Where American Indian prophecy has been cast as a product of the individual prophet, Choctaw prophecy is a tradition of the people. Where American Indian prophecy renders a single vision, often one with a single prediction of the end of the world, Choctaw prophecy comprises myriad predictions with many themes. The contradiction between the two comes from basing our understanding of American Indian prophecy on those eighteenth- and nineteenth-century millennial movements. Clearly a reevaluation of American Indian prophecy is necessary in order to accommodate the Choctaw example, as well as other tribes’ traditions that have generally been overlooked. It makes sense, therefore, to examine the millennial prophetic literature to understand potential pitfalls, assumptions, and biases attributed to all American Indian prophecy in order to understand where Choctaw prophecy ¤ts, where further research needs to be done, and how the larger framework of American Indian prophecy might be constructed.

Millennial Movements The millennial movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have generally been addressed as unique historical phenomena, reactions in times of cultural crisis. The prophets rather than the communities in which they operated have drawn the most attention. One might fault past scholarship for

4 / Introduction

interpretation that seems to have derived from a Western bias toward eventdriven history and the assumption that prophecy was a desperate response to inevitable acculturation for American Indians. One must also acknowledge, however, that the material itself seems to have demanded a historical approach as well as a fundamental focus on the interaction between European Americans and American Indians, even if acculturation was not the inevitable result. After all, the prophecies themselves addressed such issues explicitly. The prophetic millennial movements of American Indians, and consequently American Indian prophecy in general, have accordingly been dominated by three foci: the prophet, the reaction to European Americans, and the founding of new religious movements. The American Indian millennial movements of the past two centuries are identi¤ed primarily by the prophets who originated them: Neolin the Delaware Prophet, Handsome Lake the Seneca Prophet, Tenskwatawa the Shawnee Prophet, Smohalla, John Slocum, and Wovoka.3 Of these major intertribal prophetic movements, only two spawned titles beyond the name of their leaders: the Ghost Dance, led by Wovoka, and the Indian Shaker church led by John Slocum. But for the Ghost Dance and the Indian Shaker church, like the others, the man was the main force behind the movement. When the message of Wovoka and the Ghost Dance, for example, was making its way across the continent, carried by adherents of various tribal af¤liations, a Sioux delegation was sent to meet this man and hear the prophecy from his lips. The man was as important as the message. The prophets did not simply convey the message of God; they were leaders themselves. As such, they needed to establish authority for themselves and their message. This important component of these prophetic movements has been addressed in much of the American Indian scholarship,4 as well as much of the general scholarship about prophets.5 One result—equally attributable to lack of historical data—is that the prophet eclipses the people who followed him. The interpretation of these movements, therefore, is dramatically one-sided.6 The second major focus addressed in this scholarship is on the kind and nature of the messages conveyed. It is not my goal here to do what others have done successfully in works that examine these traditions extensively and exclusively. It is useful and I think necessary, however, to establish some basic distinctions and parallels between millennial and nonmillennial prophetic traditions. An explicit response to European American culture and technology is evident in most if not all of the millennial movements during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.7 This response has frequently been labeled nativistic, where foreign cultural in®uence was eschewed in favor of a return to values and practices that could be claimed as uniquely their own.8 Summarizing the main themes of these movements, Sam D. Gill correlates the

Introduction / 5

pressures felt by American Indians everywhere who encountered European Americans with the messages of the prophets who arose in response: “loss of land, loss of tradition, loss of life ways, acquisition of ‘white ways,’ degradation because of the use of alcohol, a breakdown in social relationships” (1983:145). This correlation between cultural interaction that instigates increased stress and loss and prophetic movements has become an a priori assumption since Anthony F. C. Wallace’s study of revitalization movements in 1956. This correlation has, however, been challenged more recently, particularly by Joel Martin, who argues that such movements “may have been motivated by positive experiences, visions, and hopes, some derived from the contact context, others springing from renewed connection with tradition, and still others supported by new modes of pan–Native American cooperation. This is not to minimize the suffering caused by contact, but it is to af¤rm that these movements may not have been fueled solely by resentment or loss of cultural coherence” (1991:178). Concrete evidence that prophetic movements cannot be classi¤ed wholly as us vs. them can be found by looking at the messages of many of these prophets. Some movements were admittedly more nativistic than others. Tenskwatawa the Shawnee Prophet instructed his followers to dispose of all things gained from the white man, including domesticated dogs and cats. Trade was acceptable; money was not. As one Shawnee man remembered at the time, they were to “live independent of all white people” (Blair 1912, cited in Gill 1983:153). Handsome Lake, however, did not hold such views. He preached that a new code of moral laws must be followed in order to adapt to these changing times, but that new code included keeping those white customs that seemed most useful (Overholt 1986:322). In fact, part of Handsome Lake’s vision included a dictum from the supernatural envoys of the Great Spirit to avoid exclusivity: “Now the messengers spoke to me and said that they would now tell me how things ought to be upon the earth. They said: ‘Do not allow any one to say that you have had great fortune in being able to rise again. The favor of the four beings is not alone for you and the Creator is willing to help all mankind’” (Parker 1968:25). All of this is not to say that intense antiwhite views did not appear and become attributed to this message.9 The message was malleable and varied in how it was interpreted by different tribes and individuals. Such variation can be detected in various accounts of Wovoka’s prophetic teaching as well. His original vision was of all the dead, Indian and white alike, sitting together in happiness (Hittman 1990:63–64). Porcupine, a Cheyenne man who visited Wovoka and then reported what he had heard to a military of¤cer, recounted that the prophet preached that “We must all be friends with one another,” and that even after the world is renewed and the dead come back to life “that the whites and

6 / Introduction

Indians were to be all one people” (Mooney 1896:785). The message carried home by George Sword to his fellow Sioux, however, was one of a world where the white people were unequivocally the enemy. When the cataclysmic end came, the land would be restored with only Indian peoples. Describing one of the Ghost dances, Sword notes that after the dancers return from their spiritual journey to the Messiah, they carry back with them “water, ¤re, and wind with which to kill all the whites or Indians who will help the chief of the whites” (Mooney 1896:797–98). And yet, even for the Sioux, the Ghost Dance was far more internally directed than externally (DeMallie 1982), suggesting that the focus on European contact is at least partially mislaid. The prophecies, while on some level a response to increased pressure to acculturate, proclaimed a new way of living, one inherently dictating how Indians should behave with each other as much as with whites. The problems they were having may have derived from contact with white men in tangible forms like alcohol, but the continued problems were seen as things that needed to be ¤xed from within, not without. Ironically, this internally directed focus should have been evident from the third major interpretation of this phenomenon—as a formation of a new religion. While these movements harkened to a more traditional past, they nonetheless did not preach a complete return to life in the past. An about-face to the past was recognized as both impossible and impractical considering the new world order. Instead, these prophets were calling for a new religion, a new moral code and method of interaction among people. The messages these men brought were dictums from God about how to act, how to treat one another. Handsome Lake, for example, begins recounting the knowledge bestowed upon him by saying: “Now the messengers spoke to me and said that they would now tell me how things ought to be upon the earth.” He then continues with a list of the sins of the people and then proposes a new code of behavior to avoid the crumbling and decaying of the world (Parker 1968:25– 80). Wovoka also preached a moral code of behavior: “Grandfather [meaning the Messiah] says, when your friends die, you must not cry. You must not hurt anybody or do harm to anyone. You must not ¤ght. Do right always” (Mooney 1896:781). Again, the movements varied; some were more radical than others in their demand for a move from old religious practice to new. Tenskwatawa, for example, demanded that all medicine bags be destroyed, in essence calling for the destruction of an integral aspect of traditional Shawnee culture. Others prophets such as Handsome Lake were more compromising but nonetheless clearly intended to establish something new: “The old beliefs, though still held, had no coherence. The ancient system had no longer de¤nite organization and thus no speci¤c hold. . . . Whatever may be the merits of

Introduction / 7

the prophet’s teachings, they created a revolution in Iroquois religious life” (Parker 1912:10 cited by Helms 1971:20).

An Initial Reevaluation: Cultural Context More recent scholarship has questioned these foci and the conclusions drawn from them, particularly in light of a general recognition of the power of the longue durée.10 While these millennial prophets must be interpreted historically in the context of the events that were occurring throughout the United States, they must also be recognized as having developed out of more stable cultural traditions, many of which involved regular commune between man and the supernatural, such as vision quests which were readily acknowledged as a viable means of obtaining knowledge about the future. In an attempt to redirect the study of American Indian religious history, Robert Brightman suggests a semiotic analysis of cultural systems based on the work of Marshall Sahlins in Polynesia.11 While the various combinations of native and Christian religions “need to be understood and explained within the historical contexts of Indian-white contact” (1988:241), Brightman adds that “such interpretation must also be aware of the gap between behavior and practice, the complexity of historical events, the dif¤culty of cultural reproduction, and the continuous presence of cultural transformation” (243). Similarities between various prophetic movements may derive partially from historical contact, but it is vital to examine the cultural contexts of each to determine whether super¤cially similar phenomena were similar at the level of interpretation and meaning (242). In reevaluating American Indian religious history from the inside out, with particular attention to prophetic movements of the past three centuries, Brightman argues that the us vs. them, Christian vs. native, traditional vs. modern dichotomies simply do not hold. James Lewis makes a more pointed argument about the importance of cultural and not merely historical context by drawing parallels between the shaman and the prophet (1988). There are important differences in focus and content (for example, the prophet has a distinctly moral message, the shaman does not), but the structure and basis for supernatural power are similar, as embodied most obviously in the death-vision each experiences. Lewis points out: “While the openness of a community to a new revelation would obviously depend on a number of different things, one important factor would be the tendency of Native American religion to accept the legitimacy of visions—particularly the visions of shamans—as sources of creative inspiration in general and spiritual guidance in particular” (225). Prophets and prophetic traditions do not emerge out of nowhere. A preliminary search of American Indian ethnography reveals a widespread tradition of prediction among American Indian communities. While some prophetic traditions are

8 / Introduction

vague about the origin of these predictions,12 others have or had medicine men who dominated this aspect of communication with higher spirits.13 Often these men were consulted for any major decision the tribe faced. Other times visions initiated action rather than merely directing it.14 Some cultures had speci¤c prophets rise to power at speci¤c points in time. Their messages and in®uence were tribal and, while not recorded as major prophetic movements for American Indians, are remembered in tribal lore.15 Prophecy also exists in the mythology of many of these cultures, where culture heroes acted as liaisons between God and humans, instructing the latter on how to live and what to be prepared for in the future.16 Perhaps one of the most well known American Indian prophetic visions outside a speci¤c religious movement is that of Black Elk. The Sioux elder’s visions moved far beyond the individual to the tribe, nation, and world. Black Elk saw a time of great despair for his people, followed by a blooming once again of life and culture. In interviews with John G. Niehardt, Black Elk made it clear that prophetic visions were a part of both the mythical and historical Sioux past. That prophecy should emerge in myth is perhaps not surprising; descriptions of the world and the world to come are common in origin myths throughout the world. For the Sioux, as for many Plains Indian cultures, however, prophecy emerges most frequently in historical and contemporary times during vision quests.17 Most of the visions granted were geared to the individual or to shortterm acts. Men were granted power in battle or instructed to hold a ceremony to help heal themselves and their tribe. Occasionally, however, a vision came that was far more expansive, describing not the immediate state of affairs and immediate future but extending to the entire tribe and beyond, for generations to come. Such was the vision of Wooden Cup, a holy man Black Elk remembers hearing about who had a vision that whites would invade the land; the buffalo—and in fact all of the animals—would disappear back into the earth; the earth would be bound by iron bands (railroads); the sacred hoop would be destroyed; the people would have a spider web woven around them and would be forced to live in small, gray, square houses; and the lifeways of the Indians would be destroyed (DeMallie 1984:72–73, 290, 301, 339–41). Over the course of twelve days, Black Elk was similarly inspired with vision after vision, providing decrees of how people should act and images of what would be coming in the future. But the messages of Wooden Cup and Black Elk do not emerge in a vacuum. In his book The Sixth Grandfather, Raymond J. DeMallie situates Black Elk’s vision within the broader Lakota culture. While the vision and interpretation remain intensely individual, DeMallie elucidates the communal resonance of the vision, convincingly arguing that

Introduction / 9

an interpretation of this vision, and the prophetic view embodied within it, depends on enduring Lakota cultural patterns as much as historical and external forces such as the constant threat of war and the spread of Christianity. What also becomes clear is that this prophetic vision is hardly a unique and unprecedented response to external pressures but rather part of an embedded cultural tradition.18 Such studies point to the fact that prophecy in one form or another exists as part of other cultural traditions. Yet even here, the focus of prophecy is ¤xed upon the prophet, the individual who voiced the words of God. Further, while medicine men continue to predict the future, the literature on prophecy deals with the phenomenon as a thing of the past. Yet another reevaluation of American Indian prophecy is required.

Reevaluation Revisited: God and the Future Fairly stable and continuous traditions of prophecy demand that analysis not be relegated to the past. However, the same is true for some of the speci¤c prophetic movements as well. Is it logical, for example, to assume that because the prophets are dead their prophecies are dead too? The Code of Handsome Lake continues to be followed by many Seneca people. How, we might ask, are his predictions remembered, recounted, and interpreted today? Further, if prophecy is part of shamanic and visionary traditions that are still extant, then prophecy cannot be relegated to the past but can and must be addressed in contemporary contexts. Returning to the Choctaw example, even more questions beg to be addressed. How, for example, do we approach prophetic traditions that seem oddly void of actual prophets? Reevaluation must begin with our de¤nition of prophecy. So far, prophecy has been de¤ned primarily as communication between God and man. John Leavitt calls this mantic. In his brief entry on “Prophecy” for a special lexical edition of the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Leavitt adroitly rede¤nes prophecy as any mantic discourse, almost immediately substituting this term for the one that heads his piece (1999). The act is telling. Prediction has been excised as a de¤ning characteristic of prophecy. A similar bias has dominated much of prophetic scholarship. In Thomas Overholt’s comparative look at prophecy throughout the world and across time, he identi¤es the integral nexus of prophecy as the relationship between prophet and the Great Spirit, and prophet and people. Again the prophet takes center stage.19 American Indian prophecy scholarship fares similarly. It is the commune with God that de¤nes the authority and basis for moral treatise, and it is this treatise that forms the core of the movement. The message given to American Indian prophets is clearly moral but not

10 / Introduction

particularly or necessarily about the future. These prophets seem quite similar to biblical prophets who spoke God’s word. “The Hebrew Prophet is a reformer; his mind is upon the present. But then he also offers the consolation of future good, the possibility of redemption, if the people give up their unjust ways and return to worship the truth” (Martz 1998:4). The American Indian prophet is the same. For both, the focus is on the present, on moral laws to guide human action. The element of prediction is barely addressed. It appears as a threat, a picture of doom that is coming in which only those who have followed God’s path will ¤nd salvation. The predictive aspect of prophecy seems an afterthought in the wake of the moral message provided. Some of the American Indian prophet leaders did make predictions beyond their initial cataclysmic one, but they were generally ones of short duration. Wovoka predicted eclipses and weather shifts. Tenskwatawa predicted the outcome of battles. These smaller, more immediate and individualistic predictions followed in line with the predictions made by medicine men and shamans. And yet, prophecy is as accurately de¤ned by its prediction of the future as it is by its source from a higher being and its moral injunction. Such prophetic traditions do appear in American Indian narrative collections, if sporadically. Willard Johnson has compiled a number of contemporary prophetic traditions among American Indian communities today, some reaching back into the past to vague antecedents, some derived from personal visions.20 While many of these predictions are tied to a speci¤c prophet, many others are not. In addition to the Choctaw prophetic tradition, there are a number of prophetic traditions that thrive without prophets, where the view of the future, not the leader, is the tradition’s de¤ning element. Without a historical ¤gure at its core, these traditions are more stable and continuous, less easily tied to the speci¤c historical event. One of the few such prophetic traditions to be addressed in depth is that of the Hopi, most notably by Armin Geertz in his book The Invention of Prophecy (1994). Here is a tradition without any prophets, without any revolutions, without any speci¤c climax. At the heart of this prophetic tradition is its rhetorical power in the political realm where issues of identity and authenticity are explosively negotiated. There is a distinctly discursive element to Hopi prophecy, one embodied often in speci¤c narrative, tied heavily to the Hopi Emergence myth (Geertz 1994:70–77). The Zuni, too, have a prophetic tradition, one glimpsed in narrative collections and ethnographic ¤eldwork. Alvina Quam’s collection of narratives from her community opens with this prophecy titled “Prophecies of Our Grandparents” (1972:3):

Introduction / 11

Many years ago when our grandparents foresaw what our future would be like, they spoke their prophecies among themselves and passed them on to the children before them. “Cities will progress and then decay to the ways of the lowest beings. Drinkers of dark liquids will come upon the land, speaking nonsense and ¤lth. Then the end shall be nearer. “Population will increase until the land can hold no more. The tribes of men will mix. The dark liquids they drink will cause the people to ¤ght among themselves. Families will break up: father against children and the children against one another. “Maybe when the people have outdone themselves, then maybe, the stars will fall upon the land, or drops of hot water will rain upon the earth. Or the land will turn under. Or our father, the sun, will not rise to start the day. Then our possessions will turn into beasts and devour us whole. “If not, there will be an odor from gases, which will ¤ll the air we breathe, and the end for us shall come. “But the people themselves will bring upon themselves what they receive. From what has resulted, time along will tell what the future holds for us.” Barbara Tedlock also encounters prophecy in the informal discourse of the families she befriended among the Zuni. At one point, Sabin, one of Tedlock’s close Zuni friends and informants, was discussing the shift in local government and the lack of respect now accorded the old people. Tedlock records that “Sabin went on to remind us of what the old-timers had said about how one day there would be black water (coffee) and other new things to drink. Since these things had come true, it might also come true that the world would get too old and we’d be boiled in hot rain” (1992:131). Armin Geertz is clear about the Hopi tradition that there is prophecy but no prophets (1992:4). The same is true for the Zuni. And while the Choctaw historically recognized the role of the prophet in their community, they, too, continue a prophetic tradition based not on individual prophets but on images of the future that people employ to structure their understanding of the world.

A System of American Indian Prophecy Expanding our notion of prophecy beyond the prophet to include all types of prediction explodes the previously narrow conceptions of American Indian prophetic traditions into a wealth of complex traditions. These traditions

12 / Introduction

exist as shades of gray, operating according to various axes rather than according to a tidy typology. Within each of these categories are subgroups and themes pertinent to speci¤c communities. In no particular order, the dominant axes are: 1. Long-term prophecy (community-wide but inde¤nite ful¤llment) vs. short-term visions (individual and/or immediate) 2. Primary focus on commune with God (religious) vs. primary focus on future (practical) 3. Moral behavior vs. appropriate cultural behavior 4. Prophet/shaman/medicine person/elder 5. Type and origin of tradition: mythical, historical, continuous 6. Sphere of in®uence: religious/political/social/individual 7. Form and transmission: verbal genre/motif/rhetorical tool/religious treatise

The Choctaw Returning to the Choctaw prophetic tradition, we can now situate it within the larger framework of American Indian prophecy. The tradition is primarily a verbal one, passed down in the context of storytelling when tales of the past are told in the present to draw connection between the two and suggest lessons for the future. As part of a larger narrative tradition, it is ahistorical, though its interpretation and meaning is fundamentally tied to contemporary events. The prophecies are not individualistic like most visions but rather detail major shifts at the tribal level. Further, these future events are not divined for immediate use but rather extend into the future, always on the brink but with no concrete date for ful¤llment. There are no recognized prophets today, no major leaders. The narration of prophecy is the duty of the elders; the message the duty of all. The prophecies depict a path of action distinctly cultural rather than moral even though morality undergirds the entire system of prophecy. Choctaw prophecy is not part of a new religion but part of an integral aspect of tribal identity. The crux for the prophetic tradition of the Choctaw lies in the private sphere of informal discourse among family, friends, and co-workers. Prophecy is not used as a political tool, though it can be used rhetorically to make one’s point. Rather, prophecy is a tradition employed by individuals, whether to ful¤ll their obligation to maintain the oral traditions of the tribe, to teach the younger generations how to act or to warn and prepare them for the future, or to interpret the contemporary landscape and construct a moral universe for themselves.

Introduction / 13

Research Problem As is common in ¤eldwork, I stumbled onto my research focus more by chance than design. I had ¤rst visited the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians in the fall of 1995, doing general ethnographic work with a focus on the oral narratives of the tribe. Over the course of the next two years, I returned for weeks and months at a time recording and studying the tribal stories shared by the adults in the community. Then, in the summer of 1997, I was hired by the tribe to continue my research and compile a book of tribal stories. That book became my master’s thesis and now rests with the tribe awaiting publication. Along with the myths, legends, tall tales, animal tales, supernatural encounters (memorates), and family and tribal histories that people told, some spoke of the old prophecies the elders used to tell. At the time, I was working to provide the breadth of Choctaw storytelling and logged these narratives as one more genre of many. The more I heard them, however, the more I was struck by how deeply narrators embedded these prophecies in their personal views of the world, from evaluations about life in the past to explanations of contemporary beliefs and customs, to opinions about the massive developments in the tribe over the past few decades. While many of the narratives I recorded stood as more than good stories and more than important artifacts to pass down to younger generations, few narrators made such explicit attempts to contextualize the stories in terms of their personal worldview. After a number of conversations with community members speci¤cally about prophecy, I con¤rmed that while they were hardly the most frequently recounted narratives, they were clearly the most personally invested. I returned for one to three months at a time over the next three years with a number of questions I hoped to answer: 1. What is the fundamental nature of Choctaw prophecy? I had encountered it as tribally shared narrative but wondered about other manifestations in the community. Was it also a major part of religious discourse? Referenced in proverbs? A signi¤cant factor in politics? 2. How do Choctaw speakers view prophecy? Is “prophecy” even the appropriate term? How do individuals go about interpreting it, and what meanings do they draw from it? I was not interested in debunking prophecy or in pinning down dates to support or undermine its validity. Rather I wanted a sense of how the community interpreted it. 3. Early on, I noticed that while everyone says there are no prophets today,

14 / Introduction

people nonetheless made predictions about the future in the same context of prophecies from the past. What is the connection between past prophecies and contemporary predictions? 4. I came to the study of prophecy through narrative. I wanted to study the artistic dimension of prophecy as verbal art. What is the form of prophetic discourse and how is it related to function? 5. So far I had only encountered prophecy synchronically. How had prophecies changed through time? 6. How could I situate this study within the broader literature of prophecy, particularly American Indian prophecy? Speci¤cally, I wanted to address the dominant claim about American Indian prophecy, that it has resulted primarily from dramatic cultural contact and crisis. Many of my conclusions on this question formed the ¤rst part of this chapter.

Conceptual Framework and Methodology My theoretical and methodological approach to Choctaw prophecy derives from the speci¤c phenomenon, the Choctaw example, both with respect to the tradition itself as well as the limitations of the material available. Because prophecy is predominantly an oral tradition among the Choctaw, I have taken the individual performance as my primary unit of analysis. By performance, I intend any speech event in which the narrator signals and operates within a recognizable verbal genre.21 To some extent, this orientation also derives from the past thirty years of folklore scholarship, in which the recognition of the impact of speci¤c performance, and its myriad levels of context—situational, cultural and cognitive—help us understand the artistry, form, and function of the discourse. In particular, I have explored prophetic discourse as a distinct genre of verbal communication, drawing particularly from the discussion of emic genres (most notably by Dan Ben-Amos 1969) and the close textual and textural analyses by Dell Hymes (1981) and Barre Toelken (1997 [1981]). This orientation to uncover emic systems within speci¤c cultures can also be attributed to the political orientation of folklore scholarship in recognizing native systems for their unique construction and artistry rather than colonially imposing the etic system of the researcher. As much as possible, I have attempted to deal with the questions, concerns, and issues that narrators themselves are dealing with and therefore to uncover an understanding of Choctaw prophecy from the perspective of Choctaw speakers. In the process of analysis, however, patterns that emerge beg other ques-

Introduction / 15

tions that may or may not be speci¤cally addressed by the community. This is the merit of rigorous analysis: to open doors into the complexity of culture that may only be hinted at in direct discourse. It is also a pitfall, luring the writer into tangents irrelevant to the community. To avoid this, I attempt to ground the analysis fully within the larger cultural context. In this way, while the questions may not always be culturally salient, the answers, I hope, are. The generic boundaries of prophecy among the Choctaw includes not merely the prophecies people recount but the discourse surrounding these performances, as people weave a tapestry of meaning around the generally brief prophetic cores they have heard from their elders. The boundaries between text and context blur; in fact, the genre of prophetic discourse extends beyond the core prophecies remembered and retold and can be identi¤ed in fairly stable forms to include attribution, historical contextualization, and various levels of interpretation and authorization. Speakers also contextualize their discourse on broader planes both explicitly and implicitly, primarily in the form of intertextual, cultural, and historical references. As a living tradition with no particular historical apex or climax, it makes sense to address prophecy as a continuous, though continuously changing, cultural phenomenon rather than a speci¤c historical phenomenon. Prophecy is nonetheless integrally temporal. It is not only a description of the future of this world but a commentary on the world past and present. The relationship between the virtual world of prophecy and the actual world of lived experience is, in fact, the most intensely negotiated relationship that people engage in during prophetic discourse. Accordingly, it would make sense to attempt a diachronic analysis of prophecy as it shifts through time, changing or not changing with historical developments. Unfortunately, the ethnographic and historical record of prophecy among the Choctaw is virtually nonexistent. While prophets clearly held a recognized role in the community, their exact functions, and the prophecies they made, are only rarely hinted at in either the written record or contemporary oral tradition. While it is possible to suggest shifts and trends in Choctaw prophecy over the years, such statements remain hypothetical. It is, however, possible to trace the connections people make to contemporary and past events from a synchronic perspective of the prophetic tradition today. I have therefore attended to both the performative aspect of the discourse, as well as its social, cultural, and historical context, to fully explore the contemporary tradition. My hope is that by fully contextualizing Choctaw prophecy today, it will be possible to conduct future comparative analysis both within the community historically as well as outside the community cross-culturally.

16 / Introduction

Data Collection My approach to the study of Choctaw prophecy, therefore, has centered on recording prophetic discourse and contextualizing it within Choctaw culture through ethnographic study. Unfortunately, there is no established event during which prophecy is regularly told. Rather, it is recounted sporadically in family settings and small social gatherings. There is no way to predict when the topic will arise. I have been fortunate to be present when people have brought up prophecy, either in reference or performance, but not lucky enough to have a tape recorder on hand to more faithfully record the moment. The majority of the prophetic discourse I have recorded, therefore, comes from interviews with various tribal members. I had worked with a number of storytellers during my survey of Choctaw verbal art, some of whom contributed a story or two, others who contributed dozens, replete with extensive background information about storytelling and Choctaw culture. I began with a wide net for this study as well, but quickly narrowed my interviews to just over a dozen key informants. While the use of key informants is a useful strategy in ethnography, my decision was primarily based on the fact that while prophecy is recognized broadly in the community, speci¤c prophecies and active prophetic discourse is not. Many speakers recount tales of the supernatural and animal stories, but only those men and women who have taken an active interest and role in storytelling recount prophecy. I have worked with people in all of the major Mississippi Choctaw communities— Pearl River, Bogue Chitto, Conehatta, Tucker, Standing Pine, Red Water, Crystal Ridge—except for Bogue Homa, a community that lies just over a hundred miles to the south of the other communities, all of which are more or less clustered around Pearl River. My key collaborators, those who provided the majority of the prophecies recounted and analyzed within this book, are from Pearl River, Conehatta, Bogue Chitto, Standing Pine, and Crystal Ridge. I also worked extensively with Grady John, who was born and reared in Pearl River but who, like a number of other Choctaw, moved to Tennessee as a young adult to ¤nd work. There is now a well-established Choctaw community situated just outside Memphis in Henning, Tennessee. I conducted the majority of my interviews in English. Most Choctaw speak English ®uently, even many of the elders who did not grow up with Anglo teachers and English as the lingua franca of the classroom. For those elders who were more comfortable speaking Choctaw, I worked with translators, often their family members or close friends. In Conehatta, for example, Glenda Williamson and Meriva Williamson accompanied me on visits with Glenda’s mother, Odie Anderson, and Odie’s sister Jef¤e Solomon. Glenda

Introduction / 17

and Meriva translated for us and also actively participated in the discussion, if not the actual storytelling. I then worked with staff at the tribal language program to translate the tapes, afterward reviewing the translations with Glenda and Meriva, who often checked a word or a section with Odie or Jef¤e. During all of these interviews, we talked about Choctaw culture generally, as well as prophecy speci¤cally, often organized around questions and themes that developed out of the participant-observation ¤eldwork I conducted while living in Mississippi. Informal conversations with community members also contributed greatly to my understanding of basic cultural patterns, systems, and values. Library and archival research helped to clarify some of the traditions and cultural contexts that people referred to in their childhoods. While there is little published material on prophecy speci¤cally, there is a wealth of historical and general ethnographic information about the Choctaw.

Goals and Chapters The primary goal of this work is to explore prophecy as it is performed, interpreted, and employed by Choctaw men and women today. Prophecy can serve as one path among many to understand broader Choctaw culture. It is not my intention, however, to mine prophecy primarily as a route to other knowledge. Rather, this book aims to explore the forms, functions, artistry, and origins of Choctaw prophecy, as well as the themes addressed that relate to the social, political, religious, and economic realms of Choctaw life. I begin with a brief introduction to prophetic discourse as a distinct genre of verbal art, situated within the breadth of narrative-based verbal art. Only in understanding this larger system can we successfully orient ourselves to how prophecy is regarded within the community as verbal art (chapter 1). From here, I move to the structure of prophetic discourse and types of prophecy. At the same time, I address the styles of performance by various narrators in which different goals, backgrounds, and competencies of the narrator, as well as different performance contexts, help explain the speci¤c presentations of prophecy (chapter 2). My purpose here is twofold. On an interpretive level, form provides clues to function; in closely examining the form of prophecy, we can see how Choctaw speakers employ it in their lives. Further, by looking at individual performances, we can move beyond broad declarations of social function, for example, and address how this discourse answers individual needs and agendas. My second purpose is to explore the artistry of prophecy as a verbal genre. One of the primary agendas of ethnopoetic analysis, developed primarily with American Indian texts, was to claim recognition of verbal art as poetry and literature, worthy of our attention for its artistic merit.

18 / Introduction

While no Choctaw speaker claims to be creating polished poetry, the artistry involved in performing prophecy is nonetheless recognized as a skill held by few. After exploring prophecy as a verbal genre, I shift gears somewhat to address it on the level of interpretation, both of the prophecy as well as of the world itself (chapter 3). The connection speakers make between the virtual world of prophecy and the actual world of lived experience elucidates a native interpretive system that can be extrapolated to suggest a larger sense of Choctaw worldview. Only at this point does it makes sense to address the creation of prophecy, both historical antecedents and contemporary constructs (chapter 4). By attempting to understand who the prophet was and who the prophet is, past prophecy and contemporary prediction are brought into comparison. The strong parallels between the two traditions suggest they are best understood as parts of the same phenomenon rather than disparate ones. Finally, after addressing the prophetic tradition on the level of its form, structure, and nature, I address the content of the prophecies themselves, taking a more anthropological approach in attempting to correlate topics and themes addressed in prophecy to the larger social, cultural, and historical context of Choctaw life (chapter 5). Historical connections help us understand the Choctaw past, thematic patterns help us understand those issues that concern both the Choctaw and are conveyed in the speci¤c genre, and the valence assigned to these prophecies helps us understand the moral system of the community. Framing this discourse are larger questions about the nature of the future, particularly concerning the predictability, tractability, and welcomability of the future as held in prophecy.

1 Choctaw Verbal Art

She squints into the bright sunlight as she opens the door. Behind her lies a cocoon of cool darkness. Heavy curtains shield her home from the July Mississippi sun, making life bearable in a home with no air conditioning. The hum of fans stirs the quiet. Mallie Smith has been expecting us. She nods and motions for us to come in. Earlier that week, Glenda Williamson had called Mallie about coming by with a man from Indiana University who was putting together a collection of oral narratives from the tribe. Glenda and I had fallen into a routine in this respect. She would contact various elders in the Conehatta community where she lived, and we would go out together to talk to them. They were more comfortable speaking Choctaw than English, so Glenda would also act as translator. Mallie and I greet one another, fairly formally, as she motions to us to sit down. She and Glenda speak a bit in Choctaw, laughing easily and frequently while I sit smiling, waiting, observing. Like the majority of women in Conehatta her age, Mallie Smith wears the traditional-style dress that identi¤es older Choctaw women at a glance: long-sleeved, full-length, patterned cotton cloth with bric-a-brac sewn around the borders. The choice seems a cruel one for this climate, but the women who wear them prefer these dresses to contemporary options. The formal versions of these dresses are satin, shiny and bright, with hand-sewn diamond designs and elaborate beaded necklaces and earrings. Every female in the tribe has one, but it is worn only for special public occasions. For everyday, bric-a-brac substitutes for hand-sewn diamonds, cotton for satin, and an apron for beadwork. Mallie’s home is like many others in the community. The structures are designed by the government and are virtually identical to one another. The interiors, though they vary, share a pattern of decoration. Religious imagery dominates Christian homes. Pictures of Jesus and silk-screened tapestries of the Last Supper are the most common; prayer cards and candles also dot man-

20 / Chapter 1

tels and shelves. Many in the community also appreciate American Indian art, particularly pieces collected during trips to the Southwest. Mallie Smith has a picture of Jesus on her wall, but the decorations that dominate are familial. Photographs of her children and grandchildren cover every wall. Hanging beside them are various plaques, gifts from these children declaring such praise as “World’s Greatest Mom.” We begin by talking about family. Mallie talks about her mother, who used to go to the tribal elementary schools and tell stories. She retrieves a tape of one of these stories from a back room, and we pop it into my tape recorder. The volume is set too high. Blaring from the speakers is the technobeat of the song “One Night in Bangkok,” a pop hit from the 1980s. By the time I ¤nd the volume, the song has abruptly been cut off mid-chorus and the distant voice of Bessie Solomon, Mallie’s mother, can be heard amid the hum of static. We all sit trans¤xed, listening to her voice. Even I who cannot understand a word of it am mesmerized by the steady lilt of her speech. The story is about Kashikanchak, a legendary cannibal who used to ravage unsuspecting Choctaw, particularly children. Mallie nods as she listens, remembering the story from when she heard it directly from her mother. Bessie Solomon passed away over a decade ago, and now Mallie Smith tells the story. She leans forward in her chair, closes her eyes, and begins. What follows is an unbroken stream of words, sentence ®owing upon sentence. When she ¤nishes, she opens her eyes, nods to us, then settles back into her chair. Sometimes a question prompts her next story, other times one story leads into another. We ask about prophecy, and she tells us the stories she heard from her grandfather. Again, she leans forward, closes her eyes, and begins talking, longer this time as one prediction ®ows into the next. Ák ma amáfo yósh anopoholi yat tók o, anólih bannat pisá lá chih.

And now, what my grandfather spoke about is, what I am going to try to talk about.

Hih mat pi kaniyoh mih ósh maya chi ka áchih bíkah tók. Nanah anopoholih tók a ikalhoh kiyoh. Anok ¤llit attalih bíkah kaníkma. Anok ¤llik mat yammak alhi ahóbah, anopoholih chatok ma ikhanalih. Nanah o áha chih chátok ma “ful¤ll” toba kat alhi ka ikhanalih.

Then, just, how they would live, is what he used to say. What he used to talk about is not unreality. I think about as part of my life sometimes. To think about it, it seems to be that truth, what he used to say, that I know. Whatever he used to say, that has become “ful¤ll.” I know that it’s true.

Choctaw Verbal Art / 21

Hih ókak ósh. Yammak atok ma chokka immah o isht anopoholih bíkah tok, hiná, yakómih. Hina himó tobah—yakómih pa isht anopoholih bíkah tók.

That it is, however. Hence, he used to talk about houses, roads, these things. Recently built roads— these he used to talk about.

Yamma yohma chi ka, hattak ósh chokkát tobat talóha kat chokka tohbi yó áh bíkah tok.

That thing will happen. That the man——houses that are built will be white houses, he used to say.

Hit tók ak chokka tohbi kiyoh, lok¤ nona chokka himak ma chokkát toba kat.

But then, they are not white houses. Brick houses are now the houses being built.

Chahta i chokkát yohmih osh chokka tohbi. Osh tobat taiyáhakma chahtá wihat alhot tahá tok mak o chilófaíkiyok ma——

Choctaws’ houses, that will be white houses. When they are ¤nally built, Choctaw will move into them. But then, if they can’t pay for it——

Wiháchi ka ashah óka himák a áto, mak ohmi kak makah tok, chíchok.

There is eviction nowadays, so, similarly, that is what he talked about I guess.

Chilófá híkiyokma hahollo yósh alótah. Mak okma ohóyoh at hattak ittatoklo tok ma hattak átok ma, nahollo yosh chokka ma chokkowá tok mat, hikma hattak ma toksalíchih— pi ití chalih, yohmih ok mako illipa ipítah.

Payments can’t be made so the white man moves in. Afterward, the woman, with the man whom she’s with, that man, the white man who had moved into the house, he will put the man to work—just chopping wood, that is how he will give them food.

Yohmi o aiyáshá hiyo makáha yah bíkah tók. Hih átok ósh chokka tohbi ósh tobat taiyáha tok ma yohmáchih áhayah bíkah tók ako.

That is the way they will survive, he used to say. So then, after the white houses have been built, these things will come to pass, he used to say.1

Lok¤ nona chokka yósh alottówat taha kat alhi í mayak ma. Yamma pi kannihmik ma alla i makálik mat,

Brick houses have all been ¤lled, and we are all living in it. Sometimes I tell the children that “Grandpa used

22 / Chapter 1

“Afót makáhayah bíkah tók a alhih ahóbah ókak ósh chokka tohbi kiyoh —lok¤ nona chokka yósh tobah,” át isht iyálih tók.

to say these things, and it seems true, but it’s not white houses—brick houses are being built,” I used to say.

Anoti mak o makáhayah bíkah tók o mak o makálih. Hiyokma ik alhoh kiyoh ahobah. Anolih tók a nana kat alhih banoh.

And that is what he used to say, that is what I’m saying. Then, unreal, it doesn’t seem to be. What has been said is all true.

Hih ósh nanah anopoholih chátok a moyyoma ka ikhanali tósh anoholili kat, at, ma achokmá. Hilah ókak o moyyóma kak ik hanalih kiyoh.

Then, whatever has been told, I should have known everything and retold them, that would be good. But then, I do not remember all.

Átok ósh anoti hiná yo áchih bíkah tók. Hina bachóha ilappak atok ma aískachit táhah. 3Ti [Anoti] hina, hinapissa átok ma ikbit bachoht táhlih. Yohmik ma ittibi yósh álhopollá chih ikak o yamma mih chih.

So then, he used to talk about roads. These built roads will be completed. Then, straight roads will be built and completed. Afterward, there will be a war, that is why the roads are done.

Mak okma nahollót á yilhípá chih mak ókak o hina yátok ma hina wáta bacholit yamihchih. Hikma Chahtá to mat illih yómih. Hikma anoti ittibit míhitik mat at lopollikmat anoti falámat ayat mato pashi losa yo pissak mato, “Pano abíláchi tok kiyoh, sattiapishi pano,” ahni kat maka, makah.

Then the white people will run, using the road. That is why the wide roads are put there. Then the Choctaws will stay behind. Some will die. Then, as the ¤ght comes, when that comes through, and as they come back by, that hair, which is black, noticing it, “This I am not supposed to kill. My brother is this,” they think and say, talk.

Háblit pí la cha falámat, lopollá chih o makáhayah bíkah tók. Hina 3wáta [awáta] áchih pat, pa ikbi kat mayah momah óka yappa hátok o yammak o isht anopóholih bíkah tók.

Pushing past them, they will return through here, is what he used to say. This wide road, they build continuously around here, so that is what he used to say.

Ahnilih.

I wonder.

Choctaw Verbal Art / 23

When the storytelling is done, we talk about these prophecies, about their origins and meanings. Mallie and Glenda share ideas about how people knew these things, what they mean, and when they will be ful¤lled. Our discussion reaches broadly, but the focus is on the prophetic narrative. STORY TELLING Choctaw prophecy exists in the community today as story. In the past, when the role of prophet was recognized in society, prophecy was ritualized. Prophets climbed hills and communed with the supernatural, then returned to the people to deliver their messages. These prophets provided practical, political, social, moral, and religious guidance. The act of prophecy could be observed. It was both act and story. Today, the formal role of the prophet has disappeared. Predictions are still made, but through mental and verbal acts, not ritual and physical ones. As a verbal act, prophecy is part of a storytelling tradition that is well established and well regarded among the Choctaw. In the past the storyteller was recognized in the community as having a distinct role. Historical observations from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries suggest that storytellers were the educators of the tribe, formally teaching the young the history of the tribe through narrative.2 The oldest of the elders today remember back to the turn of the century when men appeared from time to time on their front porches to visit a while and tell stories. This practice continues today, both formally and informally. At least as early as the 1960s, Choctaw schools brought in elders to tell stories. Mallie Smith’s mother worked in such a capacity for the Follow Through program of that time. Today, Rosalee Steve and Charlie Denson both continue such work in the elementary schools. Stories are viewed as a cultural resource, material valuable in its own right but also valuable as part of the culture that de¤nes the Choctaw as a unique group.3 While there are recognizable storytellers—elders who have accepted the duty of learning and passing on the stories of the past—there are many other men and women who also tell stories. These less formal acts provide the best chances for the stories to be remembered, passed on, and created anew. Storytelling once occurred fairly regularly. After a long day in the ¤elds, people gathered on the front porch to escape the heat of the house and to relax. Storytelling was the main source of entertainment during those hot, muggy evenings. No one type of story dominated. Donna Denson remembers her grandfather telling humorous stories about opossum, prophecies, and biblical tales, often reading directly from the Bible. Gladys Willis remembers biblical stories too, but more often she heard scary stories of the supernatural beings in the woods and tall tales about the legendary, infamous Ashman. Children and adults alike were present for such sessions. Age did—and

24 / Chapter 1

does—matter, however, and stories are often told in different ways, with different intent depending on the audience. Stories told to children tend to be didactic; those told among adults, discursive. The only talk that children are not allowed to hear is that about politics and neighborhood gossip. While such storytelling sessions occur less frequently today, they have not vanished. Parents and grandparents still instruct the youth through story, though now more often with the hum of the air-conditioning and the television in the background. Adults also gather, but they do so as often at neighborhood meetings and during breaks at work as on porches and under carports. New settings create new dynamics for storytelling, but the impulse to pass on the wisdom of the elders, to join in the interpretation of both story and world, to socialize, and to laugh remains. In this dynamic context, stories vary. Those who study verbal art in any culture expect variation in all but the most rigorous ritual texts, which may be memorized. However, such variation is not always acknowledged within a community, most often because the stories are viewed as accurate accounts of the community’s past, something that verges on sacred history. Such accuracy is challenged when different versions are recorded in print and can be examined for inconsistencies. The Choctaw, however, are generally free of such insecurities about their narratives. Differences among the various communities that extend to language, dress, dance, and even religion are sources of pride, not embarrassment.4 Stories are no different. In fact, any misgivings about a “correct” version seem to stem from perceived notions of outside expectations rather than internal ones. Sitting outside one afternoon, Hulon Willis and I talked about the book of Choctaw stories I compiled, a few of which came from Hulon. He was concerned about being credited with his story, a common one in the community. He did not want it to be thought that he was telling the version of this story. He stressed that one person tells it one way, another person another way. I agreed wholeheartedly with him and explained to him that while I presented his version of the story in the introduction to the book, I used a different person’s version of his story in the collection itself. He was pleased with this decision. Glenda Williamson echoes this community acceptance of variation. When she heard the old stories, the performances were scattered over time, so she did not particularly note variation in multiple versions of the same narrative. But as we worked together, I often mentioned stories I had heard in other communities to spark the memory of the people I was interviewing. After talking with her mother, Odie Anderson, about a prophecy about another removal, Glenda told me she was not sure if she entirely understood what her mother was saying. I explained, for what it was worth, what I had heard

Choctaw Verbal Art / 25

from a woman in the Pearl River community. Odie Anderson had described an election in which the wrong chief was unintentionally elected, with that chief inadvertently losing tribal lands; the woman from Pearl River had suggested that the prophecy would be ful¤lled by a chief acting consciously and maliciously. Glenda surmised that the prophecy must have split into two different versions. Glenda had not encountered variation in Choctaw storytelling, but when confronted with it, she accepted it naturally. Even when she was dealing with prophecy, something tied very explicitly to the temporal and spatial realm of this world, the world she lived in, Glenda did not ¤nd inconsistency disturbing. Rather, it was to be expected. Just as people in Pearl River talked a bit differently and danced their social dances without words to their songs, so too should their stories be a bit different. While different versions are perfectly acceptable, a poor memory is not. In the past, only elders would have told the old stories, or at least that is the presumption made by people when they talk about the past. But this restriction seems to be diminishing somewhat. More middle-aged men and women are telling the stories of the elders without any suggestion of impropriety (and even as a positive sign of cultural knowledge that people are afraid is disappearing). What remains, however, is the reluctance of these adults to narrate the stories of the elders when there is an elder present or easily accessible who can narrate instead. Their reluctance stems from fear not that their version is incorrect but that it is incomplete, or that, out of respect, they should let someone older tell the story. Respect for storytelling varies depending on the type of story told, as does the style of performance. Performers generally rely on the power of the narrative, using little by way of gestures and voice imitations and alterations to augment the performance. This is especially true of the stories viewed as belonging to the elders, those tales told as part of a cultural canon, things the youth should know—about the history of the tribe, the culture, proper behavior, and general life lessons. Such talk by the elders may encourage laughter, though this is not its goal. Some of the less experienced narrators often comment that they do not remember the stories correctly. The impulse is to be faithful to the narrators of the past, placing the focus there rather than in the present performance context. The obligation to repeat rather than create has led to a narration style common among older storytellers—eyes closed or staring into space, mind focused, organizing the tales in a steady stream of words. There are exceptions. When telling stories to young children, for example, narrators are far more animated. Camp counselors at the Choctaw language immersion camp have even used puppets, each with its own voice, to nar-

26 / Chapter 1

rate the tales. Audience is key, but so is the type of story. Often these stories are humorous ones about opossum and raccoon. Among adults, there are stories of human foibles, sometimes legendary tales, sometimes tales about audience members. Audience response is vital for such humorous stories. These stories are generally performed for a laugh and tend to be more boisterous and repetitive, with the funniest images milked for laughs. The impulse in this case is to create shared enjoyment with the audience. Narrators do not risk closing their eyes for fear of missing important cues from the audience and for fear of missing the fun.5 THE GENER IC SYSTEM OF CHOC TAW V ERBA L A RT Within this strong oral tradition, we ¤nd prophetic discourse. To some extent, understanding prophecy depends on understanding how it is situated with Choctaw storytelling. In previous work, I have constructed a model of Choctaw storytelling that locates the various genres both along the major axes that underlie Choctaw verbal art as well as in relation to one another (Mould 2001:34–59). The model is redrawn in ¤gure 2. Brie®y, Choctaw verbal art is divided according to tone (serious or comic), truth (the story is believed to be true or belief is simply not an issue), and time (stories of the past are powerful, authoritative, and viewed as part of a cultural canon of things Choctaws should know, whereas contemporary stories are consistent and often continuous versions of these stories but without the widespread authority granted the former). Prophecy is serious and categorized as something believed to be true, even though the negotiation of that truth is an important part of prophetic discourse, as we will see in chapter 2. But most pertinent to understanding prophecy is the last axis—time. The fact that these stories are passed down is integrally important to how the Choctaw view them. The story rooted in the past not only is imbued with the validation of past wisdom but is by de¤nition traditional, where traditional demands temporal longevity.6 In fact, storytellers mark these stories in performance with the simple but powerful introductory formula of attribution. As Regina Shoemake notes, “They used to say ‘This is what they said,’ when they were sitting around talking” (1997). Harold Comby’s mother is even more forceful: “It’s not my words,” Harold remembers his mother telling him when she recounts the old traditions. “It’s the words of the elderly or the old ones before me” (1999). Authority is inherent in the claim. This distinction is so vital, so ingrained, that narratives that people tell about themselves are often not considered “stories” at all, at least not the kind of stories that the Choctaw person thinks of when stories and storytelling are

Choctaw Verbal Art / 27

2. Structure of Choctaw narrative genres

mentioned. Discourse—even non-narrative discourse—that was passed on by elders is considered part of the genre of elders’ stories, just as situational joking that does not follow narrative structure is considered shukha anumpa. All the while, narratives people tell of their own experiences are just that, personal experiences. Clearly, the difference between narrative and non-narrative is not a key axis for Choctaw verbal art. The temporal dimension of being passed down versus having taken place today, however, is a key axis. Again and again, when I asked people about stories they knew, they responded that they simply did not remember any. “Remember” is key. They all refer back to their childhoods, noting the performance situations of storytelling events, but lack of interest or need of sleep at the time has resulted in poor memories today. The notion of stories never conjured up narratives of their own lives. There is one marked exception. Many of these men and women, particularly those between thirty and ¤fty years of age, recounted personal encounters with supernatural beings in the woods, stories with parallels among the old stories some people do remember hearing as children. A narrative about an encounter with Kashikanchak sometime in the past, the speci¤c people involved now long forgotten, was a “story,” but a narrative about an encounter with bohpoli (the little people, supernatural beings that lurk in the woods) last month or last year was not. Harold Comby is quick to point out that there is nonetheless continuity here. The na losa chitto (translated as “big black thing” and refer-

28 / Chapter 1

ring to a malicious supernatural being of the past) is the na losa chitto of the present.7 The phenomenon is stable through time—na losa chitto is ahistorical. The stories about the supernatural, however, are either legendary or contemporary.8 The former are more authoritative, the latter more visceral. The formal structures of the performances of the two kinds of stories differ also. Contemporary narratives may be attributed if they derive from a peer, but, generally, such stories are personal and have no such introduction. People begin with “This is true” rather than “They used to say.” Both introductions act as a means for validation, but one does so implicitly through attribution to the elders, the other explicitly by claiming truth directly, or further noting that this was something they saw with their own eyes.9 More telling, however, is the lack of formal closure. When narrating stories that were passed down through generations, Jef¤e Solomon and Odie Anderson, for example, end each of their stories with a formal close: “Makilla” (“That is all”). But it is the rhetorical meaning rather than the literal one that is important here. In recounting more recent stories, this ending is never included. There is a sense that passed-down stories have a recognizable form and content, however ®exible, that can be marked with a formal closing. More recent stories are not viewed with such coherency. Further, where passeddown stories more often claim authority, recent stories are told as a means to engender further discussion. “Makilla” closes off discussion, signaling to the others present that it is their turn to tell the next story. But with contemporary stories, the end is left open. Discussion is encouraged, even demanded. This division of the world into past and long past is re®ected in the Choctaw language as well. Two verb endings are used to create the past: tuk, meaning past, and tok, meaning long past. In conversation tuk is generally used for events that happened not more than a month before, while tok is used for events that happened a year or more before. Anything in between is left up to the preference of the speaker. The temporal split re®ected by these verb endings is generally too short a span to be useful in distinguishing contemporary story from elders’ story since the difference between these two is generally reckoned in years versus generations, rather than months versus years. Nonetheless, the dichotomy in time can be seen as a basic tenet of Choctaw worldview.10 Cynthia Clegg makes exactly this distinction when she begins recounting to the young children at summer camp a story about a man turning into a snake: “My dad told me this when I was a little girl. . . . It was told to him by his grandparents and their grandparents told him, so it’s a story that’s been passed down.” To be passed down is to be imbued with the authority of the past and the authority of the elders. The idea is that passed-down stories are

Choctaw Verbal Art / 29

valid not only because they have existed for a long time but also because they are worthy of being passed down, a somewhat circular but nonetheless accurate argument. Again, the importance of the material is stressed. A clue from the past suggests the validity not only of the genre of the talk of the elders but also of this integral division between past and contemporary. Carmen Denson remembers that the old stories were often recounted with a formulaic opening: They just, elders would tell, and this is the way that they put it, when they tell, they would say, “It was said, and said, and said, and said, and that’s why I say it.” And that’s the way that they say it. And I don’t know when it was originally, you know, started. You understand what I’m—— That’s the way, you know. In Choctaw terms, I would say, “Makato, makato, makato, achili.” “Maka” means “it was said,” “to” means “at the time”— “It was said at the time, it was said at the time, it was said at the time, now I say it.” And that’s the way it was passed on. There was no school, there was no education, there was nothing. Even back in 1950s, ’40s, Choctaws were sharecropping on their own. And there was no government intersection, no school education. So late at night, then, before, when we get to bed, or when we’re in bed, our parents would talk to us then. That’s where the schooling was kind of, Choctaw school, elders, how it was. To me it was that way. The stories are not told this way today. Carmen suggests that a few of the oldest of the elders in the more traditional communities like Conehatta or Bogue Chitto might still narrate this way, but he believes it has otherwise died out, a belief supported by my ¤eldwork. If the phrase has been lost, however, the division has not. The result of this survey ¤nds prophecy situated ¤rmly within Choctaw storytelling. It is part of the talk of the elders and as such is respected and

30 / Chapter 1

authoritative, requiring it to be passed on to younger generations as part of cultural history and practical instruction. Further, prophecy is seen ultimately as a serious enterprise whose origins exist in the past even though its ful¤llment often rests in the present and future. The rest of this book will explore this speci¤c phenomenon. In doing so, we will confront complexities of the prophetic process that suggest that its relegation solely to the past is a bit premature. Just as “used-to stories” are constantly being updated, so too is the prophetic tradition, by way of contemporary predictions. We will explore this contemporary analog in chapter 4. For now, however, we will focus on the dominant sphere of prophecy as stories from the past. This placement is integral to understanding the nature of how the Choctaw community conceives not only of prophecy but of traditional knowledge.

2 The Genre and Performance of Prophecy

From our survey of Choctaw narratives, we ¤nd prophetic discourse rooted ¤rmly within the talk of the elders. With the initial boundaries of the genre realized, we can begin to work more closely with the material, exploring its unique system of aesthetics, forms, and functions. Prophetic discourse, like much of the historical discourse among the Choctaw, is, for the most part, not narrative. Rather, prophecy can be spoken as a single sentence that may refer to a more detailed prophecy but need not. At its core, prophecy is the prediction of some event or development in the future. “One day, the Choctaw will be spotted” is a prophecy. It is not, however, a narrative. Yet when people recount these prophecies, they do so within a particular structure, with a particular style, and with particular motivations. They construct a recognizable frame around these prophetic cores and, in doing so, have developed a coherent genre for prophetic discourse. In analyzing prophecy, therefore, it becomes useful to distinguish between the prophetic core, the “text” that is passed down through time, told and retold, and the prophetic discourse, the way in which that text is performed. Further, we see the core as only a part of the larger discourse, the discourse being ultimately viewed as the prophetic genre. In this chapter, we will explore this prophetic discourse as a genre— that is, as marked speech recognizable within the community and, therefore, interpretable according to unique cultural systems and codes. K EY ING IN TO PER FOR M A NCE Estelline Tubby remembers hearing the old prophecies. Even today, she enjoys listening to the elders talk, though there are fewer of them now that she herself is an elder. Estelline Tubby believes that remembering is important; so important that she keeps a small notebook nearby, ready to jot down the words of the past whenever they come back to her. Such a notebook would not have been necessary a generation ago. Then, the elders retold the stories of the past often enough that faulty memory was not a problem. But disuse

32 / Chapter 2

leads to forgetfulness, as many elders have discovered with fewer young people patient enough to listen to what they have to say. Notebook or not, Estelline Tubby knows that the old stories were meant to be spoken. Well, my auntie used to talk about, said grandma used to say that one day we going to have highways and byways. And, we used to have a country road, but one day we’ll have a paved road—highways and byways. And there will be lot of kidnappings, she said. And all of that. She was just saying all of those stuffs. Well, but I didn’t believe ’til I saw these now, the roads. My aunt—she died a long time ago. She just says all of that. Sometime they would come out and say while we were eating. And I couldn’t believe it. And said, the old people said, “Well, in the days to come, there will be—,” Well, I guess it’s a telephone that they were talking about. They said there would be something in the house that can be talked to and talk to the other house. Said, “You don’t have to walk up there to tell things. There’ll be days coming like that.” And it’s true. I heard that too. That the future, the phones are coming. It’s true now. Every house probably has it, isn’t it? Perhaps the most logical place to begin addressing the characteristics of this marked discourse is where narrators begin when performing prophetic stories. As with all verbal genres recognized as such, the narrator must key the performance in order to facilitate interpretation by the audience. Occasionally these keys are intentionally manipulated, as in catch tales, which are keyed and told as true stories until the end when the narrator turns the tables on the listener with an unexpected punch line revealing its true generic character as a joke. More often, however, the speaker attempts to facilitate understanding throughout the performance, thus providing implicit verbal clues in addition to explicit verbal content. Those “clues” or keys can be employed in a number of ways. Richard Bauman suggests a range of these keys in his book Verbal Art as Performance, including speci¤c codes, ¤gurative language, parallelism,

Genre and Performance of Prophecy / 33

special paralinguistic features, speci¤c formulae, appeals to tradition, and disclaimers of performance (1977:16). These keys allow the narrator to construct a frame around the discourse, marking it as distinct discourse, whether of a speci¤c genre or a combination of genres.1 While these keys are useful tools for the speaker, they are as usefully thought of as tools for the audience, signposts for interpretation. Just as signs are generally written in the language of the culture involved, so too are these keys culturally constructed and hence culturally relative. Again like language, people are often enculturated into these genres from birth. It is the culturally identi¤ed Choctaw who can interpret these signposts; it is the competent performer, however, who can successfully employ them. Estelline Tubby recounts the prophecies she heard as a young girl with the opening formula she heard then: “The old people said, ‘Well, in the days to come, there will be—.’” This formula is not ¤xed within the community. Some refer to “days to come,” others to “in the future,” but most say simply that these things “will be coming up.” All are approximations of a time in the future. All of these introductory phrases are also coupled with attribution. To perform this formula without attribution is actually to prophesize, something no narrator explicitly claims to do today. The dual aspect of this formula keys the discourse to truth, seriousness, the future, and prescience of the people of the past. This need for attribution is common to all talk of the elders, but the need in prophecy is greater than in other types of discourse since the burden of proof is greater for events that have (or had) not yet occurred. Stories from the past of the past require acceptance of the account as true but require no leap in logic or faith from what one understands about the world and how things can be known. Past events were known by having been lived through. Stories about the future, however, demand more than a casual level of faith that they are true and a radically different system for acquiring knowledge than through experience. This added burden of proof goes a long way toward explaining much of the structure, texture, and even function of prophetic discourse. As with any discourse that begins with formal attribution, the speaker initially frames the discourse as a report of something heard in the past. Yet by shifting one’s perspective through pronouns, verb tense, and quoted speech, narrators can re-create the narrative in the present. In prophetic discourse, however, this shift from past performance to present performance is rarely made. Rather than bring the narrative into the present, narrators move themselves into the performance context of the past and re-create that performance context as well as the prophetic “text.” One could

34 / Chapter 2

argue that narrators performing a myth or a legend move themselves back into the past as well, but this move is most often one back into the temporal realm of the narrative itself, not of the narrative event. The difference is one between text and context. Narrators of prophecy make the context of the narrative event part of the text of their prophetic discourse. Estelline Tubby refers to the old country roads that they used to have, the roads they had when she heard this prophecy. She also points to more speci¤c elements of the past performance, noting that her aunt would come in while they were all eating and tell these things. They were hard to believe, but Estelline sees that her aunt and the elders before her were telling the truth. Some narrators recontextualize this past performance context more thoroughly than others, but all take the listener not merely through the prophecy itself but through the prophetic storytelling event as they heard it. At this point, it is worth taking a moment to de¤ne exactly what I mean by a “report” of something heard in the past. Here, report describes the framing device that Choctaw narrators employ to structure their discourse. Such structuring is required by the temporal and authoritative demands of the prophetic genre. With myth or history or legend, the story describes past events, which means that its content, but not its performance, demands the temporal past. The content of prophecy is rooted in the future rather than the past. Yet for prophecy to be believed, speci¤cally with prophecies that have since come true, the performance of prophecy must be rooted in the past. Therefore, while all talk of the elders is located initially as performances from the past, only prophecy demands that the performance remain there. The result is that to perform prophetic discourse, one must report it, a contradiction to the usage of the terms “report” and “perform” in performance theory, on which my formulation is based. In his seminal article “Breakthrough into Performance,” Dell Hymes de¤nes report as the opposite of performance. To perform fully is to accept responsibility for performing the narrative, rather than merely to stand back and report what one has heard. Report as it stands in opposition to performance describes a style of narration generally marked by summary, excessive attribution as a means of distancing oneself, lack of any responsibility to the material, lack of emotional attachment, lack of obvious expression of belief, but ultimately, lack of adherence to the stylistic demands of the genre (Hymes 1981 [1975]:79–141). To perform, on the other hand, is to adhere fully to all of those demands. The confusion arises when one of the demands of the genre is to attribute the material not only to a person in the past but to a performance in the past. This is clearly “report” in that the current speech event is drawing upon a previous speech event and framing it accordingly; however, this is clearly not

Genre and Performance of Prophecy / 35

“report” in the sense that the narrator is somehow not taking responsibility for the performance and is not adhering to the demands of the genre. And so it is possible to say that only by reporting prophetic discourse can a person perform prophetic discourse. For all narrators, the past performance they return to is the time they ¤rst remember hearing the prophecy, almost always as children. It is through these eyes, and with this voice, that narrators report the prophecy they heard. Narrators re-create these past performances to different degrees. Sometimes narrators ¤x that moment in time and space, indicating a speci¤c performance as a concrete and memorable event. They remember who was there, what was said, and even where they sat and what time of day it was.2 Others may have heard these prophecies frequently while growing up and recall a number of performances rather than a particular one. Nonetheless, they make the past narrative event concrete via reported speech. By quoting their elders directly, the narrator ¤xes even the habitual performance as a distinct narration.3 Attribution that may begin as “He used to say that” inevitably becomes “He said.” The result, as we will see in the performances that follow, is that narrators are able to infuse their performance with the emotional and cognitive confusion and wonder of hearing the prophecy for the ¤rst time. T Y PES OF PROPHECY BASED ON T IME These shifts back to when speakers ¤rst heard a prophecy implicate not merely how prophecy is performed but how it is conceived as a form of discourse. Everything from the truth of the prophecy and its emotional weight to its function and the narrator’s personal involvement is implicated in a basic temporal division between ful¤lled, unful¤lled, and ongoing prophecy. People in the community identify the type of prophecy with ef¤cient phrases throughout their narration: “this I have seen,” “this has not come up yet,” or “this I can see now.” Tracking the ful¤llment of prophecy is extremely important to Choctaw speakers, even if categorizing them formally is less so. To understand the variation within the genre of prophetic discourse, interpret its meaning, and appreciate the artistry involved, it is necessary to understand the different styles and strategies associated with these three types of prophecy.

Ful¤lled Prophecy Structure All three types of prophecy as de¤ned by degrees of completion begin with undifferentiated keying formulas and are framed as reports of past performance. Yet while there continue to be many structural parallels among them, the differences are remarkable enough to warrant separate discussion.

36 / Chapter 2

My method for extrapolating a general structure of ful¤lled prophetic discourse was fairly straightforward. I compiled the corpus of prophetic discourse texts I had collected over the past ¤ve years, identi¤ed them according to temporal orientation and formulaic coda (as noted above), and grouped them accordingly (not always an easy task, as we will see). I then attempted to break the discourse down into its smaller yet still coherent parts. I operated under the assumption that only by understanding the parts, and the process of constructing those parts, can we understand the thing itself, in this case, prophecy. Returning to Estelline Tubby’s account of the coming of highways and telephones, it is possible to identify the majority of these parts as they occur in ful¤lled prophecy. I. Introduction (Frame of Past Performance Enacted) A. Attribution B. Prophetic formula The introduction to prophetic discourse remains fairly stable for all types of prophetic discourse, and has been discussed at the beginning of this chapter. To recap, narrators uniformly include reference to who told them what they are about to recount. This generally precedes talk of the past unless talk of the past is what leads the narrator to bring up prophecy in the ¤rst place. At the same time, narrators voice some version of the phrase “Things are going to come up” to key the performance to one of prophecy. It is this introduction that frames the discourse as a report of past performance. Estelline Tubby begins by attributing the material she heard to her aunt, who actually recounted the prophecy to her, as well as to her grandmother, to whom the family traces the prophecy.4 She also quotes the formula used by these older narrators, signaling the genre. II. Historical Context This context is most often constructed via general discourse about how things used to be. This description can function in many ways, but the most obvious is that it allows the ful¤lled prophecy to be understood by establishing what life was like before ful¤llment. Estelline Tubby refers to the old country roads that existed when this prophecy was being told. The old roads are contrasted with the new highways and byways of the prophecy, highlighting the change that will occur. III. Prophetic Core The prophecy, when performed and not simply summarized, is always quoted

Genre and Performance of Prophecy / 37

and is comprised of a description of the upcoming event or invention in terms appropriate to the time. This part can be usefully termed the prophetic core, indicating the most stable element of prophetic discourse as well as the part that embodies the prophecy itself.5 Estelline Tubby does not quite remember how this prophecy was told. She knows they did not use the word “telephone” since such speci¤c knowledge would not have been known. She begins directly quoting the old people but pauses and is forced to complete the prophecy from her contemporary perspective. She moves back to direct quotation when she returns to the core a few lines later. IV. Expression of Amazement/Disbelief Focused on Speci¤c Prophecy Still maintaining the frame of the past, the narrator expresses the sentiment felt at the time of hearing the prophecy. This aspect is a mark of performance rather than report in that it demands that narrators situate themselves ¤rmly within the past context and react accordingly. Speakers remember wondering, “How could that be?” The disbelief is generally focused on the prophetic event. Estelline Tubby expresses amazement at the new developments, particularly of the new highways. “Well, but I didn’t believe ’til I saw these now, the roads.” It is unclear whether her amazement is directed at the highways or at the more general notion of the prescient knowledge of prophecy. V. Revelation (Frame Is Broken) A. Prophecy revealed B. Future and present reconciled C. Con¤rmation of speci¤c prophecy Here the narrator reveals the speci¤cs of the prophecy, as it was ful¤lled. This can be a source of dramatic climax, or denouement, depending on the performance style the narrator adopts. The revelation implicitly con¤rms the truth of the speci¤c prophecy. The past performance is discarded and more contemporary data evoked. Life as depicted ambiguously in the prophetic core is reconciled with contemporary life. The initial frame of the past, therefore, is broken. With the prophecy of coming highways, Estelline Tubby does not maintain a linear progression of past performance to contemporary revelation; she identi¤es the prophesied items at the beginning. Accordingly, she never fully constructs a frame of the past performance. Yet when she shifts to the prediction of telephones, she is operating more fully within the genre. This time, how-

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ever, she cannot remember exactly how the telephone was described in the old prophecies and so she must break the frame and name it. She does attempt to remedy this a few lines later by describing the telephone without using the contemporary name. She wraps up both prophecies with reference to the world today, reconciling life in the past depicted in the prediction with life today. “Well, but I didn’t believe ’til I saw these now, the roads,” and “Every house probably has it [a telephone], isn’t it?” These statements ultimately declare the truth of the speci¤c prophecy, as do her more explicit declarations, “And it’s true,” and “It’s true now.” VI. Amazement/Disbelief Focused on Prophecy in General The next two parts follow one another as elements of a closing formula. Narrators question, “How did they know?” suggesting that while they may not have an explanation for how the future could be known, it clearly was. Prophetic knowledge, therefore, is valid. Estelline Tubby refers to her disbelief about prophecy in general as a segue between the two prophecies she tells. “My aunt—she died a long time ago. She just says all of that. Sometime they would come out and say while we were eating. And I couldn’t believe it.” Here her disbelief is directed to the more general notion of prophecy. VII. Con¤rmation of Prophecy in General The question of “How did they know?” is seen to be rhetorical. The prophecy was in fact ful¤lled. The narrator ends by recon¤rming the validity of the prophecy itself (something established in the Revelation) and more speci¤cally con¤rming the validity of prophecy in general. Estelline Tubby does not employ this formulaic phrase. The con¤rmation of the truth of the speci¤c prediction implicitly argues for the truth of prophecy in general. Many narrators argue this explicitly; Estelline Tubby does not. Outlining the basic structure of ful¤lled prophecy uncovers more than a mere step-by-step progression or catalog of parts. As Dell Hymes has shown in his work with the myths of the Clackamas and Barre Toelken has shown in his work with coyote tales of the Navajo, narrative can be viewed in stanzas showing progressions and parallels that suggest a more interactive system.6 Not surprisingly, when structure and theme are combined in analysis, we ¤nd a synthesis between the parts and the whole.

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A number of patterns emerge from this outline based on content, function, and time. One of the most obvious pairs is the opening and closing formula. The ¤rst opens the discourse by noting that the elders used to say that things were going to come up, while the latter concludes that these things have indeed been ful¤lled. We also ¤nd paired expressions of disbelief, one geared toward the speci¤c prediction, the other to the concept of prophecy in general. The ¤rst expression of disbelief is countered with the Revelation of the prophecy, the second with con¤rmation about the knowledge of the elders and the validity of prophecy. These pairs of doubt and con¤rmation uncover an important function of the speci¤c ful¤lled prophecy to validate prophecy in general as an acceptable, if not completely understood, mode of knowledge acquisition.7 In fact, this larger discussion of prophecy is inherent in every performance of the speci¤c. The validity (or invalidity) of every prophecy has repercussions for the validity of the entire enterprise. The structure of prophetic discourse re®ects this focus. Further, patterns can be found in how prophetic discourse negotiates time. Initially, we ¤nd a triad linking Historical Context, Prophetic Core, and Revelation, where each provide a glimpse of Choctaw life—past, future, and present. The assumption is that the last two are one and the same, descriptions of a single moment in time, the only difference being when these descriptions are given. Accordingly, the dominant temporal contrast is constructed between the Historical Context of life in the past (at the time the prophecy was originally heard by the narrator) and the Prophetic Core of life in the future. This contrast creates tension between the two time periods that can only be resolved with actual ful¤llment—the Revelation, which provides a picture of life in the present. In this way, the three parts—Historical Context, Prophetic Core, and Revelation—form the basic parts of most narratives—Initial Situation, Con®ict or Tension, and Resolution. Even a denouement can be identi¤ed, as narrators broaden out and make larger claims, where resolution is achieved not only for the speci¤c prophecy but for the validity of prophecy itself. One might extend this comparison to literary form even further by noting how similar the prophetic core is to the literary device of foreshadowing, where each creates tension within the narrative. Again, the structure of prophetic discourse can be formatted to re®ect these foci. In the two models of ful¤lled prophecy depicted in ¤gures 3 and 4, the Revelation serves a crucial role, acting as the pivot between speci¤c prophecy and general prophecy and reconciling the ambiguous vision of the future with the clari¤ed vision of the present. Adhering to structural elements of prophetic discourse, then, reveals that meaning is most actively negotiated on the dual axes of truth and time. Perhaps not surprisingly, these are two of the integral axes upon which Choctaw verbal art is structured, as discussed in

3. Structure of ful¤lled prophecy highlighting negotiation of truth

4. Structure of ful¤lled prophecy highlighting narrative and temporal features

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chapter 1. The genre of prophetic discourse, then, is not merely one example of Choctaw verbal art, it is both metonym and microcosm of the entire enterprise. The preceding models and ¤gures are attempts to show how form relates to both function and aesthetics. We see, for example, how narrators argue for the validity of prophecy by alternating between general precepts of prophecy and speci¤c prophecies while maintaining temporal logic of what was known when. Further, we can see how these parts can be manipulated in order to construct a compelling narrative, replete with dramatic tension and resolution. Two points, however, should be made. The ¤rst is that these structures are discussed here in the language of formal analysis. For groups who actually perform within an oral tradition, these structures are generally internalized. Within a community, there is rarely a need for such models. “I know how to get there,” one may say about driving in one’s hometown, “but I don’t know how to tell you to get there.” I have attempted here to map this process, not only for what it can tell those of us outside the community about a local tradition but for what it can tell us about the artistry involved in the process of performance. The models are less useful for the Choctaw men and women who narrate within this tradition. When I asked Sally Allen and Regina Shoemake about these structures after they had just ¤nished recounting some prophecies, they shook their heads that they were not aware of such forms or models. And yet, not only do these two women adhere to these models when they recount prophecies individually, the models and forms are so ingrained that they can perform prophetic discourse together, each building on what the other has said. For example, one afternoon, Regina Shoemake, Sally Allen, and their co-worker Judy Billie sat together talking about the things that the kids today need to hear from their elders but don’t. At one point, Sally recounted a series of now ful¤lled prophecies of new technology (see later in this chapter) and then began to wrap it up. Sally: Those are the things that they, you know, she told me in the past, before. And that all is coming. You know, and those things. But I mean she knew. Be like a bird up in the air. And that’s the airplane that we used to tell her. And that was way before all that even was thought of, that it happened. So you know, those things I guess, they predicted all that and it’s now here.

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Regina: And nowadays, they’re saying that our elders used to, can predict, but they really don’t have anyone to predict anything anymore, like us predicting toward the future, our generation. Judy: And when I see it, I usually sit around and think about it, “How in the world did they know?” [others: Um-hm.] You know? [others: Um-hm.] “How in the world did they know?” [others: Um-hm.] But things I used to hear, it’s happening. The construction of prophetic discourse is not merely maintained individually in group discourse but is shared by the participants. Sally ends by noting these things have come up. Regina con¤rms the ability of the elders to predict these things, while contrasting them with people today, who do not seem to be able to make such predictions. Both women are engaged in the ¤nal part of prophetic discourse: the combined expressions of disbelief and con¤rmation. But it is Judy who ¤nally employs the formulaic ending in its most recognizable form. By doing this with communally recognizable language, she signals the end of the discourse for all of them. While these structures may seem foreign and oblique when drawn out on the page, they are nonetheless familiar to Choctaw speakers when constructing their discourse. The second point that needs to be made here is that while structure can provide a hint at the aesthetic appeal of discourse, it cannot fully address it. Within the basic structure outlined above, narrators ¤nd a resource for individual creation, rather than strict guidelines that dictate. To appreciate this artistry, one must carefully examine the individual performance. The Art of Performance Where in the past, scholars have dealt with generic structures by moving from the speci¤c to the general, performance theorists have argued for analysis that returns to the speci¤c. While referring to Estelline Tubby’s discourse is useful for grounding and validating the basic parts of the system, we still lack a full understanding of the variety of ways in which the individual creates both text and meaning with these parts. The structure outlined above is, after all, a resource for creation, not a mandate. I began with a study of commonalities. Now I look for differences that suggest individual creation. The task is an exploration of the signi¤cance of structure. While these parts may be sampled randomly, the exceptional performance constructs syntagmatic as well as paradigmatic coherence. There is great freedom allowed here, resulting in prophetic performances that differ dramatically from one another. Here are two. The ¤rst is dominated by the

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change and the contrast of time; the second, on the revelation of prophetic knowledge and the validity of the endeavor. The aesthetic force of each is undeniable. Billy Amos is well known in Bogue Chitto, where he has worked as the custodian of the middle school since 1973. He is quick to laugh and has a playful, teasing relationship with most of the community. Most also recognize in him a deep passion for and knowledge of Choctaw culture. He has been awarded a number of plaques that applaud his work in teaching the youth traditional chanting and dancing. When my wife, Brooke, and I arrived at Billy’s home, we found him off to the side of his house with two friends. The woman there was stirring a pot of beans over a ¤re about twenty yards from the arbor. She neither spoke nor sweated, the latter a feat I continue to ¤nd inconceivable considering the ¤re that blasted heat from below her and the blistering July Mississippi sun that did the same from above. Billy and the other man, whom Billy introduced as Jimmy Bell, a friend and co-worker, sat smoking cigarettes and talking in the shade. We had come unannounced since Billy did not have a phone. This did not matter; this was how things were done. If he was there, ¤ne. If not, we could come back. Billy greeted us warmly. He explained that they didn’t normally cook outside like this but enjoyed doing it from time to time. We talked about the new school and about his passion—chanting for social dances, which he had recently done for the Bogue Chitto youth dancers. “But you come back on Monday,” he said, “and I’ll take you through there.” Billy was proud of the school. Not one borrowed desk, not one less-thanstate-of-the-art ¤xture. The only thing that seemed to have made it from the old school to the new one besides the staff and students was the painted plywood cutout of the head of an Indian wearing a Plains-style headdress that greets visitors to the school. It was cool inside the building, and we lingered in empty classrooms to enjoy the comfort of the air. Eventually, we came to a classroom with a teacher busily preparing for her new students who would be arriving in less than a week. Again we lingered. She seemed to welcome the company. Billy began talking about the changes from the old school to this one, which led to a discussion about larger changes he has seen in the community, particularly the shift from his sharecropping days to the luxuries of the modern world. As he talked, he began to recount the prophecies he was told as a young boy about changes that would be coming up, about electricity, airconditioning, and indoor plumbing. The picture he painted mirrored our own

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small journey from the torrid outside heat into the luxurious cool of the new school. The past was hot and uncomfortable, with crude construction and simple entertainment; the picture of the future, of a modern world just on the horizon, was a technological paradise of comfort. A few days later, I returned to Billy’s home to talk again. I had explained that I wanted to talk to him more about the prophecies that he heard growing up, and would like to record them on tape. We began talking, as we often had over the past year, about the new school. Eventually, we moved to a more general discussion of education. The discourse that follows is labeled with roman numerals that correspond to the structural model outlined earlier. As with other transcribed sections, I have used indentions to mark the shifts back and forth in time that Billy makes. However, since Billy makes well-marked shifts from life in the past to the life promised in the future by prophecy, I have accentuated these indentions by aligning the past toward the left margin, the future toward the right. My goal is to make the rhythm so noticeable to the ear in performance equally noticeable to the eye in reading. Tom: And that education in the past, before they had all these schools, who would teach you the old history and the old stories and the old things? Billy: I. That was the old people. Most of them, they die already. But at that time——some of the things in the future was going to come up. That’s how they sit down and explained it. And some of the things that I saw today and in the past, has come true. And most of them I haven’t seen yet. But once in a while, they come up. So it’s true. Tom: And how would that work? You were saying the other day when we were over at the school——you had talked about a couple of different ones: about, like having water in the house, and the bathroom and TV. Billy: Yeah.

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II.

Back then, what I was talking about was the sharecropping, that I was talking about. Same time was, we didn’t have no electricity back then. Then we have to go and use a toilet outside. Or we have to tote water from the spring or wells. And that’s how did we used to cooking.

Or maybe we didn’t have no electricity on the stove. We had a ¤re on the stove. And we have to build a ¤re to make it cook. Everyday. I don’t care if it’s hot, you still have to cook, unless you cook outside. Most of the time, some of them was cooking outside, Like we do today, cook outside.8 And that’s how they lived. III. “But,” she says, “someday, you’ll be sitting inside a house, and they’ll just put on the water and the water come in, in the house.” And then electricity. “You just ®ip the button and the lights coming on.” II.

We had a lamp to clean back then. Because I remember going to school, had to clean that lamp to get study. Clean it out every night. Lamp tops, you know; lamp globe in other words. Kerosene lamp.

IV.

And I can’t believe that when she said that. “How can that be?

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III.

II.

III.

IV. II.

Just put the water on the inside the house and it come on. And you got your hot water and cold water.” Well, we have to take a bath, we have to tote water from the spring or wells and then pour it in the wash tub, wash pot, and build a ¤re to heat it up, warm water to take a bath with. That’s how did we go. But like they said was, Someday that you could ®ip the faucet, then you’re ready to take a shower. And in a few minutes, you’d be ¤nished taking a shower. And I can’t believe that. How that could be. And then, I used to go out to TV——I mean movie. They had set up the tent; once a week that movie comes out. And then—I used to be crazy about it— so I have to go up there at night time, in the evening. Then I come back and I’m kind of scared coming down the road, but I go up there every week. And they had movies come out, chapter continued, movie. What happens, it goes off, then next week it continues. And I want to watch the whole chapter, I have to go up there.

III. II.

III.

She says “Someday— —you’ll be running around, go up there walking, go see the white people’s movie. But someday you going to be sitting in your own house, and going to watch them.

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You don’t have to go out you just ®ip that button and you’d be watching the white people’s movies, pictures in other words. IV.

And I can’t believe what she was saying.

V.

But after all that time, there was——the ¤rst to come up was TV, black and white. And that’s the way it was. And beyond that, they got this VCR tape. What kind of movie you want, you just go to the store and rent it, and clicked it on, and then you can watch the movies, what you want to see.

VI. But like I said, I don’t know where they got the ideas, but in the future times that they look ahead of times VII. and those things was come up. On a basic structural level, we can label Billy Amos’s performance according to the basic parts of ful¤lled prophecy. Roman numerals in the left margins correspond with those of the basic structure outlined earlier. In doing so, we note that Billy Amos follows the basic structure chronologically but repeats sections as he works through his performance. It is this repetition and movement, this innovation within the structure, that provides clues to meaning. Historical Contextualization. Billy Amos roots the prophecies of running water, electricity, television, and VCRs ¤rmly within the historical context of the time when he ¤rst heard the prophecies. For prophecy that has been ful¤lled in between the time of originally hearing it and today, rooting the prophecy in the past is of dire importance in establishing the validity of the prophecy as preceding rather than following ful¤llment. Since the origin of prophecy is hidden by time, it is the performance that becomes the temporal base, the place the contemporary narrator moves back

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to, to stand and perform the prophecy he heard. Attribution often extends farther back in time, but performance of prophecy generally reverts back only to when the contemporary narrator ¤rst heard it. Billy Amos shifts back to the time when he was young and his mother told him the prophecy he remembers today. He initially attributes the prophecy to her, but in repeating the prophecy a third time, he says, “they said.” While his mother is the person who told him, he recognizes that the prophecy did not originate with her. In her performance years ago, she too would have attributed the prophecy. Billy has chosen to abstract only the core prophecy from her performance in creating his own, but he could have noted her attribution as well, as many contemporary narrators do. Throughout, Billy Amos balances between this past context and the future context of the prophecy. The past that he re-creates is one of hard work and hard living, where you sharecropped all day, had to tote water long distances, and cook even during the summer over a blistering hot ¤re. This is the world of Billy’s childhood. He uses the pronoun “we” throughout except when he talks about cooking, something neither men nor boys would have engaged in, at which point he shifts to “they.” He only uses the pronoun “they” once more in creating historical context, and that is in contrasting the past with the present. Billy is of course a part of both worlds. When he steps outside the context of the past to comment on the present—when he refers to having cooked outside just the other day when I stopped by for a visit—he aptly uses “we” referring to himself and his two friends. In order to return to the past, however, he chooses the pronoun “they,” a clear shift from the “we” of the present. It is necessary in the immediate context of his performance but does not indicate a distancing of himself from the prophetic performance of the past that he is engaged in recounting. Rather, Billy is ¤rmly ensconced in the “we” of the past. Up to this point in his narration, Billy has been establishing the historical context. But he is about to make a shift. “‘But,’ she says, ‘someday you’ll be sitting inside a house and they’ll just put on the water and the water come in, in the house.’” The “but” is a powerful marker, highlighting the shift Billy is making here from past to future. Life is hard now, but a time will come when it is not so hard. The “but” puts into stark contrast the change that the Choctaw will soon be facing.9 In order for the hard work of the past to transform into the comfortable life of the prophecy, startling change must occur. The result of this balancing act is a carefully orchestrated rhythm back and forth in time. The message Billy sends in performing the prophecy this way is that to understand ful¤lled prophecy, you must understand what life was like before it was ful¤lled. I asked him about the prophecy point-blank, but he did not

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simply answer my question and recite the prediction of electricity and water and such. Rather, he constructed a series of glimpses into the past that would stand in opposition to the prophecy, all the while rooting the prophecy temporally, as the notion of prophecy demands. But clearly there is an affective element here as well, one that Billy is able to create from having lived through the change, before ful¤llment and after. He builds up the discomfort of the sharecropping life, just as he would have viewed it as a child living through it. He focuses not on the dominant image of the time, actual farming, suggested by his named topic, sharecropping, since farming was men’s work and Billy was a child during this time. Rather, he focuses on the tasks that he would have been involved with: getting water for cooking and bathing, building a ¤re to heat that water, and cleaning the soot out of kerosene lamps. Billy’s view of the past is not a clinical one but a very personal one. In taking me through the world of his childhood, and then through the prophecy as he would have heard it, reacted to it, and experienced it, Billy Amos suggests the ability of prophetic discourse to accommodate intensely personal perspectives. The power of such perspectives could easily be missed by the contemporary audience for whom electricity and indoor plumbing and television are as natural as cotton, mules, and cast iron pots were to Billy as a child. While today’s listener would perhaps be amazed and awed by the fact that the elders could know such things in advance, they might misconstrue the actual invention as secondary and as merely a vehicle for prophetic discourse. Instead, electricity seems inconceivable, the bene¤ts of it astounding. Billy manages to create not just excitement but actual anticipation of ful¤llment. He appreciates that his audience knows that running water, electricity, and television were in fact invented; we are, after all, sitting in his home with the lights on, a TV set facing us in the corner, and a bathroom just down the hall. Accordingly, he cannot build anticipation merely by slowly unraveling the narrative. Rather, he focuses on the contrast between the stark reality of hauling water, cooking over hot ¤res, and walking through ominous woods at night, and the prophetic possibility of a respite from such hardship and fear. All along, he expresses the amazement he felt at the time. “I can’t believe that,” he exclaims, “how that could be.” It is a question that we would not have asked had he merely told us the prophecy, but one we share now that he has performed the prophecy as a narrative of discovery. When he comes toward the end, when he ¤nally points out that television and VCRs were invented, he makes the shift from the past before ful¤llment to the past after ful¤llment, and then fully back to the present when he now wonders, “I can’t believe how they do that.” This shift in time is mirrored in the shift in question. Before ful¤llment, Billy expresses wonder at the inven-

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tion itself. Now that the prophecies have been borne out, however, he must confront a new question: How did they know? How could they predict these things? The shift makes us realize just how skillfully Billy has constructed this narrative. There is a hierarchy to the questions he asks. Only when he can fathom that electricity is possible does it make sense for him to question the source of this knowledge. By creating linear discourse that re-creates the historical and personal context of the time that he heard this prophecy, Billy Amos is able to reach out to the listener, asking the questions he asked in a similar situation when he was the listener and his grandparents or parents were the narrators. In doing so, he defuses the skepticism the audience may have by noting he had it too. Further, through the structure and voice of the narrative, Billy has brought the listener in as co-actor, experiencing the slow development of the realization of the prophecy just as he had, sharing questions just as he had. Form and function are intertwined. So are narrator and audience. The act is supremely social.10 Accordingly, the aesthetic appeal of this narrative is both internally and externally directed. In reliving his past, Billy is able to reconnect to a very personal history.11 Further, there seems to be some honor in having lived through such hardships. But the aesthetic creation is also directed outward. In performing, Billy takes responsibility for our interaction. He is speaking not only for himself but to reach out to me and create for me a sense of the awe and power of these prophecies by having me experience the revelation in much the same way he did. The result is a performance not merely of the prophecy but of experiencing the prophecy throughout its stages of ful¤llment. If we revisit the basic structure of ful¤lled prophecy, we note that Billy Amos has centered his discourse on life of the past and the tantalizing promise of the future (¤gure 5). He exploits this oppositional pair and moves rhythmically back and forth between them three times. But there is no moment of revelation. In initially creating his historical context for the ¤rst set of prophecy, Billy named the items that would eventually be invented: electricity and indoor plumbing, not adhering to the generic demand to reserve future knowledge of speci¤c terms for the moment when the prophecy is ful¤lled. Including a revelation here, then, would be redundant and supremely anticlimactic. When he moves to another prophecy (television and VCRs), he is performing fully within the genre and is careful to provide historical context without breaking the temporal frame of the past by naming something that had not yet been named. Still, Billy clearly preferences the past as the focus of his narrative and directs the bulk of his time, dramatic energy, descriptive powers, and rhythmic

5. Structure of ful¤lled prophecy highlighting historical comparison

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construction to this past. Billy’s focus on the past can be explained in part by his age. Older narrators contextualize more heavily; they have a resource of personal experiences to draw from to do so. Younger narrators do not have such an extensive resource, while some were not even born before the ful¤llment of the prophecy they are narrating. Accordingly, they contextualize far less, focusing more on the text of the prophecy and speci¤c performance they participated in than a larger historical context they did not. Their performances necessarily differ dramatically from those by Billy Amos and his peers. Descriptive Imagery and the Riddle. Sally Allen cannot remember a time before cars or airplanes. She was born in 1958; when she heard these prophecies, she did not wonder, “How can that be?” Cars and planes were already a ¤xture on her landscape. The demands the genre places on her are accordingly somewhat different. She must attribute the prophecy to the person she heard it from, but, since it is ful¤lled, she must root the prophecy further back, something Billy Amos does not have to do. She cannot create dramatic tension or climax or a bond with the listener by re-creating the process of ful¤llment— the wonder of hearing it, the contrast to then-contemporary life, the ¤nal ful¤llment—because all of this happened before she was born. She adjusts accordingly: I remember what mom was telling me that her grandmother, you know, used to say, and grandparents used to tell her, was that they’ll have machines, you know, ®ying like a bird. And we’ve got the airplane. That was way before it existed. Even before they thought about it. And then, like, people will be sitting around, listening to a box. And that’s the radio. Or they’d be watching a box in the corner— —they used to tell her. And that’s the TV. Those are the things that they, you know, she told me. In the past, before.

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And “That all is coming,” you know? And those things. But I mean she knew. “Be like a bird up in the air.” And that’s the airplane that we used to tell her. And that was way before all that even was thought of, that it happened. So you know, those things I guess, they predicted all that and it’s now here. She begins by attributing the story to her mother, who told her the prophecies, but then moves the history of transmission further back in order to assure a time that does in fact predate the airplane, radio, and television. She then performs the prophecies following the same pattern as Billy Amos but omitting the two parts hinted at above: the personal historical context and the expressions of disbelief at the time of hearing the prophecies. Instead, Sally adopts the rhythm and style of a different oral genre in order to perform this prophecy, that of the riddle. Without the ability to construct a believable past world, Sally does what is necessary to set the prophecy in time—providing attribution and her comment, “That was way before it existed. Even before they thought about it”— and then moves to a rapid-¤re presentation of the prophecy as a riddle. The parallels are both stylistic and structural. While not all riddles employ metaphor in order to create the “block”—that is, to mislead the listener—many do. Sally anthropomorphizes (or rather orinthomorphizes) the airplane as a living creature, in this case, a bird. Strictly speaking, Sally employs a simile rather than a metaphor and thus does not make the transformation complete. Like Billy, she is describing how it will work and what it will do. The simile she adds is not necessary to the temporal demands of avoiding the language of the future. Rather, it is an artistic addition that further suggests a worldview where nature is more understandable than technology. Such nature imagery is common throughout the performance of ful¤lled prophecy. Cars are described as two-eyed beasts, planes as birds, power lines as spider webs. Such descriptions are common in riddles. One might be tempted to make an argument for cultural salience here. John Bierhorst, for example, notes that American Indian riddles tend to take nature as a central focus (1992:10). However, he also accurately notes that riddles the world round deal almost exclusively with plants, animals, tools, and parts of the

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human body, the majority of which clearly ¤t within the category of nature. The reason, at least for metaphoric riddles, is fairly clear: metaphor often operates to link the animate with the inanimate. On some level, the animate must inherently be part of the natural world. While nature may not be a signi¤cant category topically, it is nonetheless valid to conclude that analogies to such established cognitive categories as nature make it possible to understand foreign technology that as yet does not ¤t into an established category.12 The radio and television do not get quite such artistic images: both are boxes in a corner. But again, Sally Allen provides information on what they will do and how they will be used in language that maintains the temporal integrity of the prophecy. Further, even without metaphor, her performance parallels that of the riddle. Sally does not phrase the prophecy as an explicit question, but then many riddles are simple declarative statements. “A house full, a yard full, couldn’t catch a bowl full” implicitly asks the audience to guess an answer. While Sally neither expects nor encourages any of us to shout out answers, she does expect us to interpret the prophecy as a question and to attempt to think through its meaning. But not for too long. These are not dif¤cult “riddles.” In order to derive some of the pleasure of the revelation of the prophecy, she provides the answer fairly quickly. She leaves enough time to engage us but not enough for us to think the prophecy obvious. Where Billy Amos reached out to the reader to engage with the material from his perspective, to experience the process of prophecy along with him, Sally Allen reaches out in an equally congenial but less collaborative way. She did not experience the prophecy in its entire progression and cannot invite the listener to engage with it in this way. But she can invite in the listener in the same way a person invites participation in riddling sessions. This strategy is most often employed by younger narrators, but not exclusively by them. Bobby Joe, who did live before electricity was common in the area, enjoys the same dramatic revelation of the riddle in recounting the prophecies he heard from his grandfather. His material is arguably more conducive to riddling in that the prophetic question is less well known than those Sally recounts. Sitting in his living room one afternoon, we talk about prophecies. He tells me the things his grandfather told him: “You may have something better than the TV we got now,” he said. “They going to tell you lot, everyday.” Say, “You’re going to like, knowing everybody around you, [?] area, the people you know, telling you something everyday. It’s going to be just like that. You’re going to be know everything what’s going on in the world.”

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What he was talking about was this satellite and TV—tells you all kind of news, and whatever little pieces that happen somewhere. Just like in, earthquake is happening in California, and within ¤ve minutes you’ll be listening to that TV and it tells you. That’s what he was talking about. And talking about a lot of things, ®ying around in the sky. He was talking about airplanes. “Even,” he said, “even we going to have spider web all over the country.” Said spider web’s going to cover us. I didn’t know spider webs, what he was going to be talking about. I thought he was talking about everywhere you go, spider webs everywhere, you know. You know what the spider web was? [I shake my head.] This electricity wire. That’s what he was talking about. Bobby quite explicitly asks me the prophetic question, asks for my interpretation. I shake my head, not knowing. He pauses before revealing the answer: “This electricity wire. That’s what he was talking about.” The dramatic tension that Billy Amos is able to create in re-creating the past and contrasting life before and after ful¤llment, is here created through the dramatic tension inherent in riddling. It is perhaps worth noting that while these prophecies borrow the language and structure of the riddle, they are not meant to be interpreted as such. The imagery of prophecy is evocative without attempting to be tricky. Such overt manipulation would be contrived and would undercut any attempt to establish belief and truth, a major goal in the performance of prophecy.13 The performance by Billy Amos and those by Sally Allen and Bobby Joe suggest two distinct styles of the performance of ful¤lled prophecy. But before we move on to unful¤lled prophecy, it is perhaps worthwhile to summarize our conclusions about ful¤lled prophecy and extrapolate the larger structures at work here to understand the range of possibilities for performance that contemporary narrators have to draw upon. Ful¤lled prophecy can only be reported. It must be attributed to previous narrators at a time that precedes ful¤llment. Because of this restriction, some amount of context of the past must be employed. This can vary from

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the cursory attribution to the fully developed personal history. Within this demand for context, narrators may perform the prophecy as a report of a single performance they remember or as a more generalized performance they heard often. The degree to which they develop this historical context dictates the degree to which narrators can employ the prophecy to discuss change in the community. Ful¤lled prophecy also demands a logical and linear presentation of what was knowable and when. To use the name of the object being prophesied is to violate this chronology and undermine the truth value of the prophecy as having come before ful¤llment. Within this demand, narrators may simply avoid the term by describing the object by what it will do and how it will be used, or they may employ vivid imagery, simile, or metaphor to ¤ll this need. This choice can be personal preference and verbal competence for some, but it is a means for younger narrators to continue telling ful¤lled prophecies when their backgrounds prohibit personal historical context. Implicit in these demands is the requirement of the narrator to move back in time and recount the prophecy from the perspective of someone in the past. The temporal boundaries of ful¤lled prophecy, then, implicate the future of this past time but not the future of the performance today. Accordingly, contemporary performances of ful¤lled prophecy deal only with the future in relation to the present. They are, therefore, historical texts that deal with a historical future, conceptual rather than actual.

Unful¤lled Prophecy The differences between ful¤lled and unful¤lled prophecy are substantial, but the similarities more so. As talk of the elders, both demand attribution. As prophecy, both demand a performance that predates ful¤llment. Both depict the world we live in, and both exist on a linear temporal plane. Both function to address change and both require formulas that note the relationship between the time of the prophecy and the time of the world. The opening and closing formula are almost identical except that where ful¤lled prophecy ends with “and that I have seen,” unful¤lled prophecy ends with “and that will be coming up.” But there are, of course, differences: different formulas, styles, textures, functions, content, tone, and structure. The most obvious difference, of course, is that the ambiguity and uncertainty of ful¤lled prophecy is abolished; in unful¤lled it remains. Accordingly, ful¤lled prophecy can be performed like a riddle where the answer can be provided, while unful¤lled prophecy is often vague, and such answers are ultimately guesses rather than statements. Even when the prophecy seems fairly straightforward, there is always the loom-

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ing question of when it will occur. Because of this distinction, unful¤lled prophecy demands interpretation where ful¤lled does not. Despite this fairly massive distinction, the structure for unful¤lled prophecy operates according to the same basic rules as unful¤lled prophecy. I. Introductory Formula (Frame of Past Performance Enacted) A. Attribution B. Prophetic Formula C. Generic code of when it will be coming (soon) The opening is the same for all prophecy, at least initially. With unful¤lled prophecy, however, many narrators stress that the prophecy will be ful¤lled soon. While this may be entextualized as part of the reported performance in ful¤lled prophecy (since that performance is ostensibly a performance of unful¤lled prophecy), it is rare. As unful¤lled prophecy, the issue of when it will be ful¤lled is more pressing than with ful¤lled. II. Prophetic Core The core is the most stable part of prophetic discourse and goes through no perceptible change between types of prophecy. III. Contemporary Context This context is often interwoven with the interpretation below as it provides a picture of contemporary life that can be equated with the events of the prophecy (and hence lead to interpretation). While this context parallels the Historical Context in ful¤lled prophetic discourse, it functions far more ambitiously as analysis rather than description. IV. Interpretation (Frame Is Broken) The interpretation of the prophecy can be equated with the Revelation part in ful¤lled prophecy, the difference being that one is known, the other not. Interpretation generally dominates unful¤lled prophetic discourse, as it is the most intensely contested area of the discourse. Depending on the degree to which the narrator re-creates the past performance, past interpretations from previous narrators may be included with those of the current narrator. V. Con¤rmation Con¤rmation is made but is far more tentative here than with ful¤lled prophecy. It acts as both a bookend and a coda signaling the end of the prophetic discourse.

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The structure of unful¤lled prophecy can perhaps best be understood in comparison with that of ful¤lled prophecy. The ¤rst part of the structure of unful¤lled prophecy closely mirrors ful¤lled prophecy for an important reason. Ful¤lled prophecy re-creates a past performance before the prophecy was ful¤lled; accordingly, every performance of ful¤lled prophecy is presumably based on a past performance of unful¤lled prophecy. However, the two are not identical. While narrators do shift back in time and re-create the awe and confusion of the prophecy before it was ful¤lled, they nonetheless construct their discourse with full knowledge of the outcome. Further, in being ful¤lled, the prophecy becomes a historical text, where the conclusion—what actually happened—is known and demands no immediate interpretation. Ful¤lled prophetic discourse, then, can be crafted and honed with no fear that dramatic reinterpretation will be needed. Further, considering the differences in what is known, it makes sense that narrators would stress different parts of the past performance. For example, while narrators may include the elaborate formula they heard from their elders concerning when prophecy would be ful¤lled when narrating ful¤lled prophecy, this attention to “when” is a foregone conclusion. While it can be added, it need not be. For unful¤lled prophecy, however, where the “when” is unknown and highly debatable, this formula is more often included in the recollection of the past performance. In other words, while both types of prophecy attempt to re-create a past performance, the larger temporal issues that divide the discourse into different types in the ¤rst place nonetheless in®uence all aspects of the discourse. Two other major differences can be noted in how the past performance is narrated. The ¤rst is the lack of historical context for the performance and life at the time when the current narrator ¤rst heard the prophecy. Historical context operates in contrast to that of the ful¤lled prophecy, a context that equates to the present narrative event. With prophecy that has not yet been ful¤lled, the contrasting context is between the present and the future. Since future context is known only as far as the prophetic core provides, the narrator cannot elaborate this context any further. Accordingly, it is the present context that the narrator explores to help explain the prophecy. In the effort to interpret prophecy, people look to the world around them for any evidence of ful¤llment. The contemporary world, far more than a future one, becomes the context demanded for interpretation. Structurally, the context shifts in order to place focus on the key part of the discourse. In ful¤lled prophecy, Historical Context precedes the Prophetic Core and highlights the prediction; in unful¤lled prophecy, Contemporary Context precedes the Interpretation and highlights it as the focus.

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The second major difference between ful¤lled and unful¤lled prophecy is the lack of expression of disbelief in the latter, either of the prophecy itself or of how the elders could have known such things. These omissions can both be explained again by the degree of knowledge held by the narrator. Keying formulas such as the rhetorical question “How did they know?” is absent here for obvious reasons. Since unful¤lled prophecy is not a priori true, as ful¤lled is, such a question cannot operate rhetorically but instead demands an actual answer. This question is rarely tackled on a literal level because the answer is ultimately unknown by all but the prophets themselves. The patterns that remain are the opening and closing formulas testifying to the validity of the prophecy. The Prophetic Core remains paired with its parallel in content, here Interpretation rather than Revelation, two sides of the same coin. While the Prophetic Core can be seen as the most stable element of prophetic discourse in content and structure, it is worth noting that structurally, its relation to Revelation/Interpretation is equally stable. This reinforces the understanding of prophecy as a question demanding an answer. Further, the demand for context, either historic or contemporary, reinforces another claim about prophecy: that it is geared to address change. These contexts act as contrast with life as depicted in prophecy, highlighting the kind of change and its import. The moment of change remains hidden from view, but the contrast of before and after is clearly exposed. These conclusions based on the structure of prophetic discourse lead us to the rules underlying the structure, the system that makes transformation possible and is therefore vital in understanding artistic creation.14 The most evident is one that we have taken as our basis of analysis: that the degree of ful¤llment dictates the style, structure, and function of the discourse. All prophetic discourse must be attributed, reported, and bookended. All must include a contrasting pair between the prophecy and the time before ful¤llment. But the demands based on ful¤llment lead narrators to make a series of other choices in their narratives where form follows function in creating performance. Another rule of the system is that context is employed to buttress that area most foreign or contested in the narrative. Further, this context helps to direct the focal point of the discourse. Historical context directs attention to the past, contemporary context to the present and possible shifts in the future. Accordingly, ful¤lled prophecy acts primarily as a historical document and can serve to validate the power of prophecy as well as the knowledge of the elders. Further, as a model for change, ful¤lled prophecy can also contribute to the debate about current trends—the explicit realm of unful¤lled prophecy. Unful¤lled prophecy acts primarily as a contemporary document whose focus

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is explicitly directed to perceived change both now and in the future. The uncertainty embodied in Interpretation (as opposed to Revelation) allows the narrator greater leeway to express personal views about this change.

In Process and Ongoing Prophecy Prophecy that has been ful¤lled rests comfortably in the past. It is brought to the present through contemporary discourse but does not directly implicate current events or affairs (hence its function to validate prophecy and the elders more than to interpret the world). Unful¤lled prophecy, however, is less restrained. The formulaic phrases that narrators employ consistently mark prophecy as impending: “If you don’t see it, your children will.” Unful¤lled prophecy is always on the verge of ful¤llment. Even prophecies of the end of the world are marked with such warnings, suggesting that the mechanisms for these events are being set into motion now. They are clearly not ful¤lled, but neither can one rest easy that they are completely unful¤lled, safely ensconced in the future. Even today, for example, we can see the prophetic picture of the end of the world coming into focus as people create the instruments for destruction and increase the violence that will eventually escalate to the ¤nal blow. Linda Willis, who has heard prophecies that the world will end with man destroying it, sees the escalation of people ¤ghting the world over as a sign that the prophecy is being ful¤lled. Harold Comby, who has heard prophecies that the world will end in ¤re, sees the depletion of the ozone layer heating up the earth and burning the skin of its people. The cataclysmic event is unful¤lled, but the overall prophecy has begun. In this way, all unful¤lled prophecy can be brought into the present and exist as prophecy in process. The contrasting context of unful¤lled prophecy is not the present, because the present is too similar to the prophesied picture; rather, it is contrasted to life in the past. However, the present is not con¤ned to witnessing nascent prophecies escalate toward the future. As one would expect, prophecies must move from unful¤lled to ful¤lled. Somewhere in the middle, one ¤nds the prophecy in process. People remember hearing prophecies that people would intermarry more with other races, that people would be dying younger and younger, and that girls would be having babies without being married. All of these prophecies describe a state of affairs of Choctaw culture, trends that people see becoming increasingly more dire. Unlike the invention of cars or phones, all of the changes described in these ongoing prophecies have past precedent. Intermarriage, for example, is a reality that dates back at least as long as the Choctaw have organized themselves into a distinct group. Historical records account for intermarriage between other native groups, as well as with the

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settlers that began to populate the area. During the nineteenth century, for example, many of the Choctaw leaders in the community were the offspring of interracial marriages between white men and Choctaw women.15 It would be dif¤cult to argue that neither of the other two developments had ever happened among the group either; unwed girls have had babies and children have died as long as history and memory recall. The prophecies, however, declare that these states of affairs are getting worse, to a noticeable and troubling degree. To argue that these prophecies are unful¤lled is to argue that they have never occurred. But to argue that they have been ful¤lled is to argue that one can note a speci¤c point when the trend has reached critical mass. For as many people who intermarry or have children out of wedlock there can always be more; for as young as people are when they pass away, they can always be younger. Critical mass will be different for different people, and they will view the prophecy at different stages of ful¤llment. Regardless, most will mark such prophecy with a temporal formula that coincides with this ongoing dimension. “And today, that’s where we’re at now,” Billy Amos says after noting the gradual loss of social dance (1999). “What my grandfather said is truly happening,” Viola Johnson adds after noting that more girls are in fact having children without husbands, just as her grandfather said would happen (Nanih Waiya 1974). And Annie Tubby comments that “Some of the things are beginning to be seen in our eyes” (Wallace 1977). Ful¤lled prophecy takes a past-tense verb; unful¤lled a future tense, but ongoing takes the present-progressive. Such prophecy follows the structures and functions of unful¤lled prophecy, and a separate model is not necessary. Ongoing prophecy demands interpretation, though some may perform the interpretation more as a revelation, depending on their perspective. What is perhaps unique about ongoing prophecy is that it so explicitly describes the contemporary world. This is not a description of the past or of the future but of today. People will search the contemporary world for signs of unful¤lled prophecy, but it is the ongoing prophecy itself that people sync up perfectly with the present. One becomes indistinguishable from the other. The ongoing prophecy and commentary on the state of affairs of today are one and the same. T Y PES OF PROPHECY BASED ON CONTENT Throughout this analysis, I have had occasion to distinguish between prophecies that describe states of affairs and prophecies that describe events. The main difference between the two is one of degree. An event prophecy describes a single occurrence: the Third Removal, the switching of summer and

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6. Correlation among types of prophecy

winter, the destruction of the world. A state-of-affairs prophecy describes a number of smaller occurrences that, when viewed together, suggest a cumulative shift in the daily life of the community: more and more intermarriages, more and more killings and suicides, less and less land to grow crops. One instance of a marriage between a Choctaw woman and a white man does not ful¤ll the prophecy of intermarriage, but a noticeable increase in such marriages does. Oddly, these divisions parallel the temporal divisions of prophecy. A survey of the corpus of Choctaw prophecies is summarized in ¤gure 6. If prophecy is on a continuum, moving from unful¤lled to in-process and ongoing to ful¤lled, then the distinctions noted in the table should not be apparent. Both event and state-of-affairs prophecies should appear in all stages of ful¤llment. That this is not the case demands explanation. The answer lies in differences between how change is viewed as occurring in prophecy versus real life. The former suggests instantaneous change; the latter, gradual shift. Ful¤lled prophecy consists primarily of technological advances. By referring to an event—the introduction of the car—the prophecy presumably has a clear point of completion. The majority of unful¤lled prophecy also refers to events with concrete points of ful¤llment—war, removal, switch in the seasons. Such prophecies at least have the potential for dramatic, instantaneous ful¤llment. Further, these moments when the prophecy is ful¤lled are

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generally depicted in the prophetic core as happening instantaneously rather than slowly over time. For ful¤lled prophecies, narrators quote the elders as having said that “One day we’ll have paved roads” and “One day the trees will be few and people will grow and feed it to the cows.” “And now it’s here” is the common refrain. While not explicitly instantaneous, change is not viewed as slow, progressive, or incremental. One day people will be fetching water from the well, the next they will be turning on their faucets. Ful¤llment is more clearly instantaneous in many unful¤lled prophecies. Many believe that the Third Removal will happen overnight. One minute the Choctaw will be living in nice homes, the next they will be evicted, forced to journey to a new home. “All in one night, they will be gone,” Estelline Tubby says, quoting her elders (1996). The reactions of those hearing the prophecies re®ect this fear of instantaneous change as well. Regina Shoemake remembers thinking that the prophecies she heard growing up were going to happen that next day. Billy Amos could not sleep, fearing he would wake to ¤nd some of the less eagerly anticipated changes having occurred overnight. These fears can be attributed in part to the youthfulness of the audience.16 But standard elements of prophetic discourse play an integral part as well: both the common formula employed in keying the genre—that these things would be coming up, and coming up soon—as well as the prophetic core itself that omits the process of change and provides only the result. Perhaps nowhere is this perception of prophecy as descriptive of immediate, dramatic change more powerfully conveyed than in what is omitted rather than included in performing ful¤lled prophecies. In unful¤lled prophecy, narrators frequently provide a picture of this dramatic moment, when bombs are dropped for war, for example, or when the Choctaw are actually evicted. No such picture is given for prophecies that have been ful¤lled. The omission is glaring not only because of the perception of prophecy as describing dramatic change but because of structural features of prophetic discourse. Namely, narrators move into the past and narrate prophecy from that vantage point, a vantage point that is often related as a speci¤c event. One might therefore expect narrators then to shift slowly forward in time, narrating the process of ful¤llment step by step, event by event. Such narration would surely include the speci¤c moment that the person realized the prophecy had been ful¤lled, as with this hypothetically altered prophecy: 1. The old people said there would be something in the house that can be talked to and talk to the other house. Said, “You don’t have to walk up there to tell things.”

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2. I remember when I was ten, my father came home and plugged this thing in and we could talk through it to anyone. Well, it was a phone. 3. It’s true now. Every house probably has it, isn’t it? But no. 2 above is never part of prophetic discourse. Instead, we are shown only two temporal zones—past and present (no. 1 and no. 3)—with no incremental move through time from past (before ful¤llment), to recent past (moment of ful¤llment), to contemporary life (moment of narration). The moment of ful¤llment is omitted, implied but not shown. Instead, we see only life before and after the change. Discourse about ful¤lled prophecies tends to mask this change, perhaps because it stands in such marked opposition to how many in the community have actually experienced change. Rather than instantaneous upheavals, people observe slow shifts. When Choctaw men and women talk about change outside the realm of prophecy, they talk about slow progression over time. People remember struggling in school to get out of the sharecropping ¤elds. They remember jobs slowly becoming available, ¤rst in other cities, then nearby, and eventually on the reservation itself. They comment extensively on the changes in stickball over the years, the slow shift from a game of skill and ¤nesse to one of strength and brutality. Historical records support this slow progression when dealing with those changes speci¤cally addressed in prophecy. As a genre, prophecy depicts instantaneous change; in reality, change comes much more slowly. This seems particularly true of the kinds of changes depicted in these prophecies. Cars, paved roads, electricity, and running water—all of these innovations require more money than most sharecroppers would be able to produce. Invention was one thing; distribution another. Accordingly, identifying exactly when a prophecy was ful¤lled may have been problematic. Was the prophecy ful¤lled at the moment of invention, with the ¤rst Model A? Or when the new invention ¤rst registered a blip on the radar of the consciousness of the community, such as when cars ¤rst began traveling the back roads of central Mississippi in sizable numbers? The latter is far more likely, particularly considering the relative isolation of the majority of the Choctaw up until the last few decades. Some in the community have reconciled these two perceptions of time, reevaluating prophecy as something that generally does not happen overnight. Carmen Denson, for example, remembers hearing that the seasons would switch all at once.17 What he has seen with threats of global warming and polar glacial melt (with subsequent refreezing), however, is a slower change. The prophecy, he believes, will be ful¤lled slowly. Bobby Joe was told by his father and grandfather all along that change happens step by step, and those steps are marked by prophecy. Bobby’s elders

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had already reconciled the contradiction and argued for a slow and steady shift toward each event, culminating in the destruction of the world. But Bobby Joe is the exception. The illusion of prophecy is that events happen overnight. The reality is that they take time. With ful¤lled and unful¤lled prophecies, there is enough distance between narration of the prophecy and actual ful¤llment to allow narrators to maintain both visions of time. Prophecy intrudes upon daily life with the promise and portent of sudden change. It transforms the past into the present. It accounts for change. With ongoing prophecy, however, there is no room for an illusion of instantaneous change. Ongoing prophecy and contemporary commentary on life blend into one. Both describe states of affairs that are slowly emerging. Returning to ¤gure 6, we note that the ongoing prophecies are all framed as incrementally increasing: more, younger, higher. The recognition is that change takes time. Accommodation for this view of time is necessary with ongoing prophecy since it most closely combines the virtual world of prophecy with the real world of contemporary life. Narrators cannot depict instantaneous change when they are so clearly witnessing it slowly and steadily. But the kinds of prophecy noted as ongoing and the kinds as yet unful¤lled are less distinct than we might assume at ¤rst glance. A dramatic moment of lots of killings and death, for example, might be interpreted as war. A massive trend of intermarriage could be interpreted as the disappearance of the Choctaw, particularly since of¤cial tribal recognition demands a 50 percent blood quantum. Neat parallels cannot be made between all of ongoing and unful¤lled prophecy, but even a few suggest the similarity of these two categories. State-of-affairs prophecies and event prophecies appear to be similar impulses according to different perspectives about change. State-of-affairs prophecies are prophetic pictures of slow change, the change recognized experientially; event prophecies are pictures of instantaneous change, the change constructed in prophecy but never quite realized. Prophetic discourse is dominated by the latter but is ®exible enough to accommodate the former. What remains unresolved, however, is why the only prophecies that have been unquestionably and completely ful¤lled are technological ones, and, further, why there are no unful¤lled prophecies of new technology being told today, save one (and its ful¤llment is contested). There are no easy answers. When I have discussed this phenomenon with members in the community, all have listened politely but none have suggested any explanations or given any indication that such occurrence demanded particular attention. The question seems one asked only by outsiders, and answerable only by stepping outside the Choctaw community and worldview and operating within a more formally analytical frame.

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One might tentatively muddle through an explanation. Technological prophecies are fairly well bounded, even considering the lag between invention and wide dissemination. Unquestionable ful¤llment is easily established. Ongoing state-of-affairs prophecy, on the other hand, depicts slow ®ux, an unbounded ®ow of change that may be in the process of ful¤llment but never completely ful¤lled. Further, what little historical depth there is concerning Choctaw prophecy suggests that these prophecies may never be viewed as ful¤lled but rather adapted to continue to address the changing world. In 1979, John Hunter Thompson recounted a prophecy he heard growing up that the woods would be turning into farms (Thompson 1979). This prophecy was arguably ful¤lled even before John Hunter Thompson was born, though clearly woods were still being cleared for farmland during his lifetime. I have encountered no one today who still recounts this prophecy. Rather, there appear to be more modern prophecies that address more modern shifts. At least a generation younger than John Hunter Thompson, Billy Amos recounts a prophecy that depicts the opposite trend: the farm turning into woods. This prophecy charts the shift from farming to logging in Mississippi, where slash pine has been planted throughout the state as a quick-yield “crop.” Yet another generation younger, Sally Allen and Regina Shoemake both recount a prophecy that farmland would be replaced with new homes, again, something that can be seen happening today. Only this last prophecy is still commonly recounted throughout the community. The other two prophecies hold no contemporary resonance for people today. When these prophecies are remembered as people remember their past, they do exist as ful¤lled prophecy. But even here, Billy Amos, for example, recounts the shift from farmland to trees as ongoing and not ful¤lled. It can serve as support for completely unful¤lled prophecy by being clearly evident on the contemporary landscape, but it is not a bounded event that can or should be closed off by relegating it to past ful¤llment. But then, what about bounded events that have not been ful¤lled, like war, disease, and the Third Removal? For events like the Third Removal and the end of the world, ful¤llment would be hard to ignore. Presumably when these events occur, they will move swiftly into ful¤lled status. Arguably, this move will make no difference. If the Third Removal spells disaster for the Choctaw, then the group’s cultural forms will become moot. The end of the world is all the more conclusive on this point. But for events like war and disease, events that cycle through human experience with unfortunate regularity, it is possible that even as these prophecies are ful¤lled, they are maintained in the realm of unful¤lled in order to maintain utility. Once a prophecy is declared ful¤lled, it loses any ef¤cacy to comment on the world or to serve didactically. While it can serve to support the validity of the notion of prophecy and the

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wisdom of the elders, as technological prophecies do, it loses its far more powerful function of helping the individual interpret the world within a traditional framework. Evidence that people do maintain these prophecies comes from the process of interpretation that Louise Wilson and John Hunter Thompson engage in concerning a prophecy of a major disease coming to the Choctaw. Since the time John Hunter Thompson heard the prophecy as a child, the tribe has been hit hard with tuberculosis and diabetes. Since Louise Wilson heard the prophecy, AIDS has arrived. Any one of these diseases could have ful¤lled the prophecy, but neither John Hunter Thompson nor Louise Wilson has closed off the prophecy and relegated it to the past. Both suggest these diseases may indicate ful¤llment, but neither con¤rms it. As such, it remains far more useful as an unful¤lled prophecy than a ful¤lled one.18 Why there are no unful¤lled technological prophecies remains a mystery. One answer could be that with no more prophets, there are no more people able to make such predictions. Or perhaps it is because the mass media has so effectively taken over this role, with movies that depict time travel and human cloning and other such inventions, as Bobby Joe points out. In fact, he regards the media’s role as similar to that of prophecy, of looking into the future and imagining what might be lying in wait there. The skeptic could of course argue that prophecies of new inventions are not prophecies at all but rather have been created after the fact. New technology prophecies, then, do not move from unful¤lled to ful¤lled but begin as ful¤lled prophecy. Historical events among the Choctaw can explain how this might have happened. As early as the second half of the nineteenth century, children were being sent to boarding schools for education. For most, this was the ¤rst time they had left their rural homes. At the schools, or during the journey to them, they would have encountered the inventions of the day: cars, electricity, running water. Such marvels were in active use in cities but had yet to make their way to rural areas such as where the Choctaw lived. A survey conducted in 1956 revealed that only 19 percent of Choctaw homes in Conehatta had electricity, 3 percent had televisions, and 46 percent had cars. A more comprehensive study in 1962 suggested this number was in®ated when considering the entire tribe and that only 32 percent of families had cars (Peterson 1970:22). Yet another study in 1969 found only 15 percent of families had running water (Peterson 1975:183 citing Harris 1970:10). It is possible that the wisdom of the elders derived from their early experiences off the reservation. Predictions that one day the Choctaws would have these amenities are hardly mysterious. If this is the case, the lack of unful¤lled prophecies of new inventions today can be explained by the mass media and the instant access to the broader world; few Choctaw homes lack a television set. If we follow this skeptical view just a bit further, we then need to ask why

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these prophecies would be performed as prophecy of invention rather than prophecy of arrival. Jarold Ramsey offers one possibility that calls into question all prophecy. Referring to a number of prophetic texts recorded among tribes in the western half of the United States, Ramsey argues that without denying the possibility of authentic prophecy (by which most Indian groups set great store), I think that these texts poignantly suggest that during the contact era, Western Indians tried to assert the traditional continuity of their disrupted and disordered lives by retroactively ¤xing upon or inventing prophecies, set in past times, of present calamities. . . . For people suffering experiences that in traditional terms were literally “unthinkable,” there was some consolation and reassurance in believing that at least it had all been anticipated in traditional Native terms long before. (1999:195, 196) Ramsey himself notes the parallels between this explanation and those developed to explain the Melanesian cargo cults. It is the same general explanation that Anthony F. C. Wallace takes in his explanation of the rise in American Indian prophetic movements during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (1956).19 This line of questioning quickly draws the entire enterprise of prophecy into doubt. These are the questions of the outsider. While such a scenario is possible, it is not one considered by members of the community. Choctaw speakers ask many questions of prophecy, including “How did they know?” But the answer is never “because they have seen them already.” VA LIDAT ING U NFU LFILLED PROPHECY In performance, people generally tell ful¤lled, unful¤lled, and ongoing prophecies together. These types have already been discussed as fairly ®uid, but they are transformed to an even greater extent when compared, linked, and juxtaposed in performance. Such performance events indicate important functions of prophecy missed when only the individual performance is addressed. One of the most important, perhaps, is the tendency to interpret one prophecy with another, a topic addressed in chapter 3. Equally important and particularly pertinent to our discussion so far is the ability to validate unful¤lled prophecy. Returning to the interview in which Billy Amos performed the ful¤lled prophecies of electricity, indoor plumbing, television, and VCRs, we ¤nd a larger speech event. While his performance is bounded and can be studied as such, he does not stop discussing prophecy after providing the closing coda:

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“and those things has come up.” Rather, he shifts to a different type of prophecy: “And the social dances is going to fade away,” she said, “someday.” These are dancing on the weekend, Saturday night, they dance all night long in the ball ¤eld. But they think it’s going to be disappeared if they don’t watch it. So is the house dancing. And today, that’s where we at now, if we don’t watch it. So many things has changed. Only time we have our social dances is go out at some schools and performing, or Choctaw fair. Stickball game, you see that. But that’s the only time. The rest of ’em, when the fair is over, they done forgot about it. Then the next year time, will be month of time, and here they’re trying practicing dancing or stickball. But at least we still got culture, a little. Some other state, I don’t think they have their culture. The shift from ful¤lled prophecy to unful¤lled and ongoing prophecy is a common one, suggesting another function for ful¤lled prophecy beyond the exploration of the past. By establishing the fact that the elders did in fact know about the future through the performance of ful¤lled prophecy, narrators are able to move to unful¤lled prophecy where such con¤rmation is less easily established. Billy Amos makes the shift without drawing attention to his method. Others are far more explicit. Sally Allen, Judy Billie, and Regina Shoemake were discussing some of the prophecies they heard, including one about a third removal, another trail of tears that would be coming to the Choctaw. Regina Shoemake remembers when she ¤rst heard the prophecy: I was thinking that “Oh, I wonder what they are talking about,” and stuff like that. And then when they start talking about this trail of tears again, he said——“I wonder how come they would know, way ahead.” But then they also talk about these highways that, I didn’t know what they were talking about, but they used to call it black top road. And all these road that we’re seeing, dirt roads going to be turning into black top. But, that did come about. So I knew what they were talking about. So, when I think about that, I’m kind of afraid of the Third. ’Cause they did predict that. Regina Shoemake reverses the process. She and the others had begun with the unful¤lled prophecy and so when Regina raises the question about the

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veracity of it, she backtracks a bit and recounts ful¤lled prophecies that have come true. “So when I think about that,” she says, noting these prophecies that have borne true, “I’m kind of afraid of the Third.” So while the performance of ful¤lled prophecy can function to ful¤ll the obligation of passing along the talk of the elders, as well as to allow the narrator to relive his past and explore the changes that have occurred during his lifetime, it can also function to validate the knowledge of the elders, particularly in preparing the audience for prophecies that have not yet been ful¤lled.20 This function of validating the elders runs throughout prophecy. Billy Amos comments that the elders did not even have formal education, and yet they knew more than we know now. Others humble themselves to build up the elders by noting how ignorant they were when they were kids. When Grady John moves into the past to re-create the times he heard these prophecies as a kid, he notes that he thought his grandfather did not know what he was talking about. On one level, prophecy functions to give the respect due the elders of the past. More speci¤cally, it paves the way for unful¤lled prophecy to be believed.

3 Interpreting Prophecy

All communication demands interpretation, from the casual hello on the street to an epic ballad sung in a Serbian coffeehouse. Sometimes interpretation is facilitated with relatively unambiguous texts; other times it is made dif¤cult, whether unintentionally or not, by speakers who strive to raise questions and engage in debate rather than declare a particular view. Sometimes listeners are expected only to enjoy the text for its own sake; other times they are asked to move outside the text to wider contexts in order to understand the world. But no text is ever completely unambiguous. And no text is so self-contained that it does not make connections to other texts and contexts; if it were, it would hold no meaning at all. Generally speaking, prophecy is fairly demanding with regard to interpretation. As a description of a future event that no one has actually seen, prophecy invites ambiguity. As a description of a future event in the linear chronology of human life, prophecy inevitably requires correlation to the lived world, to contexts that extend beyond the text itself. The kind of prophecy being interpreted dictates the questions people ask. For those prophecies that have already been ful¤lled—predictions of airplanes and cars and roads—interpretation of what the prophecy is describing and when it will occur has been borne out by time. Most often, interpretation shifts from the individual prophecy to the enterprise of prophecy. People wonder how the elders knew such things but demand little more of the prophecy itself. The main exception is the why of prophecy. Often the bene¤ts of the prophecy—indoor plumbing, for example—are obvious and require little discussion. But as we will see, when narrators interpret ful¤lled prophecy in the context of unful¤lled prophecy, questions of the larger implications of ful¤llment become particularly pertinent. It is here with unful¤lled prophecy that the demand for interpretation is greatest. With unful¤lled prophecy, such basic information is not known about speci¤c prophecies, and the questions are therefore more extensive and varied. Unful¤lled prophecy is troubling, its nature unknown. Unful¤lled

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prophecies are obligations. Some choose to ignore this obligation, rendering prophecy in the community a rarer and rarer oral tradition. But for others, the onus laid upon them from their parents, grandparents, and a line of elders before them is too heavy to ignore. As talk of the elders, prophecy is important to pass on, regardless of topic. But as predictions of the future that will likely affect their lives, prophecy is important to understand not just bequeath, to interpret not just accept. INTERPR ET ING PROPHECY W ITH PROPHECY One way in which Choctaw narrators attempt to decipher prophecy is to view all prophecies as part of a single, coherent whole, where one prophecy illuminates another. Accordingly, the corpus of prophetic narratives acts as context for the individual one. The same is true of most narrative corpuses. Understanding a single trickster tale, for example, demands acquaintance with a number of trickster tales. Coyote would hardly be so funny masquerading as the demure virgin daughter of a village chief if we weren’t already familiar with his outrageous sexual exploits in other stories. However, Choctaw narrators of prophecy frequently search for a more explicit connection between stories by sequencing various prophecies in a cumulative history of the future. The ful¤llment of one prophecy may signal, even cause, ful¤llment of another.1 When individual prophecies are drawn into dialogue in this way, the repercussions for interpretation can be massive, both on the level of the individual prophecy and on the broader level of the tradition of prophecy in the community. Some narrators remember and reconstruct such sequences as they heard them from their elders. Bobby Joe, for example, remembers his father and grandfather telling him that certain things would happen, all leading up to the end of the world. Bobby maintains this structure in his own account in constructing a linear sequence of the various prophecies he heard. Yeah, talk about this future, you know. It’s going to be, sounds like it’s going to be just kind of like be continuing what I was talking about you know. What my father always tell me, even my grandpa, and all that, and they was saying, like I said, we don’t know when the year 2000 going to be here. And I never thought about that year, you know?2 They said, like all this factories was going to go out. He said that’s when you’re going to know that something’s going to come to the future. There’s lot of things going to happen once you see it. And my father said even though you’re living after I die, after so many years after, you’re going to learn some more, what we’ve been telling you, they said.

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He said in years come, if you realized everything, they’re watching it, they said it’s going to be step by step. Now you’re going to know something. Then you be thinking, well, this time, it’s time’s coming. That’s what you going to be think, that’s what he said. And he told me, said, even though you’ll want to plant a little garden somewhere in the back of your house, somewhere, keep watching it. Said, the things you planted, it’s not hardly going to grow anymore. You ain’t hardly going to make corn anymore. You ain’t hardly going to get rain anymore, and put that water in that plant. And, someday, you’re going to learn some more. If you plant it, it maybe won’t nothing won’t come up anymore. He say then you be know when the time is getting close. Said, that’s the future’s going to coming. He said that’s how we know what’s going to happen. He said even you see something in the sky, you ain’t never see it before. But yet, you’re going to see lot of stuff in the sky. It’s going to be ®ying all over. “You may have something better than the TV we got now,” he said. They going to tell you lot, everyday. Say, “You’re going to like, knowing everybody around you, [?] area, the people you know, telling you something everyday. It’s going to be just like that. You’re going to be know everything what’s going on in the world.” What he was talking about was this satellite and TV—tells you all kind of news, and whatever little pieces that happen somewhere, just like in, earthquake is happening in California, and within ¤ve minutes you’ll be listening to that TV and it tells you. That’s what he was talking about. And talking about a lot of things, ®ying around in the sky, he was talking about airplanes. “Even,” he said, “even we going to have spider web all over the country.” Said spider web’s going to cover us. I didn’t know spider webs, what he was going to be talking about. I thought he was talking about everywhere you go, spider webs everywhere, you know. You know what the spider web was? [I shake my head no.] This electricity wire. That’s what he was talking about. [long pause] And they said you’re going to know something little bit more, and you’re going to learn some in the future. They said . . . The tape runs out. Bobby pauses as I ®ip it, and resumes speaking after I nod to him that we are taping again. Yeah, that’s the way you’re going to know the end of the world is coming soon. He said if you live to see it. If you don’t, your kids going

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to see it. And it’s coming. Even though, you know, foods we eat is poison. Like we was talking about earlier, you know.3 And things, something, you see it in the wooded area, it’s not going to grow anymore. So this wild apples or plums and stuff, they don’t grow anymore.4 Everything what they says, taking it step by step. And I know it, I know why my father used to tell me about it. That’s what it happened now today. It is all going to happen step by step. All of these inventions, all of these changes, they all feed into a linear progression of the future that culminates in the end of the world. But this progression varies with different types of relationships that link the prophecies together. Television, electric wires, and satellite technology indicate that the end of the world is coming. Bobby Joe does not suggest that these inventions will cause it or even that they are part of a recognizable trend that would naturally lead to such wholesale destruction. The only relation between the two is sequential. Such indicators are the most tenuous and least speci¤c connectors between prophecies. However, they illustrate the impulse by narrators to draw the corpus of prophecy into a meaningful set and, ultimately, into a coherent vision of the future. That future is constructed even more coherently when speakers interpret the ful¤llment of one prophecy as facilitating another. Regina Shoemake and Sally Allen recount how paved roads would facilitate the invasion of enemy forces. Regina: They were predicting there would be paved road. And once all these paved roads come about, that they were going to use these roads for war. Sally: Yeah. It’ll be easier—— Regina: Yeah. Sally: ——for the enemy to come in. Regina: Come in and use the roads for war, was the prediction long ago. Ful¤llment of the prophecy of paved roads does not merely indicate ful¤llment of the prophecy of a great war, it facilitates it. The prophecy of war cannot successfully be ful¤lled without the prior ful¤llment of the prophecy of paved roads. The ¤rst sets the stage for the possibility of the second. The same is true for prophecies of new homes being built and the coming of war. Cutting down trees to make room for the houses has made the Choctaw sitting ducks for aerial bombing raids (Sally Allen 1997). The ¤rst facilitates the second without speci¤cally causing it. This synthesis of prophecies is remarkable for more than its illustration of

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the impulse to link prophecy sequentially. In the previous chapter, we examined Sally Allen’s account of the prophecy of the coming of cars and roads as a feat of technology. Similarly, Billy Amos remembered hopeful prophecies of electricity, indoor plumbing, and television. Told by themselves, these prophecies were optimistic, describing technology that will make life much easier on a daily basis. By recounting the prophecy of new roads within the larger prophecy of impending war, however, the prophecy of roads takes on a dramatically different meaning with a negative connotation rather than a positive one. Instead of something to look forward to, something that Sally Allen noted earlier would mean no more getting stuck in muddy ruts after hard rains, the paved roads are equated with an implicit invitation to an enemy to invade Choctaw land and homes. As Sally implicitly suggests, prophecy need not be interpreted one way or the other but rather can operate simultaneously as something good and bad, with all the ambiguity of any major change or event. Prophecies that facilitate other prophecies can be dif¤cult to distinguish from those that cause other prophecies. In fact, Sally and Regina seem to suggest roads may actually set the war in motion, not just set the stage. Regina repeats the words of her elders, saying, “And once all these paved roads come about, that they were going to use these roads for war.” The war would seem to follow directly from the completion of the roads. Such an interpretation makes the negative connotation of paved roads even stronger, even if explicit causation remains vague. More clearly causational is the relationship Sally Allen interprets between the prophecy that there would be more intermarriage and the prophecy that the Choctaw would once again be removed from their land. Sally: And what she [Regina Shoemake] said about Choctaws not having any house, any land to call their own——because, interracial marriages. Now. Like, you know, where I’m living, there’s, you know, a Choctaw lady married to a non-Indian. You know. So those kind of things. But I think that’s protected, I don’t know, I’m not sure, whether the tribe, the councilman, said that non-Indian could not live, unless they get passed through the council personnel, or something like that. Tom: Even if they marry. Sally: Yeah. I don’t know much about that, but you know. But that’s what they used to say, too. And, like Choctaws will be dying out because of that interracial marriages. Tom: Right. The blood will be diluted.

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Sally: That’s the way I understand. And you guys we’re calling it removal, I was thinking——because I’ve never heard of it, but I guess all that combines inward, I don’t know. Sally Allen sums it up nicely: “all that combines inward.” There is an internal logic to the prophecies that have been handed down through the years. Some connections may be hidden, some prophecies may seem to be isolated predictions, but narrators have found enough coherence to continue to struggle to make sense of them all. There is one other major connection that narrators make between prophecies, where one prophecy is a symptom of another. Bobby Joe heard that eventually people will not be able to plant crops, that rain will not come and plants will not grow. When this happens, he says, “then you be know when the time is getting close.” That time is, he explains, the end of the world. Crop failure is a sign that the end of the world is coming. But the connection between the sign and the predicted event is unclear. Louise Wilson, however, remembers hearing a similar prophecy that suggests a symptomatic relationship between the infertile land and the end of the world: He said, “You see young people get white hair, now” he said. And I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “Well, it’s because the earth is getting older. This earth is not—” I can’t think of the word. “It’s getting old now and so it’s about to break loose” is what he was saying. I don’t know what he meant by that, whether it was going to blow up or whether or not——and you know, as I got older, I see these predictions that Jeanne Dixon—is it Jeanne Dixon? Yes. That Jeanne Dixon said about California going under the water and things like that. Well that’s exactly what he was saying back then. He didn’t say California, though, but he said this land that we’re living on is going to go back under water eventually, he said. He said “Might not be in the Bible,” he said, “but I know that’s what’s going to happen.” And he said, “If people don’t take care of the land like it is, you know were not going to have that much food” and all of that. And he said, “That part might be in the Bible, but——.” I was thinking “No, that’s plenty of food. You know, right there in the garden we got plenty of food, as long as you got a garden.” But now, yeah, you see, in Ethiopia and all these other places, it’s so dry that they don’t have no food and things like that. And even here in America there’s a lot of families that don’t have much food, because they’re living on the street or homeless or things like

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that. So now I see what he was talking about. But maybe he meant that if we don’t continue to till the land and keep our garden growing, that we won’t have no food. But then you see where a lot of farmers have to, they lose their land because they couldn’t come up with the payments every year. When they farm, they lose money more than make money. And what are the farmers going to do? We’re not going to have any more farmers, maybe that’s what he was talking about. Eventually, all that’s going to be gone. I don’t know. But he did talk a lot about——grandma too, said, and she would say “You——” When my son was born the one that was hearing impaired, the one I was telling you about, it wasn’t until he was four or ¤ve years old and he had white hair, started to have white hair in his hair. And I asked grandma about that. And she said that’s one of the signs that this land is getting old. So you’ll ¤nd that there’s a lot of other young people who have white hair that this land is getting old. And she says, “Don’t pick it. Because if you pick it, you’re going to have a lot more in there. So I never picked it. But you can ¤nd——I’ve seen it even, some young kids, would have a lot of white hair. And she said back then, a lot of young people are not supposed to have white hair and things like that. But they’d be young and they’d have white hair. The focus of Louise’s discourse is leveled on the world getting old and eventually disappearing. She refers to the infertility of the land, just as Bobby Joe does. She also refers to children with white hair. Both are signs that the end of the world is near. But these are not mere indicators. Rather, they are symptoms of the ful¤llment of a larger prophecy, that the world will one day die out, maybe drop back into the ocean. This end is not yet upon us, but its gradual decline has begun. Evidence of it can be seen by the failing crops and kids’ white hair. Such symptoms are effects, and hence exhibit a causal relationship with the larger prophecy, though one that operates in reverse. In other words, the effect is what is viewed ¤rst, thereby allowing people to con¤rm the cause.5 Surveying these examples, it seems clear that this temporal coherence is partially inherent in the Choctaw prophecies that have been made and partially part of a human impulse to ¤nd coherence and pattern, to create narrative structure out of potentially unrelated events. The result is that Choctaw prophecy is constructed by narrators both as a coherent cultural phenomenon and as a coherent history of the future.

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But more interpretation is demanded. As a history of the future, prophecy must be not merely internally coherent but externally coherent as well. Interpreting prophecy with prophecy creates an interpretation that remains internally created and negotiated, distinct from the world that people inhabit. The result is a better understanding of the concept of prophecy but only marginally a better understanding of how the speci¤c prophecy relates to the contemporary world and, consequently, contemporary lives. Prophecy is hardly so insular. One of its fundamental functions is to direct people in this world, not construct alternate realities in a ¤ctional one. Prophecy demands that people reach beyond the virtual world of speech, of the prophecy embodied in words, and search for signs in the actual world of personal experience. While people often search for signs and interpret causes for how prophecy will come about by looking to other prophecies, the more fundamental, more common, and, ultimately, more important arena for such interpretation is not from within prophecy but from without. It is in looking to the contemporary landscape that speakers most effectively ful¤ll their obligation to interpret prophecy while enabling prophecy to ful¤ll its obligation to help interpret the world. .

INTERPR ET ING PROPHECY W ITH THE WOR LD In order to make a connection between prophecy and contemporary events, people symbolize. Prophecy is inherently symbolic in that it provides a verbal picture of the world. This picture can be metaphoric or literal but in either case is imbued with meaning that extends beyond its content. A prophecy that predicts a return to farming is not merely literal but symbolic of the value of this enterprise, a value that it is further implied has been lost.6 Academic discussions of symbolic power have often been conducted in ritual and festival studies. Events, acts, and images take on particular power as symbols when part of such events. A snake used in a ceremony is often regarded as a very different beast than a snake in one’s house. The frame of the event makes the symbol recognizable and meaningful. Daily life, however, can be imbued with symbolic power as well, particularly within a community that is rich with belief but short on ritual. The Choctaw have few formally bounded ritual events. While they engage in secular ceremonies as in most American communities—graduation, festival pageants, award ceremonies, pep rallies—the Choctaw have relatively few sacred ceremonies and rituals that are shared communally.7 Most Choctaw readily admit, however, that the community has a strong tradition of superstitious belief. The term “superstition” is useful in conveying a sense of the supernatural but does not do justice to the elaborate belief system that underlies

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it. Harold Comby describes this system with a hypothetical example: “Let’s say we’re sitting here and that buffalo thing falls off [he points to a small carving of a buffalo on top of the television]. If it was in my mom’s house, they would look at it and say, ‘Hey. The spirits are here. They might be looking for somebody.’”9 Frequently the unusual event is an omen. After recounting a recent experience of having a bad odor transform inexplicably into the sweet smell of a baking cake in a matter of minutes, and then ¤nding out that a person she knew well died the very next day, one woman in Pearl River noted, “They say that whenever something strange or out of the ordinary happens like that, it means something bad is going to happen.”10 For the Choctaw, a snake in the house can be highly symbolic indeed. Choctaw men and women are oriented to interpret events in the world symbolically. This orientation is integral to prophecy since prophecy demands that the world be viewed and interpreted as a series of symbolic events—signs linking the actual world with the virtual world, in the expectation that the two will eventually align as one and the same. The events of the actual world are constructed naturally, seemingly randomly, linearly, and are ultimately out of human control. The events of the virtual world are constructed socially and culturally, seemingly orderly, thematically, and are ultimately a human creation. The actual world exists only in the present; the virtual world depicts past, present, and future. Some would argue that the actual world does not exist at all. The world, to be experienced, must be interpreted. In order to interpret it, one must ¤t it within one’s cultural and cognitive system. Such a process unavoidably renders the actual, virtual by making it a human construct.11 While this is certainly true, it is equally true that “the world may not conform to the presuppositions by which some people talk about it” (Sahlins 1981:6). The world, as Marshall Sahlins notes, has its own relationships (1981:vii). The collision and negotiation of virtual worlds with the actual world underlies any thorough study of folklore. A common approach to interpreting folktales, for example, is to analyze the relationship between these worlds by asking how the story provides insight to the speaker and audience about their own lives, such as how morals are drawn and applied. While the discussion can be dialogic, with life aiding the interpretation of the story just as the story helps interpret life, the content of the story—its actors and acts—remains ¤gurative rather than literal. Interpretation occurs by extracting intangible beliefs and ideas from the narrative and applying them to the world and vice versa. No one expects an actual prince to show up at the doorstep with a glass slipper.

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Interaction between the virtual and the actual takes on more dramatic implications in ritual acts. In ritual, the symbolic act transforms the virtual into the actual. The Catholic priest recites a lengthy passage of Latin, and wine becomes blood. The Apache girl endures three days of initiation, and she becomes a woman. The kraftasgáld curses the ¤sherman, and the ¤sherman dies.12 Action in the symbolic space of the virtual world can effect change in the actual world. One of the major differences between these ritual acts and prophecy is this ability to effect change. The curse, for example, depicts virtual action that, in voicing it, makes it happen. In this way, virtual action causes actual action. In prophecy, however, there is no causal relationship between the virtual and the actual. The virtual act of prophecy is descriptive rather than proscriptive.13 In this way, where ritual employs consciously constructed symbolic interaction that stands for something else in the actual world, prophecy attempts more direct correlation of being an exact image of the actual world, a map of future events. As a construction in human language, prophecy does not avoid the arti¤ce of culture, and as Edmund Leach points out, even maps are symbols employing metaphor and metonym (1976:12, 51–52). Nonetheless, by purporting to describe rather than reconstitute or re-create the actual world, prophecy more closely parallels the historical rather than the ritual endeavor. Prophecy and history are temporal opposites of the same enterprise: explicit construction of a record of the events of the world in which we live. History can be contested, vehemently so. Different perspectives, different compilations of facts result in multiple versions of the past that can seem shockingly contradictory and yet equally valid. Prophecy results in as many if not more versions, but the problems are different. Meaning must still be created, but the building blocks are less stable. History draws upon that which has happened. Tangible evidence such as bones and buildings, photos and diaries, document this past and argue for its existence. These intrusions from the actual world may be no less open to interpretation than the intangible documents of oral tradition. History has working in its favor that ex post facto knowledge is an easily accepted and democratic epistemology. For the Choctaw, prescient knowledge is also an acceptable epistemology, but in being restricted to a small number of people, it demands validation. Depending on one’s religious orientation, the source of prophecy trumps anything history can provide; prophecy is, after all, the wisdom of the elders, the translation of the prophets, and the voice of the divine. The comparison between prophecy and history remains useful in its contrast. In describing the past, history does not demand that the story move back into reality. History, as Henry Glassie has pointed out, is “a story about the past, told in the present, and designed to be useful in constructing the

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future” (1999:6). Those who further subscribe to the adage “History repeats itself ” may expect to identify moments in the present that mirror moments in the past. Yet in neither schema is the individual striving to draw an exact parallel between that story and the present or the future. That is, no one expects history to repeat itself exactly. Yet this is exactly what people expect to happen with prophecy. With history, the general perception is that an event takes place in the actual world and, in being reconstructed in words, moves to the virtual world. With prophecy, on the other hand, the perception is that you begin in the virtual world of words (or images) and move toward the actual world. The result is that prophecy demands constant vigilance from its adherents. Ful¤llment in the actual world can happen any time, but always sometime soon. The interpretive goal for the Choctaw narrator and listener, then, is to determine what the actual action is, when it will occur, how it will occur, and occasionally why it will occur. Interpretation, therefore, is fundamentally the search for correlation between virtual and actual action.14 When these two worlds are brought together in the communicative act, both “risk” reevaluation and reinterpretation. By interpreting prophecy by comparing it to the world, people can in turn interpret the world by comparing it to prophecy. Eventually this dual process is enacted at the same time. However, because the cultural and cognitive systems people employ to view the world are fairly stable and act as a general resource for daily life, it is the process of interpreting prophecy that people engage in ¤rst.

Interpreting Prophecy through the Lens of the World Despite serving as a map of the future, prophecy is often vague. Why this is so is not easily answered. Scholars have often suggested that obscurity, ambiguity, and vagueness is intentional as it allows for multiple interpretations and a greater chance to ¤nd resonance in lived experience (for example, Kennard 1972:471–72). One of the major pitfalls of this interpretation is that the assumption of intentional vagueness undermines the validity of the enterprise. From the perspective of people who believe in prophecy, such an interpretation is nonsensical.15 For Choctaw speakers, the vagueness of prophecy is viewed far more as a hurdle than as an aid. In Choctaw prophecy, even the most basic questions may need answering, such as “What?” as in “What will be coming?” In the prophecy of the Third Removal, is it a physical removal? A spiritual removal? Is this a glorious trip to the promised land or another Trail of Tears? Coupled with the question of “What?” is invariably the question of “When?” The “when” of prophecy is inherently “soon”; all unful¤lled prophecy is on the brink of ful¤llment. In performing prophecy, and therefore in inter-

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preting it, however, the individual addresses just how soon by explicitly negotiating the point at which the virtual world and actual world will coincide. People examine the contemporary landscape for signs of ful¤llment. Such interpretation is often a wholly individualistic endeavor; some will see signs of imminent ful¤llment, others will not. Their assessment, however, has massive implications for how they view the prophecy. If the “when” is tomorrow or next week or even a year from now, the individual will almost unavoidably be directly and personally affected. Such interpretation acts as a “The End is Near” sign for its carrier, though with as many messages as there are prophecies. With personal involvement comes a whole new slate of questions: What is my role? How will it affect me? My family? Will this be a pleasant development or a terrible one? Should I be doing things to prepare? Can this be avoided? Interpretive Strategies Different prophecies demand different questions, as do different versions of these prophecies. Some versions include only a brief and vague mention of what will be coming while others are more detailed, with information about who is involved, what the outcome will be, and how it will affect the Choctaw. Also, different narrators may be interested in different questions. Harold Comby, for example, is particularly fascinated with how some of these prophecies will be enacted, while Estelline Tubby is most concerned with how these prophecies will affect her personally. Their performances of prophecy are constructed accordingly. No one conversation, no one interpretation, no one prophetic narrative can possibly address all of these questions at once. Further, interpretations shift with time, as new events occur and new thoughts and theories are applied, tested, and either discarded or adopted. It is an ongoing negotiation, one rarely comforting but always compelling. In order fully to understand the variety and complexity of this interpretive process, it is worth examining how three different narrators have addressed the prophecies they have heard. Annie Tubby recounts a prophecy about the youth dying in greater numbers. Her performance illustrates the most common approach to prophecy as she searches for a direct correlation between the events in the prophecy and the events of the contemporary world, negotiating what exactly the prophecy entails and when it will be ful¤lled. Harold Comby does not initially see direct signs of ful¤llment of the prophecy he heard of man-eating snakes and instead ¤nds analogous relationships in the world that help him decipher primarily how this prophecy might be ful¤lled. Estelline Tubby does both in interpreting the prophecy of the Third Removal; she sees signs of ful¤llment on the horizon, which serves to heighten her personal concerns with the speci¤cs of the prophecy. Further, by examining two perfor-

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mances of the same prophecy spaced a year apart, we see how new interpretive stimuli dramatically shape her discourse. In the wintertime, late at night after the work of the day was done, an old man used to come around to visit. He was well known in the community as a storyteller. Annie Tubby does not remember his name, but she vividly remembers those evenings when her relatives and neighbors would gather at one house or the next, build a ¤re, and huddle around to listen to the old man talk. He told the old tales—myths and legends about how it used to be. His stories engendered talk from others, as they added bits and pieces to the story, versions and stories they had heard when they were younger. Talk of the past inevitably led to comparisons to the present and projections into the future. “We discussed the old and new ways of life,” she remembers. “The old man said repeatedly that new ways will eventually develop or would come.” I remember the old man saying that the time of death for the young people will be at a very young age. It will acquire many new things which we didn’t. I can see things as he foretold. Our young people are killed in automobile accidents which decreases our population. We were promised better times, but it’s still a long struggle for us. Most of us still occupy crude homes with a garden to provide food on our tables. Some of the things are beginning to be seen in our eyes. But like I said, with time, there will be more changes.16 Annie Tubby frames the performance in the past but focuses on where unful¤lled prophecy demands attention: the present and the future. The prophecy that people will be dying young is in the process of being ful¤lled. She sees young people dying in car accidents and sees a direct parallel between these deaths and the deadly prediction. The prophecy is not necessarily completely ful¤lled since this trend may continue to get worse. Drawing connections between the virtual world of prophecy and the actual world of contemporary life is easiest when the prophecy depicts events that are understandable with current knowledge and are apparent in today’s world, such as gradual changes in the state of daily affairs. Murder, rising grocery prices, interracial marriage, and unwed girls having babies demand no inter-

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pretation of “What?” In order to make a connection between prophecy and the world, the speaker need only provide instances of having seen such events occurring. The process of identifying signs of ful¤llment in the world is itself an act of prophetic interpretation. In this way, interpretation provides evidence for ful¤llment. The problems of interpretation become more dif¤cult when dealing with prophecy that has no overt signs of ful¤llment on the contemporary landscape that can be matched to the prophecy. Here the person must make a more tenuous connection between prophecy and the world. Rather than a comprehensive parallel where more murder = more murder, parallels can be made based on one or more similar features but with at least one distinct difference. Accordingly, interpretation need not suggest ful¤llment. Those parallels can be summarized into four categories: 1. Spatial—a similar event happened elsewhere, it could happen here. Example: Boa constrictors have been found in Florida; they may soon be found here, ful¤lling the prophecy of the coming of man-eating snakes. 2. Temporal—a similar event happened in the past, it could happen again. Example: In®uenza wiped out a quarter of the Choctaw population in the past; the disease prophesied as coming soon may do the same. 3. Thematic—similar traits are identi¤ed in two disparate items. The similarity suggests a common category, with common interpretative implications. Example: The coming of a huge war evokes Armageddon, suggesting the prophecy of war could mean the end of the world. 4. Analogous—similar relationships are identi¤ed between distinct elements. Example: More poisonous ant is to biting humans as more dangerous snake is to eating humans.17 All of these parallels operate on the semantic level, particularly that of signi¤cation, where categories are created based on similar traits. Sometimes those traits are shared in great number, as between two deadly diseases. Other times, only certain traits, presumably primary ones, are shared by both, as with poisonous ants and man-eating snakes. The power of bringing these disparate items together in analysis on the semantic level is that the connotations and interrelations of each may be brought to bear on the other, expanding the interpretive possibilities.18 Harold Comby engages in a number of such interpretations. Harold is at his desk when I poke my head through the door to his of¤ce at the police station. I have not seen him since my last visit almost a year ago. As usual, he invites me to sit, and we spend a while catching up. Life is rarely

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dull for Harold. As captain of police for the tribe, Harold remains busy. But our conversations rarely delve into such matters; instead we focus on our shared interest in Choctaw culture. Today he describes the trials of putting together the New Year’s Powwow and catches me up on the deaths in the community since I was there last. He asks me about my progress on my research, something he is intimately familiar with as one of my most frequent collaborators. I take notes as we talk, particularly since Harold frequently weaves his discourse with stories and a wealth of cultural data he has heard from his mother. Eventually, I broach the subject of prophecy.19 Tom: Do you remember any of the stories about what was going to be coming, in the future? Harold: My mom says—— I was talking to her the other day and one thing she told me was that there would be a snake, man-eating snake, that would be coming and would be eating people. That’s what she said. When I thought about that, I thought maybe it was a boa constrictor. Maybe someone would have it as a pet and then let it go in the swamps. I was thinking this because not too long ago I saw a program on television about somewhere in Florida where a herpetologist—I think that’s what they call it, people who study snakes—they found a boa under a house. They think someone had it as a pet and let it go. And also, she said water is supposed to bring the man-eating snake. It could be on a ship, in a crate. That can happen. I was at a seminar on entomology where they said that different insects come in the United States every day in crates on ships. It could be true because when I was little, ants would bite me but never bother me. But now, they bite and I get red bumps and it itches like crazy. Tom: And that was a seminar? Harold: Um-huh. In Hattiesburg. Tom: What were you doing at a seminar about bugs? Harold: Well, I’m one of three coroners for the tribe. We learned when a body decomposes, different insects come to the body. It can tell you how long that person’s been dead. Ole Miss is I think the only place in the United States where they test bodies in cars. They put a body in a car and let it decompose, and then check it to see what bugs come ¤rst. My mom told me this when we were talking about seeing big snakes in the swamps. One guy saw what he thought was a motorcycle tire and it turned out to be a water moccasin. And a guy in Conehatta, Greg Anderson, was telling me that there’s

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a pond behind his house and there’s a path there that looks like a snake made it. His grandpa used to tell him. A Series of Interpretations. Harold Comby’s discourse can be viewed in any of a number of ways, but the most obvious divisions can be drawn between four separate answers to the question of how this prophecy will be ful¤lled. Inherent in this interpretation are explicit attempts to answer “what” (“What kind of snakes?”) and “how” (“How will they get here?”), and an implicit attempt to answer “when” (“When will they get here?”). 1. Pet to Predator Harold Comby begins by drawing a direct parallel between the television report and the prophecy his mother told him in that both pertain to snakes. Unlike most deadly snakes, boa constrictors are not poisonous. They are, however, large enough to give a person pause as to whether they could kill a man. If they could and did, there is no doubt what they would do with their prey once squeezed. A water moccasin or rattlesnake, both Mississippi natives, may be able to kill a man with its bite, but it cannot eat him. Further, boa constrictors are no more native to Florida than to Mississippi. The boa under a house in Florida is clearly out of place, unnatural to its locale. A man-eating snake poses even more complex problems since it is not clear whether such a snake is natural or supernatural. If natural, then it too is out of place in Mississippi. If supernatural, perhaps less so, as Harold discusses later. In interpreting the prophecy via the news report, Harold is also drawing a spatial parallel between boas in Florida and the prophecy of man-eating snakes in Mississippi. If it could happen there, it could happen here. The parallel is explicit enough to suggest to Harold that the type of snake may even be the same. Such a conclusion is not insigni¤cant; understanding the “what” of unful¤lled prophecy is the most integral step in any interpretation. 2. Snakes in Crates At this point, Harold introduces another part of the prophecy and with it a new interpretation. Instead of the man-eating snake “arriving” thanks to a careless pet owner, it arrives from another country in a crate on a ship—a stowaway. The two are not complementary steps; as a stowaway, the snake could not logically make its way to being a pet and then a menace in the swamps, nor would it need to make this intermediary step. The parallel Harold draws here is thematic and spatial. If foreign insects can stow away on ships, why not foreign snakes? Inserting snakes here argues for substitutability, which requires that the two objects share at least one com-

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mon trait. In this case, the snake must be undetectable in a crate, as an insect is. Snakes, even large ones, are commonly perceived as being able to slither into tight spots. Further, for such an explanation even to be necessary, the appearance of the object must be noteworthy. Foreign bugs and boa constrictors are both out of place in Mississippi. The semantic category Harold establishes in making this analogy, therefore, demands that its members can get into and go unnoticed in a crate and are not native to Mississippi. The more extensive the list—that is, the more traits the two share—the stronger the parallel, and therefore the more useful it becomes in interpreting the phenomenon. Initially, the two seem to share only these two traits. However, Harold incorporates a third example, which demands a recon¤guration of this tentative set: “It could be true because when I was little, ants would bite me but never bother me. But now, they bite and I get red bumps and it itches like crazy.” Harold employs the example to suggest that the ants biting him now as an adult are different from the ones that bit him as a child, based on the fact that they sting worse than before. The ants’ recent appearance demands explanation, and Harold wonders whether they might have arrived like the insects discussed in the coroner’s meeting. In this way, Harold is providing more support for the stowaway hypothesis. But he is also suggesting another shared trait—harm to humans—challenging the initial semantic set he established. He does not appear to be suggesting that insects that help decompose dead matter also pose a threat to humans (though they do attack the human body). Instead of expanding the category, Harold is exploring various possibilities. His trajectory can be envisioned better as a hopscotch game, leaping from one related topic to the next, rather than a snowball careening downhill amassing more and more evidence around its core. Whether the idea is that foreign countries have more exotic and more deadly creatures, or whether displacement upsets the balance of nature, such as the uselessness of natural immunities on foreign contaminants, is unclear. Either way, the result is the same: animals from foreign lands are more dangerous than local counterparts. The transformation enacted in drawing this analogy is one of local and relatively harmless beasts to foreign and potentially deadly ones. While ants and boas can be thought of in a shared category, substitutable for one another, the two also share an analogous relationship based on this transformation: benign ant is to poisonous ant as benign snake is to deadly snake. A is to B as C is to D. Although the parts also share traits (A:C and B:D), it is important to distinguish the analogous relationship between the ¤rst set and the second.20 For Harold Comby, the interpretation of prophecy is a dynamic and creative process that allows or perhaps requires him to explore similarities between

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seemingly dissimilar occurrences and objects. Harold begins with a prophecy and a dilemma: how will man-eating snakes appear here in Mississippi? He initially draws a comparison between such snakes and foreign insects. The reference to insects leads him to more potent ants, which in turn suggests an element of danger, which in turn rede¤nes the category and expands the interpretation of the initial prophecy. Semantic sets created in interpretation are often transitory and need not become a permanent ¤xture on the individual’s cognitive map. As Michael Lieber notes with metaphors created through riddling, semantic categories are created in performance but not necessarily maintained outside of it. The result is that while such analogies aid in interpreting the prophecy, they need not transform the prophecy, the referent, or the individual’s cognitive system.21 The analogies drawn and categories suggested are generally consonant with the larger cultural system (1976:262). Harold’s initial cognitive set linking snakes and ants as stowaways does in fact seem transitory, but his second set of foreign beasts being more potent and dangerous than local counterparts seems to correspond to a larger pattern of general distrust of things outside the community, including people. That such a category could also imply increased danger suggests an interesting elaboration, particularly when applied outside prophecy. Parallels of a general distrust of the foreign can be found throughout Choctaw discourse, from verbal art genres such as jokes to general discourse about contemporary life and events. Harold Comby is clearly constructing this set from and for the particular prophecy, but he may also be drawing upon this larger set. 3. Native Transformation At this point, Harold takes a distinctly different tack in discussing this prophecy. Harold recalls not only the prophecy that his mother told him but also her interpretation of it. Where Harold has interpreted the prophecy according to what it could be and how it could be ful¤lled, and primarily ¤nds parallels outside the local community to suggest an answer, his mother addresses the possibility that the prophecy is currently being ful¤lled, implicating the what and when, by ¤nding parallels much closer to home. The connections that Harold has drawn in order to interpret prophecy have been spatially and thematically parallel as well as analogous, but not parallel in every respect. Until direct evidence can be drawn from the local landscape, ful¤llment remains close but unattained. Harold’s mother, however, is suggesting a new transformation, without speci¤cally addressing how: that water moccasins could just be getting bigger and turning into maneating snakes on their own. The “what” is something she is already familiar

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with: water moccasins. Though it is not normal for a snake to grow to a size that it could ingest a man, the notion of this happening is easier to accept when snakes as fat as tires are currently being seen. The “when” is inherent in the stimulus and interpretation of the prophecy: coming soon, now, or already here, proven because large snakes have been sighted in her community, close to her home. Harold’s mother is interpreting the prophecy in the same way that Annie Tubby did, through direct correlation. Not only does such an approach require no analogy, it inherently meets the expectation of prophecy; interpretation parallels ful¤llment. 4. Legendary Precedent The shift that Harold made in recounting his mother’s interpretation has led him to ponder the possibility that man-eating snakes may already be here in Mississippi. Harold remembers that he has heard others provide evidence to this effect as well: “And a guy in Conehatta, Greg Anderson, was telling me that there’s a pond behind his house and there’s a path there that looks like a snake made it. His grandpa used to tell him.” This testament is, in kind, length, and speci¤city, similar to the story Harold’s mother relayed from one of her acquaintances. But this account is more than just another piece of evidence that such a snake is already here. Harold’s mother’s friend saw a large water moccasin in the swamp, just as Harold’s friend’s grandfather saw similar evidence. But where Harold’s mother’s friend is recounting contemporary evidence, Greg Anderson’s grandfather seems to be recounting something from the past. The hint is provided in the attribution Greg Anderson makes to his grandfather, which Harold repeats: “His grandpa used to tell him.” Such phrasing generally signals the verbal genre of the talk of the elders. Of these traditional stories, one in particular seems pertinent. It is a legend about a big snake that once lived in Conehatta, the community where Greg Anderson’s grandfather lived. Jef¤e Solomon, who has lived in Conehatta since she was born in 1919, is one of many who has heard and continues to tell the story of the big snake in Conehatta. Akma cokka itikba iláppak átokma okhata cito yóš talayyattók. Híhma okiyat tahákma akakát ola ka oklah hakloh, anoti alhípa cito kiya olat kanihiya ka okla hakloh, bíkattók miyah.

Well, in front of this house was a big pond. And at dusk they usually heard a rooster crowing, and they heard a drum beating, it was said.

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Makátoko okhata omat [pit billih] citóš. Talaya toka náhollot olah yanallicittók.

So then the pond way over there [she points outside] was very huge. The white people drained it.

Híhma oka mat tahah fokálihma sinti cito yóš ittola tokóš pit šalallih toko.

And when the water was almost gone, a big snake that had laid there slithered out.

Anoti kolokbi cito hóš báchaya miya ho, oklah ištánopoholi bikattók.

Then, it was said, there was a big ditch laid out there, they used to talk about.

Makáto oka mat táhahma, oka náholloši óš ittola tokmiya, oklah maka bíkattók.

So when the water was all gone, there lay an oka nahollo,22 they used to say.23

Reference to this legend opens up a number of other possibilities for interpretation of the prophecy of man-eating snakes. One is that a large snake has been in Mississippi for centuries and is still there, though presently dormant. Another is that it was there long ago and may come back to ful¤ll the prophecy. While Harold may only be supporting his mother’s interpretation that large snakes have already been seen, he has nonetheless suggested yet another epistemology for the interpretation of prophecy, one based on a system of knowledge rooted in the world of the supernatural and the stories of the past. The suggestion is not his own. Harold was not familiar with the legend. Yet the reference that Harold inadvertently passed on is nonetheless a valid interpretive process for prophecy. Such interpretation is, on the broadest level, thematic, but the link to the supernatural world suggests a deeper coherence with broader Choctaw culture. Further, because the supernatural is an accepted, if not always understood, part of the world, further questions of “how” and “why” generally become moot—unless, that is, the speaker intends to engage in debate about the supernatural, myth, and the talk of the elders. An ongoing process. Until prophecy is ful¤lled, people constantly renegotiate their interpretations as evidence from the contemporary world suggests new possibilities. However, interpreting the speci¤c prophecy is only the ¤rst goal of interpretation; the subsequent task is to interpret the world through that prophecy. The interpretive process, therefore, may begin as an exercise in running through as many possible explanations as possible but eventually

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demands prioritizing these explanations. Only in settling upon a dominant interpretation can a person move from employing the world to interpret prophecy to employing the prophecy to interpret the world. Two days after Harold and I talked casually in his of¤ce, I sat down with him again, this time with a tape recorder. One of the ¤rst things I asked him was to retell the prophecy of man-eating snakes that he had told me two days earlier. Well, one of the things that—— A lot of people have seen big snakes out in the swamps. So, I asked her about it one day, and she said there was a prophecy where there was going to be a man-eating snakes out in the swamps. And the way the snake was supposed to be brought in was by water. So, I sat down and maybe, what I thought was, maybe those snakes from South America or other places like boa constrictors or anacondas that are very big, you know, they would stow away on a ship and then come to port, and then exit by way of the crates and things like that. But she says there was one of the prophecies—that there would be man-eating snakes, in the swamps. Harold’s performance is noticeably different. It follows a more strictly chronological order: explanation of personal interest, stimulus for narration, complete prophetic core including arrival by water, interpretation, followed by summary coda. He has also omitted much of the explanation of his interpretive process as well as the competing interpretations he had explored the ¤rst time we talked. Gone is ful¤llment by pet release. Missing is any mention of inspiration and analogous reference. Many of the changes that Harold makes between his ¤rst narration and his second may be attributed to situational context, particularly the close temporal proximity between the two performances. It is possible, for example, that Harold is merely summarizing his account to avoid repetition from two days earlier. Yet whether this performance is honed or summarized, Harold has nonetheless favored one interpretation over the others, suggesting these narrations have been useful to him in working through various possibilities and narrowing to a single, or at least dominant, interpretation. Harold’s exploration of this prophecy is impressive in its thoroughness. By making a series of parallels and analogies, he is able to address questions not merely of “what” and “when” but of “how,” a question often ignored when Choctaw speakers interpret prophecy. His interpretations are drawn from speci¤c personal experiences—his role as coroner, his experience with ants, the

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television shows he has seen. However, when he incorporates his mother’s interpretation, he draws upon more clearly shared resources. Both the experiences of others and communally shared legends lead Harold from contemplation outside the community to contemplation within it. For both approaches, however, Harold addresses the interpretation of prophecy primarily as a cultural and intellectual pursuit. Harold does not seem to fear being eaten by a snake. Part of this may be attributed to Harold’s interests as a scholar of Choctaw culture, part to his extensive experiences off the reservation, and part to the nature of the speci¤c prophecy. Estelline Tubby approaches prophecy from a far more personal perspective. She, like Harold Comby, has spent a great deal of time trying to understand the prophecies she heard from her elders. She keeps a notebook in order to record and organize her thoughts. One prophecy in particular consumes much of this thought process, a prophecy that she fears will very directly involve her personally. It is the prophecy of the Third Removal. The Third Removal derives its name and refers explicitly to the ¤rst two removals of the Choctaw from Mississippi to Oklahoma. These removals were carried out by the U.S. government among most of the American Indian tribes east of the Mississippi River in order to make room for white settlers. The Choctaw were the ¤rst to be removed. Between 1830 and 1833, approximately fourteen thousand of the estimated twenty thousand Choctaws living in Mississippi were led from their homes to Oklahoma.24 This was the ¤rst removal. During these journeys, the Choctaw endured intense pain and suffering. Many died. It is not surprising that in conjunction with the removals of other Native American tribes of the Southeast, these removals became known as the Trail of Tears. Not all the Choctaw left, however. As part of the treaty, they could remain in Mississippi if they agreed to give up their tribal identity and become U.S. citizens. In return, they would receive 640 acres of land on which to farm and live. Once again, however, the government broke its promise, and most of the Choctaw who stayed in Mississippi never received this land. They were forced into hiding, scattering in the backwoods of Mississippi, and eked out a living sharecropping. In 1903 the U.S. government attempted to remove those Choctaw who had remained in Mississippi. Between 1903 and 1907, as many as 1,462 Choctaws left for Oklahoma (Roberts 1986:94). This was the second removal of the Choctaw. Estelline Tubby has been told that the Third Removal is imminent, perhaps only a generation or two away, and she recognizes that this was said

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a generation or so ago. Further, the signs that point to removal are already prominent on the landscape. There is no particular suggestion that a maneating snake will pose a widespread threat to all Choctaw, and Harold does not appear concerned that he will meet his demise by one. The Third Removal, however, will affect all Choctaw and will be a trial for them all. Estelline Tubby, therefore, cannot relegate her interpretation to questions of what will happen and how it will happen but is concerned deeply with what it will mean. I have sat down with Estelline Tubby to talk many times, sometimes with a tape recorder, sometimes not. On two occasions when I taped our talk, Estelline Tubby spoke at length about the Third Removal: once on May 31, 1996, and again on August 5, 1997. She narrated the most complete account of the prophecy the ¤rst time we spoke, in 1996, and it is there I will begin. We sit on the fringes of her living room, edged out by the morning star quilt spread and framed in the middle of the room. Our discussion starts there, with the quilt Estelline Tubby is working on, and then moves into the past, to her memories of the stories that she was told growing up. When my aunt came to live with us, well, she know a few of them [stories]. So, well, she teached us, but I didn’t, well—I was too young to listen I guess. Well, she tried, but during the night she tried to tell us but we’d go to sleep! And I didn’t listen to all of it, and I wish I had today. Tom: Do you remember what—the kinds of things she was telling you? Estelline: Yes. One thing was that our great-grandmother said that one day we will have a third removal. Here. And she told that, she said why it will be third removal is when Indians have good homes, electricity and all of these. And then one night— Well, but I believe that it might be the ending of a world, or ending of time. I kind of believe it must be that because she said that this will not be the removal by Washington or government or whatever. It will be removal by some person, in a long robes, will be coming at night and tell us

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that if we stay here we will suffer in days to come. So we need to be gathering up somewhere in North. And this will not be the Oklahoma or—or something like that. And then, the children—well, he’ll be—they’ll be talking to your children because they know more about the English and they understand. And the children, well—the older person would ask them, said: “What are they saying to you?” Said that: “Well if we stay here, we’re going to suffer.” And, “They want us to go. Tonight. Right now.” But they say: “Oh, we were born out here. We will not go. We will stay and suffer.” But the older boy will say: “Well, if it’s going to be suffering, I don’t want to suffer so I’m going.” And all we have to do is pick out a few clothes, and that’s all that we need. And everybody will say, “Well, if you go, we’ll go.” And from house to house, everybody will go. But few will be left, just few will be left, after all night— [visitor pulls up in driveway; brie®y interrupting narrative] Ahem, and what we was talking about was that removal. After whenever— I don’t know who is the person that will be here. And, they will be moving overnight. Just overnight. And then, someone will tell the—tell the agency that the Choctaws have moved. And they’ll send a word to Washington. And that’s when the Washington people ¤nd out.

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And a few of the representatives will come down and look at the houses. But they have been hearing—seeing and hearing about Choctaws making progress and this and that. But all in one night, they will be gone. Again. Tom: Now, that’ll be the third removal, right? Estelline: Third removal. To the North. Where the buffalo used to roam. That’s what they say. And I—well, I hope I don’t live to see it. [laugh] It’d be a lot of work getting up there, I guess. [laugh] Tom: Now the ¤rst two removals— There was the one to Oklahoma, and then, the one before that? To Mississippi?25 Estelline: One to, uh—two to Oklahoma. Because we lived in Mississippi. That’s when the removal was made. But this time, it will be a removal to some other— And I couldn’t believe it, because when everything is in progress like this, are we moving? [laugh] Tom: Yeah. And, and who—who told—who—? Estelline: My great-grandmother was the one that used to sit down and tell. They didn’t have—nobody wrote anything at that time. They just sit down and talk to their grandchildren what’s going to happen in the future. That’s what they used to do. And that’s why they told that story to— And, my mom heard about it so she repeat it over again. In recounting the prophecy of the Third Removal, Estelline Tubby is careful to distinguish between the prophetic core, in this case a well-developed narrative, and her own interpretation of what this removal means. Most narrators attempt the same, to maintain the integrity of the passed-on word but to adhere to the demand to interpret it, thereby unavoidably personalizing it. From the beginning, Estelline Tubby makes her interpretation of the Third Removal clear. Whether originally part of the prophetic core, or her grandmother’s interpretation, the belief that the Third Removal will be different from the ¤rst two removals is accepted as a valid part of the prophetic core by Estelline Tubby. She draws her interpretation accordingly. Yet there seems to be a gap in moving from the core to the interpretation. Nowhere in the core narrative that Estelline Tubby provides is there mention that the Third Removal equates to the ending of the world. She draws a causa-

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tional link to her great-grandmother’s words, but the connection to the core text seems tenuous. Her conclusion that it may be the end of the world hinges on either a negative relationship with the removals by Washington or the existence of a person in long robes coming at night to tell them to move. The ¤rst explanation is possible (removal by Washington = not the end of the world, so removal not by Washington = the end of the world) if not particularly plausible. The second explanation is far more enlightening. Those as familiar with the Bible as Estelline Tubby is, having been raised Baptist, will recognize two possible allusions from the noted passage above: one to Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt to the promised land in the Book of Exodus, the other to the second coming of Jesus Christ in the Book of Revelations. Both depict removal, one as historical precedent, one as unful¤lled prophecy. While Moses’ Exodus may suggest a metaphoric ending of the world, only the Second Coming suggests a literal one, which is how Estelline interprets the Third Removal.26 And yet, the biblical story with which she interprets the Third Removal is the former rather than the latter, with good reason, as she soon makes clear. After ¤nishing the prophetic narrative her great-grandmother told her aunt, who told her, we moved on to other subjects, led by my questions about her great-grandmother. We spoke of Choctaw doctors and medicine women and of the spirits that inhabit the nearby woods. After ¤fteen minutes of such discussion, there was a slight lull in the conversation. Estelline Tubby had wrapped up one topic and looked as if she had something to say. I waited. But, ahem, anyway. I was talking about that, uh, removal. Well, I was writing about it. One day I thought I’d write about it. And no one was here and I went writing about it. And I was thinking: Well we—I guess we’ll be hungry when we go. And there’s nothing else we—if we take our clothes, we still going to suffer, look like. And I keep thinking about it. And then there was a voice talking to me and said that: “You read Moses and my people in the wilderness, how they survived.” And so I went to the Bible and read the Scripture all the way down to it. And it said that the people that Moses took to that wilderness, these people said:

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“Well you come—you bring us here, out to suffer and die. And you said we were God’s people. But you didn’t tell us we going to suffer this much. We are really getting hungry.” And then, Moses said: “Well, tomorrow you will be fed.” But they couldn’t believe it. They got on to Moses about it. They—they didn’t have anything to do. I guess in the wilderness you just go there and stay. So ¤nally, in the morning, it rained. And, it was the manna, that came down and fed these people. And that—that came into my mind while I was thinking about it. And there was something that they kill and eat and all of that. And I was thinking—maybe—the thing that came into my mind, at that time, was the spiritual walk. It was not just the removal like the other ones. And maybe that’s why the Lord, telling me what they gonna do. Maybe it was a spiritual walk and we’ll be leaving. So I always think . . . [Here the tape runs out. I quickly ®ip it over and continue taping.] Tom: . . . then, for when this would happen? Just sometime in the future? Is that right? Estelline: Sometime in the future. So that’s the good story that I got it from my mother that my grandmother told. She died when she was hundred and four. So she told my mother some of the things. So she remembered and told me about it. While anyone who recounts prophecy is obligated to attempt to interpret it, at least in the most cursory of ways, only those people for whom prophecy plays a vital role in how they view the world actively seek out explanations for it. Harold Comby is one of those people; Estelline Tubby is another. Both actively engage in thinking about these prophecies. Harold recounts sitting down and thinking about how man-eating snakes could come to Mississippi. Interpretation is not an easy task, particularly for unful¤lled prophecy. Active engagement is necessary to move beyond the basic questions and to address those nagging ones that pose more perplexing problems. And so Estelline Tubby sits down and begins writing about it, writing and thinking. She is plagued by the fact that no matter how she imagines and interprets the Third Removal, there will be suffering for all. Whether you

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choose to stay or go, you will suffer. And yet, such an interpretation seems to contradict both her great-grandmother and the prophecy itself. Her greatgrandmother said that this would not be like the other two removals, a vague statement that may or may not apply to the suffering involved in the ¤rst two removals, but potentially does. If so, suffering will not be a condition of the event for those who leave. The prophecy itself is clearer, actually depicting suffering only for those who stay, not those who leave. This is a powerful message, considering that the prophecy is told among a group of people who stayed during the ¤rst two removals. The admonition of the prophecy is that the actions of the past will not hold for the future. You must go when it is time. But Estelline Tubby cannot fathom how people will not suffer if they leave. Leaving one’s home and possessions and setting out on foot for destinations unknown can only bring hardship. Despite the claims of her greatgrandmother and the prophecy itself, Estelline Tubby is unassured. This concern is not merely intellectual, a pondering of the logic of the prophecy. Estelline Tubby is concerned with this suffering for far more personal reasons; she is afraid that she may have to go on this removal herself. Accordingly, if there is suffering, she will suffer: not the hypothetical Choctaw of the future, but she herself. But in the process of writing, thinking, and struggling to make sense of this prophecy, she hears a voice telling her to read the Bible, in particular, the story about Moses leading his people out of Egypt to the promised land. The parallel is striking. Both Choctaw prophecy and the biblical tale depict a man in ®owing robes who will lead the people from their homes to another land. The fear of suffering that Estelline has about going on this removal is addressed in the Moses story. People did not suffer, as God sent down manna from the heavens to feed them. Perhaps something similar will happen for the Choctaw. Estelline is engaged in a process very similar to the one Harold follows in addressing the prophecy of man-eating snakes. Both Harold and Estelline ¤nd parallels in character and theme in a historic event, which further provides spatial and temporal support for their interpretations. However, where Harold moves from insects to boas to ants, rede¤ning his cognitive categories as he moves, Estelline Tubby moves intertextually, between sets more clearly and permanently de¤ned. The set of things that come overseas hidden in crates that can harm humans is a transitory category created in the moment of interpretation. It has no particular history, precedent, or concrete form. The Bible, on the other hand, is both concrete and extensive in its reference capabilities, and carries with it potent symbolic power. Once Estelline Tubby makes the connection between the prophecy and the Bible, the two become

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linked beyond the speci¤c parallel; the entire text becomes a reference for interpretation. Moses’ Exodus from Egypt was a spiritual walk, a removal from a place of persecution to a paradise of milk and honey. The Third Removal, she therefore surmises, will also be a spiritual walk. In some ways, it must if God is to provide them food on their walk as she hopes. Further, the prophecy becomes imbued with the spiritual nature of the biblical removal. Estelline begins with a prophecy with no hint of moral or religious overtones, interprets it via the Bible, and in the process imbues it with spiritual connotations. Further, it is not only this particular passage that Estelline mines for meaning to apply to the prophecy but the entire text of the Bible. This becomes clear when we return to the “gap” we noted earlier, between the prophecy of the Third Removal and Estelline’s interpretation that it signaled the end of the world, an interpretation she explicitly reiterates was not part of the original prophecy. While Moses’ Exodus helps explain how the Choctaw may avoid suffering during their removal, it does not explain how Estelline surmised the removal signaled the end of the world. The biblical Exodus was a dramatic moment in biblical history, but it was not the end of the world. That parallel is found elsewhere in the Bible; speci¤cally in the Book of Revelations, where it is prophesied that Jesus Christ will return to earth when the end of the world is upon us. Both the notion of removal and the image of a man in robes also ¤nd parallels in the Second Coming. The connection Estelline initially established between the prophecy and the Bible to address her concern of suffering has proved more expansive than the speci¤c story of Moses that she began with, and instead has brought the entire Bible to bear on the meaning of the Third Removal. She imbues this prophecy with the religious import of the Bible as well as draws a parallel to the story paired with Moses’ Exodus—the Second Coming. The two form a structural pair in the Bible—one historic, one prophetic. In bringing one story to bear upon the Third Removal, she brings the other as well. The result is that what began as an interpretive strategy based on speci¤c parallels in content has blossomed into a strategy that invites more nuanced layers of meaning to be transferred and applied. And so, Estelline Tubby believes that the Third Removal may be the end of the world, an interpretation massive in its implications, particularly considering, as she notes repeatedly, that the prophetic core suggests no such thing. Sources for interpretation. Throughout these attempts to draw connections between word and world, Annie Tubby, Harold Comby, and Estelline Tubby have drawn upon a range of sources of knowledge in order to construct and support these interpretations. One of the most common is experiential

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evidence. The standard formulas employed in prophetic discourse to chart whether a prophecy has or has not been ful¤lled reveals the importance of personal observation: “And that I have seen,” “And that I can see happening now,” or “And that I have not seen yet.” Estelline Tubby is concerned because she looks around her and sees nice homes with electricity being built everywhere, signaling the time is near. Harold has felt the sting of the ant get stronger, lending weight to his interpretation of how snakes will become man-eating. The act of interpretation is coupled with the act of persuasion, directed both internally and externally. As Harold worked through the prophecy of man-eating snakes, he found some explanations more plausible than others and edited accordingly in subsequent accounts. But engaging in discourse is a social act. In recounting these prophecies, speakers are attempting to interpret the prophecy not only for themselves but for their audiences. Accordingly, when speakers rely on personal experience as evidence, they place themselves as collateral in the negotiation of truth and belief. Such experiential evidence is the most personal source for interpretation, but like layers of identity, there are sources less individualized. Moving from the individual to the community, we ¤nd cultural categories, systems, and even oral texts that serve as interpretive source material. On the broadest level, all of these interpretations can be tied to this realm. Even personal experience is interpreted according to cognitive categories that are shaped strongly through enculturation into one’s community.27 Moving outward once again, sources of interpretation can be drawn from outside the community as well. It is at this point that Harold and Estelline diverge in their strategies and sources: Harold Comby favors science, Estelline Tubby, religion. Both age and gender appear to be factors here, but such divisions are only loosely viable. Harold Comby is joined by Carmen Denson and Bobby Joe in making explicit connections between prophecy and the world as explained by science. Carmen Denson points to global warming, Bobby Joe to recent theories about collisions with asteroids. All three are middle-aged men. Harold Comby is perhaps the most proli¤c in these interpretations. In addition to the ¤ndings of entomologists and herpetologists, Harold refers to the destruction of the ozone layer as a possible explanation for the end of the world by ¤re. For Harold, involved in coroners’ conferences and a regular viewer of the Discovery channel, which primarily explores the scienti¤c world, drawing from scienti¤c sources does not mark some unusual shift in interpretation, at least not in method. People seem to have always drawn upon the arenas of in®uence most prevalent in their lives. For Harold, and increasingly for many in the community, mass media, particularly television, is quickly becoming one of these dominant arenas. The sources for interpretation are not restrictive even when the genre is.

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Choctaw prophecy is viewed as speci¤c to the Choctaw even when it involves other groups. And as talk of the elders, it is ¤rmly situated in a culturally speci¤c category of verbal expression. But the interpretation of this traditional form draws from a more expansive notion of Choctaw culture. As Chief Martin is fond of saying in his public announcements and printed brochures, Choctaw culture is a combination of the traditional and the modern. It is both stickball and washing machines; basket weaving and basketball. He is, of course, correct. People watch television, buy Barbie dolls, and sing along in their SUVs with the latest pop or country hits. They also cook hominy, dance traditional social dances, and sew intricate diamond patterns onto shirts and dresses for formal events. People are clear about what is traditional and what is not, but all generally agree that all of these various acts and items are part of Choctaw life today. Choctaw prophecy is traditional; Barbie is not. But Barbie, and her mass-marketed culture, can help interpret even the most traditional texts. It is not merely that additions and changes ushered in via mass media will signal the ful¤llment of prophecy but rather that this arena provides sources and systems of knowledge in order to construct interpretations of both prophecy and the world. While news programs and non¤ction television programming, particularly nature shows, are the most frequently drawn upon mass media sources, ¤ctional programs, particularly science ¤ction movies, also provide interpretive source material for individuals struggling to make sense of the cryptic prophecies they remember from their youth. This link between science and mass media is a crucial one. Harold, Carmen, and Bobby are not engaged in scienti¤c experiments; rather, they derive their knowledge of science as most of us do: from mainstream outlets. While the oldest of the elders living today received little if any formal schooling, the majority of men and women between thirty and ¤fty-¤ve are familiar with the notions of reproducibility and scienti¤c method, even if they do not, as most of us do not, actually understand the scienti¤c principles that explain global warming or how something as ®uid as the atmosphere could have holes in it. Faith in science for the average person is little different from faith in religion or belief in the supernatural. We cannot see God just as we cannot see an in¤nite universe. The main difference comes in methodology. We believe the process, and so we believe the result. In this way, adherence to a scienti¤c basis for knowledge is not a particularly dif¤cult shift for a community that has traditionally based their knowledge on faith in the elders and the unknown powers of hopaii, medicine men, and herb doctors.28 The general process for becoming a doctor is known throughout the community, but the speci¤c methods are not. Such knowledge is reserved for the men and women who actually ¤ll these roles, much like the people who take on the roles of scientists. The medicine

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man is a traditional and well respected authority in the community and is often employed directly to aid in interpreting the realm of the mystical or supernatural.29 Scienti¤c authority, though farther removed from traditional Choctaw culture and often embodied as a concept rather than an individual, is increasingly being accepted as another such authority. This generalized knowledge base is therefore a useful means of supporting individual interpretations of prophecy.30 Estelline Tubby, on the other hand, constructs her interpretations from one of her most in®uential spheres of in®uence: her religion. Raised Baptist, she recently converted to Mormonism, following one of her sons and his family into the faith. Her switch had more to do with the community and congregation than with speci¤c doctrine. The deep spiritualism Estelline holds transcends speci¤c religious boundaries. She wishes she could return to the old religion of her ancestors but believes it is lost for good. Hearing a voice telling her to read about Moses in the Bible is unusual but not shocking to her since she sees God as the source of all inspiration. Sally Allen, Regina Shoemake, and Judy Billie, all of a generation younger than Estelline, share her connection to religion as a means for interpreting prophecy. So do Mallie Smith and Glenda Williamson, one an elder, the other a generation younger. Both women point to God as the source of prophecy and ¤nd analogs in the Bible for Choctaw prophecies. The general divide between men and women, science and religion, represents a pattern rather than a rule. Bobby Joe, for example, refers both to scienti¤c estimates of asteroid collisions with the earth and to the religious realm of visions. Bobby Joe is a distinctly religious man without a distinct religious af¤liation. He, like Estelline Tubby, spends lots of time thinking about what these prophecies mean. Estelline heard a voice; Bobby had a vision. Both voice and vision helped guide them in understanding the prophecies that they did not and perhaps still do not fully understand. Finally, as evinced in all of these accounts, the elders play a vital role in the interpretation of prophecy, though their role is often obscured in performance. The elders are responsible for passing down the prophetic core, generally in the context of a full prophetic performance, to the youth. While this core is rarely ¤xed, there is nonetheless a sanctity attributed to it by virtue of the assumption of an accurate re®ection of the words of generations past. In order to maintain this sanctity, the contemporary narrator must achieve impressive verbal and mental dexterity to keep the core prophecy separate from the individual interpretation. Such a feat is not always successful, but its attempt is vital. The juggling of voices that Estelline manages in her narration is testament to this skill. However, the voices of elders may nonetheless be

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con®ated with the prophetic core. Therefore, when we hear Estelline’s greatgrandmother’s voice in the narration of the prophecy, we are also hearing the “voice” of the prophecy itself. The two are indistinguishable for Estelline. This is problematized by the fact that Estelline actually heard the prophecy not from her great-grandmother but from her aunt, mother, and grandmother. However, Estelline views these women as conduits for her great-grandmother’s words, presumably because her aunt, mother, and grandmother performed the prophecy as they should—by carefully attributing it. Estelline recognizes that these women are much like herself, individual narrators in a line of narrators. Her great-grandmother, on the other hand, was a medicine woman and so carries more authority to narrate prophecy than her aunt, mother, or grandmother. Estelline does not claim that her great-grandmother originated the prophecy, but clearly the story gains more validity when traced to her. There are hints in her narrative, however, that suggest some of her aunt’s, mother’s, grandmother’s, or great-grandmother’s interpretation is coming through nonetheless. Who, for example, says, “This will not be the removal by Washington or government or whatever”? When comparing the prophecy to other versions told in the community, and when considering the evaluative nature of the comment, it appears less like part of the prophetic core and more part of an interpretation. So while the elders do not appear to have a role in the interpretation of prophecy, their in®uence may be hidden in the core. The moments where the elders do explicitly play a role in interpretation is when the voice of the person telling the prophecy is not con®ated with the voice of the prophecy. Harold Comby also recognizes his mother as someone much like him: a person who has heard the old prophecies and is also trying to make sense of them. She attributes to elders in the past, just as Harold attributes them through her. While Harold quickly defers the greater wisdom to his mother, he engages in interpretation as a peer with her and frequently refers to her interpretations in forming his own. In fact, he favors her wisdom over all other sources of knowledge. For all the old ethnographies Harold scours, his mother and, more precisely, the elders before her are the ¤nal authority.31

The World through the Lens of Prophecy Hinted at earlier was the demand prophecy places on the individual to explore many interpretations but retain a dominant one. Without narrowing the choices, the speaker is left with a dynamic and heavily interpreted text but an uninterpreted world. Both Harold Comby and Estelline Tubby constructed interpretations based on pertinent analogies to clarify particular aspects of the prophecies they were examining. While analogies may also make connections

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to the contemporary world, they need not. Nor do they necessarily indicate ful¤llment. Harold suggesting how man-eating snakes could arrive in Mississippi and Estelline clarifying the implications of removal do not suggest that either is currently being ful¤lled. However, when the event referenced in interpretation is viewed as ful¤llment of the prophecy, and not just an analogy to explain it, then the interpretive channel becomes dialogic, not just monologic. Here is where prophecy can be used to interpret events and vice versa. Here is also where people make value judgments about current events based on the implications suggested by the related prophecy. The focus of this discourse is on the synthesis between prophecy and event rather than solely on the prophecy as text. In this way, prophecy helps to order the world. People do not con¤ne themselves to addressing prophecy as one or the other, text to be interpreted or tool for interpreting the world. Those who adhere to prophecy do both. Estelline Tubby is one such person. As noted earlier, Estelline Tubby takes a very personal stance with regard to the Third Removal, fearing that she may be asked to embark on this arduous journey. One of the reasons she believes it could happen soon is that the signs of ful¤llment dot the landscape. The Choctaw will be removed, she says, “when Indians have good homes, electricity and all of these.” But she is perplexed over how the Choctaw will go from having good homes and good lives to having nothing at all. Some event must take place to bring about this change. The ¤rst time she recounts this prophecy, she is concerned primarily with the possibility of universal suffering. The second time, she is concerned primarily with the reversal of fortunes. This shift in focus is a result of a recent event that encouraged her to recontextualize, and then reinterpret, the prophecy of the Third Removal. I raise the topic when we meet again on August 5, 1997. “Last time you had talked a little bit about the Third Removal.” Yes. The Third Removal was to be. And I don’t know when it’s going to happen but they used——my grandmother used to tell my mom about it, that it will happen. And I don’t see why we progress so much. But that’s what they were talking about was that progressing so much, and then all in one sudden, we could go away. It must be the ending of a world, or whatever, that would be.

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But I was kind of——the other, let me see—— Oh. We had a dinner for the two councilman that was always been in. And when they had a campaign and all of that, after that, who would be our next councilor. Both of those two has been on council before and they got in again.32 No one new came in. We had a dinner for that in the evening. And the Chief talked to us that evening. And that made me kind of thinking, after what he said. He said that, “As a Chief, I’ve always wanted to do things for my people. And I’ve always——but I didn’t know what ways to do it.” Until the Casino came into his mind. And now he is doing it. But he says— one thing that made me think— but he says, “I’m getting older and I may not live long, or may live little bit longer, or get disabled and may be not your Chief anymore.” And he said, “If I be removed from the Chief ’s of¤ce, if I’m dead or old or disabled, whatever— “That’s the time, right now, y’all should be thinking about taking care of yourself and do your own business.” And he said, “I’m the one brought that Casino. So, when I’m not your Chief, it may go away quickly!” That’s what he said. That made me think, too. How, if it does—— Well, they put it in so much money out here and then, all in one sudden, when it quits—— How about that? That’s what he told us. “I don’t think no one——well, if they understand like I am, to succeed with my tribe, I have found a way to do it. But I don’t know if the next Chief will be interested in this. It takes a lot of jobs; it takes a know-how and all of that.

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And maybe things will go on, but as soon as I’m not your Chief, I know it can go away quickly.” That’s what he said. That made me think. Tom: Yeah. Sounds like it. I mean, sounds like what has to happen before the Third Removal. Estelline: Yeah. And then, I was thinking about the third removal; because this person that came that night and told these people and said, “Well, you have good houses, you have everything, but you will suffer later on. And y’all have to go.” But where? [laugh] I always think—sometimes whenever I think something about that—I always think, “Where?” [laugh] As with the ¤rst time she narrated the prophecy for me a year earlier, Estelline is careful to separate the act of interpretation from the act of recounting the core prophecy. This time, she performs only the core, adding little of the detail she added before. But her goal is different here. While the prophecy is initially foregrounded as the topic of conversation arising speci¤cally from my question, Estelline quickly moves into the narration of a recent event that she views as being intimately related to the prophecy of the Third Removal. For Estelline Tubby, the parallels between the bleak scenario Chief Martin paints and the bleak scenario of removal are unmistakable. Both begin in prosperity only to have fortunes reversed in a single instant. She recognizes the parallels from the beginning. As she recounts the events of the dinner, she interrupts four times to add that what Chief Martin was saying made her think. From the initial frame established by my question, it is clear what she is thinking about. When I express my agreement, that this sounds like what is supposed to happen just before the Third Removal, she returns to the prophecy and makes the link explicit, an unnecessary but gracious move prompted by my comments. Chief Martin’s words resonated with the words of the prophecy of the Third Removal for Estelline while she was sitting there listening to him, and she interpreted the event accordingly. Yet Chief Martin never mentioned the Third Removal; his goal in speaking was to convince his listeners of what he has tried to do for his people, what he has in fact accomplished for them, and the precariousness of these achievements should someone else be elected chief.

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As Estelline quotes, he tells her and her dinner companions, “Y’all should be thinking about taking care of yourself and do your own business.” His message is uniquely self-oriented: every person for herself. The message comes through in Estelline’s quoted speech, but Estelline herself hears a different warning. By interpreting the chief ’s words through the prophecy, the loss of Phillip Martin as chief does not propel Estelline to ponder personal adjustments for herself, ¤nancial or otherwise, but rather to think about the Choctaw people as a whole, and herself as one member within that whole. The loss of Chief Martin could indicate more than personal ¤nancial hardship; it could indicate the advent of the Third Removal. Because she interprets Chief ’s speech through the prophecy of the Third Removal, what was meant as a personal entreaty of self-preservation is instead interpreted as a communal warning for group preservation. The variance between the two is striking. Estelline Tubby’s interpretation exempli¤es the power of the frame to guide interpretation. The prophecy exerts such a powerful in®uence on Estelline that she interprets a speech contrary to how it was intended. Clearly, she is interpreting the world through prophecy.

A Dialogue Once a person interprets a prophecy via a particular event, the two become inexorably tied for as long as that interpretation is held as viable. When that happens, each becomes referential of the other. When Odie Anderson interprets the prophecy that people will care more about money than their children as connected to the building of a daycare center where parents drop their kids off in order to go make money, she links the virtual with the actual. Odie Anderson applies her disgust at such a hierarchy—money over children—to the daycare. Interpretation therefore becomes a means of assigning emotional valence to contemporary events, ¤tting those events into the framework of a culturally based moral system. Regina Shoemake has heard the prophecies about losing farmland and the starvation that would ensue. She sees this loss happening right now and the short-sightedness of the act makes her mad. I know that some of the Jacksons, Sam Jackson, they’re dead now, but I remember when we were there, they were talking and they were talking about all this. And it’s helped me, I can see it happening. ’Cause like she said,33 they were talking about all these houses being built, taking all the lands, where they grow crops and vegetables and all that, the food.

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And when they took all their land to build houses and factories and different things, they said, “We’re not going to have——.” They had predicted there’s not going to be enough food—shortage and stuff. And they had predicted that it was going to be where there’s going to be starvation, and that we’re going to be seeing or somebody’s going to be seeing that they get so hungry that they’re going to be trying to eat their own teeth, or their skin. And I remember hearing that. And when I think about all these coming in, I always get mad when Choctaw Housing Authority goes and builds some houses for other people where, growing vegetables or gardens or stuff, and they go and build houses. I always get mad. And always I go back and think of the time I heard them saying that. And it seems like it’s just coming true. But I don’t know how long, how many years or so the process is going to be, but it seem like it’s heading toward what I heard way back. But that’s what they’re doing now, just building houses on those agricultural lands and stuff, all the clear lands. Regina is explicit about how she interacts with the prophecies she has heard. The old prophecies remain in her memory, never far from conscious thought. When she heard the prophecy that “there’s not going to be enough food,” that “there’s going to be starvation and that we’re going to be seeing or somebody’s going to be seeing that they get so hungry that they’re going to be trying to eat their own teeth or their skin,” she was startled and unnerved. In the ensuing years, she has watched as more and more agricultural lands have been converted into plots for homes. Like many others in the community (such as Harold’s mother, Odie Anderson, and Estelline Tubby), Regina Shoemake notes the parallels between these new housing developments and the prophecy of starvation. Interpreting one as the ful¤llment of the other, she opened the lines of discourse and irrevocably associated the two as part of a single process. Over the years, Regina has become more convinced of this interpretation and in turn become angrier at the shortsightedness of her own people who continue to put homes where food was grown. Prophecy can also provide a way to express one’s fears and concerns about modern developments when interpreting these events through existing prophecy. In 1993 when the tribe was considering the construction of the Silver Star Casino, for example, many feared that this massive ¤nancial undertaking would be a disaster. For some, such as Regina Shoemake’s sister, the casino appeared to ful¤ll the prophecy of removal.

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One time my sister and I were talking there. There was this thing about the casino coming, or something, and something about the casino, you know. A lot of people had some doubts about the casino. And I was talking to my sister and my older sister, and she said, “I guess our elders were talking about that. I guess this is the one that’s going to bring us the Trail of Tears because it’s going to mess up.” ’Cause she said she heard it and she said, I think it had something to do with taxation and stuff like that, that there’s——keep trying and trying and one of these days, eventually they’re going to do that and a lot of our land is not going to be sovereign anymore and stuff like that. And that’s why she thought the casino is going to be, play a big part in it. So she said that, I guess, that’s when they knew when they were saying we were going to have another Trail of Tears. Because we going to lose that sovereignty and stuff like that. And I guess she had heard that too, and that’s when she was saying that to me. Even after the casino proved to be a ¤nancial success, many were not comforted. Things could still go wrong, loans could still be defaulted on. When a second casino was voted on in a tribal referendum in March 2000, these fears and concerns were fanned brighter, instigating rare public protests that earned newspaper and television news coverage.34 By interpreting the casino as the ful¤llment of the prophecy of removal, people were able to voice their concerns about the casino and provide rhetorically powerful support for their views. However, despite the rhetorical power of prophecy in conversation, this connection between the casino and removal was never explicitly made in public debate. Choctaw prophecy does not seem to have been incorporated in the political arena in this century,35 unlike the Hopi, for example, who employ prophecy as a major rhetorical tool in political machinations (Geertz 1992). Traditional knowledge and culture is often raised as a general and unde¤ned category in political debate, but traditional verbal genres are not. Prophecy, like the other genres of verbal art discussed in chapter 1, is con¤ned to smaller conversations among family and friends. The process of interpreting the world through prophecy is inherently a process of ¤tting the events of the world into cultural and cognitive systems of knowledge. Those systems are often intensely moral, providing people a means to gauge and negotiate proper behavior with the weight of prophecy to support them. In this way, prophecy clearly functions as social control

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within the community, ¤ltering the world through a cultural lens in order to remind each other how people should act.36 What we see is that the prophetic core may inherently embody very little of the information with which people construct meaning. Rather, in actively engaging with prophecy, in attempting to make sense of it in context with other prophecies and in context of the contemporary word, narrators are able to draw meaning from these often sparse prophecies and imbue them with incredible nuance in incredible variation. One is reminded of the contextual studies that dominated folklore research in the 1970s, where people began to test the power of context to construct meaning.37 As with any new theoretical enterprise, scholars attempted to apply the concept wildly, declaring that the traditional genres of folklore studied for so long held no inherent meaning at all, that it was all negotiable in the act of performance. As it should be, the views held at polar ends have given way to the compromise of the middle, where theory rests best—an available tool to be used when appropriate. Perhaps one of the most useful attempts to outline the utility of contextual studies is Charles Briggs’s Competence in Performance. Briggs places the verbal genres he uncovers in the Mexican community of Cordova on a continuum based on ¤xity of text and, conversely, dependence on context, for construction of the genre itself. The more ¤xed the text, the less context contributes to the construction of the performance and hence the construction of meaning.38 Choctaw prophecy falls somewhere closer to the contextual side of things. Our earlier discussion of the prophetic core and the discourse woven around it shows that there is some amount of textual stability since people can perform prophecy as a grocery list, one after another. Further, the core prophecy, particularly when quoted, is implicitly and explicitly a careful recitation of what the elders before them said. However, the majority of prophetic discourse is elaborated upon by the speaker. Historical and contemporary contexts are woven around these texts, creating a ¤eld of meaning. As Henry Glassie argues, when context is thought of as mental resource and not just observable, situational data, context is a profound concept able to address abstracted concepts in the mind (1975:17, 114–15). While Choctaw prophecy can be considered contextually dependent because of its relationship to textual ¤xity, it is clear that the more important concept of context operating among these speakers is occurring in the intellectual realm of the individual mind. The result is that Choctaw prophecy, despite being part of the talk of the elders and therefore held as important as artifact, is more importantly a dynamic tradition that engages the speaker in active interpretation and the creative construction of meaning of both the prophecy at hand and the world at large.

4 The Origin of Prophecy

The question of the origin of prophecy demands attention to a series of related questions for its answer. Perhaps the most obvious is a question that virtually every Choctaw narrator asks during the performance of prophecy: “How did they know?” In performance, this question often functions rhetorically, more important to raise than to answer. The question, particularly when posed after the narration of a prophecy that has in fact been ful¤lled, claims authority for the past and serves not to ask how they knew but to aver that they knew. But “How did they know?” also functions on the more explicit level of a question. Believing irrevocably that they did in fact know does not alleviate the mystery of how such knowledge was possible, nor who “they” are or were. The answer to one implicates the answer to the other, and both implicate the process of how prophecy is created. Turning to prophetic discourse itself, we ¤nd speakers carefully attributing the prophecies they have heard. Often this attribution outlines only the direct lineage of narration (for example, from grandmother to mother to them), and does not address the larger question of the prophecy’s origin. When speakers do, whether in the act of performance or during directed interviews, their answers consistently presume that nobody makes predictions today. Grady John’s comments are typical of most. “There’s some old people, living now, but not like my granddad and them, you know. ’Cause they came through hard ways and they learned, you know, as they go. And they, maybe a few might stick around, but not that many.” Yet a few minutes earlier in our talk, and again a few minutes later, Grady himself makes predictions about the future. “Now let me predict you. Russia is, right now, Russians are down. But once Americans build them up, they going to try something. ’Cause they’re down. In®ation, a lot of their economies is so bad over there.” Why the apparent contradiction? An ethnographic look at Choctaw culture provides two possible answers. There are two reasons immediately apparent. First, there are restrictions placed on people against pride and self-

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promotion. To place oneself on par with the elders of the past is to presume a great deal of authority, a presumption that may be valid but is not acceptable to claim for oneself. Coupled with this is an unwillingness to publicize one’s talents for fear of incurring the jealousy of a neighbor and subsequently someone with the power to harm, such as a bad medicine person. Such taboos and fears are common in many American Indian communities. The second reason derives from a belief that Choctaw culture was stronger in the past, and that the people of that past were stronger too. The reasons given for this shift are fairly straightforward. In the past, before the growth in home, business, and road construction, there were more woods. More woods meant both more room for medicinal herbs to grow and more room for supernatural beings to roam. Many people throughout the community, not just people with specialized roles like doctors or prophets, were familiar with systems of knowledge derived from supernatural power. As the woods have been whittled away, so too the amount and impact of the medicine and the supernatural. Grady John is not merely hesitant to place himself on par with the elders of the past for reasons of humility; he believes there is a distinct difference between the elders of the past and those of today with respect to their connection to the supernatural and ability to know the future. This perception of past divorced from the present has already been recognized in the generic system of oral narratives. Just as stories of the elders are viewed as different from contemporary stories, so too are prophecies of the past whose origins are mysterious and amazing, and modern predictions that are far more mundane though no less important in deciphering the surrounding world. The old prophecies are stories of the elders and are revered. Current predictions are made by men and women who do not claim special power or knowledge but rather see themselves thinking through the events of the past, the present, and subsequently the future as part of their roles as elders and part of their own need to make sense of the world. So although Choctaw narratives, and Choctaw culture in general, are not divided as sacred or secular, there is nonetheless a general sense that the old stories derive from a stronger, more traditional, and more supernaturally imbued culture than the new, more mundane predictions made today. And so we ¤nd ourselves faced with not one but two traditions of prophecy among the Choctaw. Our questions about the creation of prophecy, then, potentially double, depending on how similar the two traditions are. Further, prophecy is not only divided into past and present. Prophecy does not originate in one way, from one particular kind of person, according to one rigid set of steps. Rather, people point to a number of different sources for prophecy. Understanding these sources helps to clarify the larger system operating in the creation of prophecy.

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W HO W ER E THE PROPHETS? Glimpses of a strong prophetic tradition among the Choctaw appear in the writings of travelers, government agents, and missionaries who encountered the tribe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Tribal oral history, too, records a prophetic tradition, one that extends much further back in time, back to the origin of the tribe and its arrival in Mississippi. Both of these records serve as resources to the contemporary community in constructing a sense of who the prophets were and, ultimately, what prophecy is.

Supernatural Agency Hopaii: Prophet Leaders You asked me how it came to be known. It was known a long time ago. Years and years before I was born. And what happened is, we had prophets, back before any other races came other than Native Americans living. We had prophets that prophesized long time ago, that these things were going to happen. Carmen Denson, January 12, 2000 The role of the prophet is still recognized by many in the community, even though most argue he no longer exists in contemporary culture. Carmen Denson learned about these prophets from the stories he heard growing up, about how the prophets helped their people prepare for the future. There was a green corn ceremony. And they get together, green corn ceremony, the prophets would sit somewhere and try to prophesize, and try to get dreams or visions. And there’d be just playing, eating, and dancing. And that is the way that they did things, you know. It was the best of times, probably. Carmen clari¤es that the past was ideal because it was simple, and simple because God directed the people through prophets. That is the way that they worshipped. And they had prophets sitting elsewhere, on a hill somewhere. And they, they did it for a week. These prophets sit somewhere, had visions, I can’t say how they did it but, at the end, almost end of the ceremony, they come down and they tell what the year was going to be, how they were going to eat. It was a group endeavor—many prophets working to answer the same basic questions about survival and warfare for the coming year. The prophecies were communal.

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There’d be, I don’t know, maybe twelve prophets going up there. Each one had their own vision. So, I think probably it wasn’t all the same. Some tell this one, some tell this one, another story, another story, another story. And that maybe one would tell, foresee how the weather was going to be in the coming year; one would foresee the people were going to be, that year, I don’t know, riled up or not. It was probably different. But we’ve heard that they used to do that. Go, had their visions, come down and tell about their visions. Carmen’s father, Charlie Denson, among others, has also stressed this role of the prophet as a spiritual leader. The notion of a spiritual leader has a dual connotation: one as a religious leader, much like today’s preachers and clergy, the other as a leader who was guided by spiritual means. Clear distinction is not made today, nor does it appear to have been made in the past. According to one migration legend told by Peter Pitchlynn and written (with rather liberal literary license) by Charles Lanman during the ¤rst quarter of the nineteenth century, prophets led the Choctaw from the West to their present homeland. According to one of these traditions, the Choctaw race came from the bosom of a magni¤cent sea, supposed to be the Gulf of Mexico. Even when they ¤rst made their appearance upon the earth, they were so numerous as to cover the sloping and sandy shore, far as the eye could reach, and for a long time they traveled upon the sands before they could ¤nd a place suited to their wants. The name of their principal chief or prophet was Chah-tah, and he was a man of great age and wisdom. For many moons their bodies were strengthened by pleasant breezes and their hearts gladdened by perpetual summer. In process of time, however, the multitude was visited by sickness, and the dead bodies of old women and little children one after another were left upon the shore. Then the heart of the prophet became troubled, and, planting a long staff which he carried in his hand, and which was endowed with the powers of an oracle, he told his people that from the spot designated they must turn their faces toward the unknown wilderness. But before entering upon this part of their journey he speci¤ed a certain day for starting, and told them that they were at liberty, in the mean time, to enjoy themselves by feasting and dancing and performing their national rites. It was now early morning and the hour appointed for starting. Heavy clouds and ®ying mists rested upon the sea, but the beautiful waves

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melted upon the shore as joyfully as ever before. The staff which the prophet planted was found leaning toward the point in the North, and in that direction did the multitude take up their line of march. Their journey lay across streams, over hills, through tangled forests, and over immense prairies. They now arrived in an entirely new country; they planted the magic staff every night with the utmost care, and arose in the morning with eagerness to ascertain the direction in which it leaned. And thus had they traveled many days when they found themselves upon the margin of an O-kee-na-chitto, or great highway of water— the Mississippi River. Here they pitched their tents, and, having again planted the staff, lay down to sleep. When morning came, the oracle told them that they must cross the mighty river before them. They built themselves rafts and reached the opposite shore in safety. They now found themselves in a country of rare beauty, where the trees were so high as almost to touch the clouds, and where game of all kinds and the sweetest of fruits were found in great abundance. The ®owers of this land were more brilliant than any they had ever seen, and so large as often to shield them from the sunlight of noon. With the climate of land they were delighted, and the air they breathed seemed to ¤ll their bodies with new strength. So pleased were they with all they saw, that they built mounds in all the more beautiful valleys through which they passed, so that the Master of Life might know they were not an ungrateful people. In this country they resolved to remain, and here they established their government, and in due time made the great mound of Nun-I-wai-ya, near the head-waters of what is now known as Pearl River in Mississippi. Time passed on, and the Choctaw nation became so powerful that its hunting grounds extended even to the sky. Troubles now arose among the younger warriors and hunters of the nation, until it came to pass that they abandoned the cabins of their fathers and settled in distant regions of the earth. Thus, from the body of the Choctaw nation had sprung those other nations which are known as the Chickasaws, the Cherokees, the Creeks or Muscogees, the Shawnees, and the Delawares. And in process of time the Choctaws founded a great city, wherein their aged men might spend their days in peace; and, because they loved those of their people who had long before departed into distant regions, they called this city Yazoo, the meaning of which is Home of the people who are gone. (1850:244–45) Prophets were leaders, and although this narrative suggests they may have acted independently of a chief, other narratives, as well as historical docu-

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ments, suggest that prophets served to aid chiefs in making decisions. A more popular migration legend, a version of which was once performed as part of an annual pageant and today can be found printed in tribal publications and read annually at the Choctaw fair, depicts prophets in this subsidiary role. The shift in voice is owing to a shift between a ¤rst-person speaker acting the role of the prophet and a third-person narrator:1 Many years ago, the ancestors of our people lived in the Northwest. In time, their populations became so large that it was dif¤cult to exist there. The prophets of the Tribe announced that a land of fertile soil and abundant game lay in the southeast and that the people could live there in peace and prosperity forever. Under the leadership of Chahta, our people set forth. At the end of each day’s journey, a sacred pole was planted erect in front of the camp. The next morning the pole would be found to be leaning one way or another. In that direction, the tribesmen were to travel for that day. For months, our people followed the sacred staff. One day, when the Tribe stopped on the west side of a creek, Chahta planted the pole. Heavy rain began to fall. The next day, the staff which had burrowed itself deeper in the ground, stood straight and tall for all to see. Chahta proclaimed that the long sought land of Nanih Waiya had been found. Here we would build our homes and a mound as the sacred burial spot for our ancestors.2 It is worth noting that at least one version of this script has substituted the word “prophets” with “wise men.”3 Such substitutions or variances seem to plague any de¤nitive cultural de¤nition of the Choctaw prophet. For example, in another version of the story told by Peter Pitchlynn, this time to George Catlin (as opposed to the version he told to Charles Lanman, noted earlier), we ¤nd medicine men instigating the move.4 As we will see, this problem is frequently one of translation. However, as the example above indicates, the problem of translation and interpretation is an intracultural, not merely intercultural, one. Those men and women in the community who have studied written histories about the Choctaw are familiar with another instance of prophecy in the tribe’s past. Harold Comby is among those who have mentioned the historical event recorded in writing by Horatio Cushman. It was the spring of 1811, and Tecumseh was traveling through the South once again to garner support for a widespread insurrection against the United States. His goal was to assemble the most massive and uni¤ed American Indian ¤ghting force ever.

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It was the only way, he was convinced, that American Indians could maintain what land and rights and freedom they still had. Tecumseh was eloquent in speaking to the Choctaw that spring, but so was the Choctaw leader Pushmataha, who advised his people to continue to avoid war at all costs. The two were at loggerheads. Horatio Cushman, recounting the eyewitness account from Colonel John Pitchlynn, who had intermarried into the tribe and lived among the Choctaw, describes what happened next:5 To settle the question, after many con®icting suggestions had been proposed and rejected by ¤rst one and then the other of the two opposing parties, it was ¤nally resolved to refer the matter to an aged Choctaw seer, living some distance away, and abide by his decision. A proper deputation was immediately [dispatched] in the evening of the second day accompanied by the old and venerable Choctaw hopaii. As the twilight of the declining day approached, the council ¤re was replenished, and when night again had thrown o’er all her sable mantle, the council once more convened. Again, Tecumseh made the opening speech, rehearsing his designs and plans before the attentive seer and warrior host in strains of the most fascinating eloquence and logical argument. No other spoke, for both parties had mutually left the mooted question in the hands of the two great chiefs, statesmen, and orators. When the two distinguished disputants had been respectively heard by the aged seer, he arose and slowly walked to the center of the circle, gazed a moment over the silent but solicitous throng, and then said: “Assemble here to-morrow when the sun shall be yonder”—pointing to the zenith—“build a scaffold”— pointing to the spot—“as high as my head; ¤ll up the intervening space beneath with dry wood; bring also a red heifer two years old free of all disease, and tie her near the scaffold; and tomorrow the Great Spirit will decide for you this great question.” On the next day the appointed hour found the multitude assembled; the altar erected; the wood prepared, and the sacri¤cial offering in waiting. The seer then ordered the heifer to be slain; the skin removed; the entrails taken out and placed some distance away; the carcass cut up into small pieces and laid upon the scaffold; he then applied a brand of ¤re to the dry wood under the scaffold; then commanded the vast multitude, all, everyone, to stretch themselves upon the ground, faces to the earth, and thus to which command was instantly obeyed; then seizing the bloody skin he stretched it upon the ground, hair downward, and quickly rolled himself up in it, and commenced a series of prayers and doleful laminations, at the same time rolling himself backward and for-

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ward before the consuming sacri¤ce uttering his prayers and lamentations intermingled with dissonant groans fearful to be heard; and thus he continued until the altar and the ®esh thereon were entirely consumed. Then freeing himself from the skin, he sprang to his feet and said: “Osh (the) Ho-che-to (Great) Shilup (Spirit) a-num-pul-ih (has spoken). Wak-a-yah (rise) ah-ma (and) Een (His) a-num-pa (message) hak-loh (hear).” All leaped to their feet, and gathered in close circles around their venerated seer, who, pointing to the sky, exclaimed: “The Great Spirit tells me to warn you against the dark and evil designs of Tecumseh, and not to be deceived by his words; that his schemes are unwise; and if entered into by you, will bring you into trouble; that the Americans are our friends, and you must not take up the tomahawk against them; if you do, you will bring sorrow and desolation upon yourselves and nations. Choctaws and Chickasaws, obey the words of the Great Spirit.” Enough! As oil upon the storm-agitated waters of the sea, so fell the mandates of the Great Spirit upon the war-agitated hearts of those forest warriors, and all was hushed to be quiet; reason assumed again her sway; peace rejoiced triumphant, as all in harmony sought their forest homes. The prophets’ in®uence, particularly as deriving from special powers—the supernatural, and speci¤cally the Great Spirit—set them apart from chiefs who ruled without such gifts. Accordingly, prophets garnered particular power and in®uence in a community, earning for themselves an important leadership role, if not the top leadership role in the community. Also important in this passage is the claim the prophet makes to being a mere vessel for the Great Spirit. The prophet credits this higher power for making the decision, and then speaks his words to the congregation. The advice, and hence any leadership provided by the prophet, is divinely sanctioned. It is dif¤cult to know whether or not this was an addition from Pitchlynn or Cushman, both of whom would have been familiar with biblical prophets who stood in similar relation to God. Within the community today, however, the relationship to biblical prophets is frequently made. Such divine connection is implicit in Charlie and Carmen’s contention that the prophet was a spiritual leader but is made explicitly in many other people’s perceptions of the prophet of the past, particularly as deciphered through the Bible. Both Odie Anderson and her daughter Glenda Williamson are Christian. Sitting together with them one afternoon, they talked about prophecy and prophets. Odie spoke in Choctaw and so periodically, Glenda would explain to me in English what they had been discussing:

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Glenda: They would go out in the woods and the Lord would speak to them and tell them all the stuff that was going to happen. It was like in the Bible, where God spoke to Moses and all that. Tom: Did they go out in a group, or did they, were they alone when they went? Glenda: She said she doesn’t know. All I know is she used to say that the old people would go out in the woods in the middle of the night and the Great Spirit would come and talk to them. Like God used to talk to people in the Bible. In talking with Glenda later, she told me that she believes these people were chosen by God, and refers to them as the Chosen Ones. “God did talk with people in the Bible, you know,” she tells me, and then ¤gures that “He could have talked to the Choctaw peoples too, to tell what’s going to happen in the future.” As Glenda notes, much of the Christian interpretation of the prophets of the past seems to be hers rather than her mother’s, part of her own attempts to make sense of what her mother is saying. Still, both women ¤nd it useful to make connections outside Choctaw culture in order to understand the past.6 Chahta Alikchi—Medicine People The hopaii Carmen Denson describes and the Chosen Ones that Glenda Williamson and her mother Odie Anderson describe, both rely on supernatural inspiration for the creation of prophecy. Carmen Denson explains that in the past, the prophets were part of a larger complex of men and women who had supernatural powers: “See, back before white people came, there were prophets who just prophesized. And there were medicine men who just did medicine. And then there were warlocks who did spell on people. Medicine men can’t put a spell on you back then. He only can cure you.” But this division is far more blurred in early ethnographic accounts. Language barriers and super¤cial observation are perhaps only partly to blame for this blurring. The term “prophet” is not a native term, but the Choctaw equivalent, hopaii, is rarely recorded in written documents since these Anglo authors generally wrote in their native tongue. Roles recognized as distinct within the community may be con®ated by the observer or simply labeled with a misleading English equivalent. A simple example illustrates the problem: At the turn of the twentieth century, Henry Halbert described in an unpublished manuscript the role of certain men who employed supernatural powers to determine the winner of stickball games: “The ball play was and

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still is the great Choctaw game. It is always arranged by the chiefs or captains of the opposing parties. They confer with each other, select the players of their respective sides, appoint their prophets, agree upon the day and place of the play, and then see that all this is duly announced to the people” (Swanton 1931:148). Halbert continues, describing the preparation the groups engage in, including feasting, dancing, singing, betting, and performing various rituals and ceremonies to ensure victory. He then adds: “The prophets with their blackened faces are busy all night with their magic performances, each claiming the ability to propitiate and secure for his own side every mysterious in®uence in nature” (149). When the preparation is ¤nally complete, “a prophet throws up the ball and the play begins” (149). Before and during the play, the prophets on each side in the midst of the players, continue their usual performances. Each carries a small looking-glass. He turns to the sun, holds his glass toward it with a gyratory motion then turns and throws the rays upon the bodies of the players of his side. This action of the prophet is a survival of the sun worship of the olden time. As all life and power comes from the sun, the prophet ®atters himself that he can infuse a portion into his own party; and if he can utilize more of it than the prophet of the opposite side, his side will win the day. (Swanton 1931:149) In another description attained by Swanton, this one from T. J. Scott, who lived in the area, the roles described by Halbert as being ¤lled by prophets are here termed witch doctors (1931:152). The degree of familiarity with the tribe and cultural bias likely play a part in this discrepancy, but the entire historical record is plagued with similar lexical confusion. “Prophet,” “medicine man,” and “conjurer” as well as “doctor,” “witch,” and “ball play witch” all seem interchangeable.7 English translation and the faults of the outside observers do not pose the only problems here, however. Native terms do not appear to have been agreed upon within the community either, as can be noted in the substitution of “wise man” for “prophet” in one version of the migration legend. Today, as in the past, each community has its own dialect. The little people that help train medicine men are known as kowi anukasha in Conehatta but bohpoli in Pearl River. The number of terms for a witch are staggering, each one drawing interpretation in different directions, each overlapping the other.8 Such overlap is clearly evident with the term hopaii as well, though the explanation for this indicates a shift in time, rather than a shift in community. In the past, and still remembered today, the hopaii was a prophet. One of the earliest mentions of the native term is by Alfred Wright, who writes in 1828:

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“I have indeed heard it asserted by some, that anciently their hopaii, or prophets, on some occasions were accustomed to address the sun; but whether in the way of prayer or not I do not know” (181). The result is a number of possible schema for the classes of men and women with supernatural power. Horatio Cushman identi¤es three, the medicine man or prophet, the rainmaker, and the doctor (1962 [1899]:258), while Grayson Noley notes a different three, the alikchi (physician), apoluma (conjurer), and stahullo (witch) (1979:87). A synchronic picture of these divisions may simply not be possible, with roles shifting through time. The perception of people today of the division of the past, however, mirrors Carmen Denson’s tripartite division of prophet, doctor, and warlock or witch. Within that perception is the recognition of a historical shift, since today the term hopaii is recognized by all as a witch, a person who employs supernatural power to cause harm to others. While many like Carmen Denson remember the earlier de¤nition as prophet, they are aware that the term does not carry that signi¤cance today. The shift is often credited to the in®uence of missionaries. Traveling observers and scholars may have misconstrued an already blurry system, con®ating the prophet and the medicine man and the witch into either one role or a combination of them, but it was the missionaries who are often blamed for making this misconception a reality, actually causing the con®ation of the roles by labeling any interaction with the Choctaw supernatural as pagan and evil. Carmen Denson sums up the sentiment of many in the community when he comments: Anyway, white civilization, Western civilization as you call it, comes into play, you know, everything starts unraveling. And all of a sudden, the medicine, as I was growing up, the medicine man were the ones, became prophets too. And some people say medicine men also became the ones that can spell you, make a spell, cast something on you. Then there was good medicine man, bad medicine man—you see? Everything came rolled into one. But there were good person, bad person, good person, just like that, in medicine man. And even that is dying out, medicine man. They also become kind of like a prophet too. That is why lot of people use the medicine and terminology in Choctaw like they were saying a warlock back in the old days. Today kids go around thinking it’s evil. It could be evil, but it could be good, too.9 Lumping prophets, doctors, and witches together not only condemned the good with the bad but helped to reduce these roles to only one: the medicine man. This reduction also seems internal to the community, part of a larger

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trend that has been taking place over the past century of a disappearance of these men and women who work with the supernatural. And so, perhaps not surprisingly, many people today trace prophecies back to known medicine men and women when they attribute their stories. By doing so, they reference people who not only were in regular contact with the supernatural but were viewed as speci¤cally having the power of prophecy, thanks in part to the consolidation of the role of the prophet.10 Tracing prophecy back to a hopaii or an alikchi provides a terminus of origin. While some today believe that these prophets and doctors in turn drew their inspiration from a single divine source, namely God, many others do not. Here is where our terms may fail us. “Prophecy” viewed within a Western, Christian tradition generally delineates messages from God. Prophecy demands prophets, and the role of the prophet is as middleman to a higher power, speci¤cally to God. Prophets are inspired to speak God’s message, and prophecy is that message. But the terms “prophet” and “prophecy” and their denotative and connotative meanings are hardly universal. According to the Choctaw dictionary and the terms currently used in the community,11 prophecy and prophet are generally de¤ned as follows: prophecy: 1. tikbanli anóli anopa—tikbanli (to come beforehand) anóli (teller) anopa (words) 2. nittak mítih isht annówa—nittak (day) mítih (to come) isht annówa (to have talked of ). prophet: 1. hopaii—a prophet; a priest; a war leader 2. nán ikhana—nán (shortened version of “nána” meaning “something”) ikhana (to know or understand). The Choctaw words refer to prescience and foreknowledge rather than divine discourse. The English terms “prophet” and “prophecy,” however, appear to have combined prediction and divine inspiration from the outset when it was used in a thirteenth century code of rules for Christian anchoresses.12 “Prophet” and “prophecy” in English have derived this dual meaning from interpretations of the Christian faith. The same is true for the Choctaw today as Christianity becomes ingrained more deeply in the community. However, before the in®uence of Christianity, when prophets, doctors, and witches held prevalent and powerful roles in the community, reference to a supreme being was not necessarily implied in tikbanli anóli anopa, nittak mítih isht annówa, nán ikhana, and hopaii. While the written record says little in this regard about prophets speci¤-

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cally, there is more general commentary about the religious and supernatural system of the Choctaw that does suggest prophecy was not traced back to a single supreme being. According to one of the earliest and most extensive written accounts on the subject, the Choctaw did envision a supreme being as the creator of the world (Wright 1828). However, this Creator seems to have little intercourse with humans after creation. The Creator required no sacri¤ce, worship, or even prayer. Further, there is no suggestion that the extensive system of supernatural beings that lived in the woods were connected to this Great Spirit.13 Doctors derive their power from some of these supernatural beings—the bohpoli or kowi anukasha14—suggesting a supernatural origin distinct from humans. But a subsequent tie to the Creator is simply not made. Neither in the past nor in the present have the bohpoli been viewed as agents of God. An exact parallel between doctors and prophets cannot be made, at least not for the past before these roles were collapsed. Yet contextual evidence suggests that the origin of prophecy need not have been a supreme being and that the predictions of the Choctaw could have been supernatural if not divine.

Human Agency People Who Knew In between the speci¤c roles of the hopaii and alikchi and the more general role of the elders is an amorphous middle ground. Some Choctaw narrators identify the source of prophecy simply as “people who knew.” These narrators may have been referring to hopaii or alikchi or an equivalent position such as Chosen Ones, without knowing what to call them. But their descriptions seem to suggest less formal roles—recognized orators, perhaps, but not specialized prophets or doctors. The people that I know was sitting around talking, were, would have been like my grandfather, but I never had, I never knew my grandfather, but kind of his age. But they were talking about some man or some, before them, that they used to tell their kids, pass it on, from generation to generation. So, I don’t know who actually predicted those. But they used to talk about, like, they would start talking about, they used to say, “This is what they said,” when they were sitting around talking. (Regina Shoemake 1997) Annie Tubby, who was sixty-seven years old when she was interviewed by Choctaw high school students back in 1977, is able to remember such a person ¤rsthand, a man who used to come around from time to time and tell stories:

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The old man would tell stories, legends, and fascinating myths of how it used to be. We would build a ¤re and invite many people over. Most of them were our relatives. We discussed the old and new ways of life. The old man said repeatedly that new ways will eventually develop or would come. (Wallace 1977:19–24) These people had a special gift. But unlike hopaii or alikchi, this gift or knowledge appears to be less esoteric. Rather, there is a sense that some of the elders in the past knew things. It is unclear how they knew them, but these men and women do seem to have ¤lled roles distinct from the average elder. If we continue to draw upon better understood systems of supernatural power such as that of the alikchi, then the most plausible explanation for this inbetween category is that these elders had the blood of an alikchi or hopaii in their ancestry. One could become an alikchi either by being chosen by the bohpoli or by having the power and skill passed on through family blood lines (or a combination of both). Even those family members of alikchi who are not chosen by the bohpoli and are not formally trained by their relatives are generally believed to have some special powers. The power of prediction falls within the realm of this power. Such an interpretation resonates with the decrease in the number of alikchi in the community. Just as the alikchi die out, so too will those special elders. The Elders By far the most commonly referenced source for prophecy is the elders. Here is where source and attribution blend. All of the prophecies reported by contemporary narrators are attributed to elders. Yet many people further identify elders as having the ability to see into the future. The feat becomes no less extraordinary for being common and widespread. This gift is not reduced to the accumulated wisdom and knowledge that comes with age. Rather, people today maintain that these elders were gifted, even if that gift was fairly democratically bestowed. Further, such attribution to the elders as the sources of both the narrative as well as the prophecy is a powerful statement in and of itself for its ability to operate as a satisfactory answer to “How did they know?” Donna Denson, for example, echoes a sentiment frequently made by adults in the community when she discusses who told these prophecies: Donna: “He’s an elderly,” she [Donna’s mother] would say, “so he knows what’s going to happen.” Tom: Was this common? For elders to know? Donna: I don’t know. He was the only one I knew. We were told never to question elderlies. Never talk back. When grown-ups were talking, we couldn’t butt in.15

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Out of respect and out of acceptance, one did not question elders. Such questioning could be viewed as a challenge to that person’s authority, something a young person should never do. Further, when elders recounted the “talk of the elders,” there was authority built in to both the material and the role of narrator. Being an elder was reason enough that what they said was true; that it was an old story even more so. A more extensive answer simply was not needed. The possibility that elders could be the source of prophecy and not just the reporters of it may seem like a simple step when we notice how it seems to emerge out of the process of attribution common to virtually all Choctaw stories. But the implications for such a possibility are massive. Louise Wilson points out one of the most interesting implications as it relates personally to herself but subsequently to all Choctaw: I’m not that old yet, but I’m wondering, am I going to be at the point where you say old people are wise, more wise, you know. Is there going to be a point where I might know some things, where I can almost predict what’s going to happen back in my grandchildren’s grandchildren’s days? Whether Louise herself will be making predictions or not, the more generalized implication is that at least some elders will. The initial answer people provide for the question “How did they know?” is implicit in their answer to who “they” were. Despite a number of different sources, “they” all share individual power to access knowledge about the future. That power could be esoteric—reserved for only those chosen and/or trained to access this information—but it could also be more accessible, if not better understood, by all elders. “How did they know?” remains ambiguous but perhaps not without reason. A clear answer immediately narrows the scope and utility of prophecy. To say that only hopaii can prophesy is to say that the conversations of one’s grandparents were not prophecy but rather imitations masquerading as the real thing. Certainly the wisdom of the elders does not deserve such an unceremonious dismissal. Ambiguity may also be inherent to the enterprise. While many in the community have a good idea of how alikchi ply their trade and where they derive their power, none except the doctors themselves have more than a general understanding of this esoteric knowledge. To know is to be. It is perfectly logical, then, not to know exactly how such knowledge is obtained, and therefore exactly where prophecy comes from. Just as people believe in the power of alikchi without fully understanding it, so too are people expected to believe in prophecy.

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W HO A R E THE PROPHETS? The continuity of the expectation and role of the elders in the past and elders today helps explain the contemporary prophetic tradition. Yet while predictions are made today, the community views them as substantially different from the prophecies of the past. This view derives from the generic structure of oral narrative and, in fact, from the larger Choctaw worldview. The two terms themselves, “prophecy” and “prediction,” seem to maintain this temporal division: prophecy describes the old stories of the future, predictions the new. Prophecy is clearly tied to the supernatural, prediction less so. But what is also clear is that continuity is unavoidable. In discourse, division is explicit, continuity implicit. But in analysis, continuity holds sway. While the Choctaw have social taboos about pride and self-promotion that limit direct discourse, many performances of prophecy belie the fact that the process of prediction today is very similar to the processes of the past. The descriptions of the prophets in the past can broadly be divided into two categories—the specialized role (hopaii, alikchi) and gifted elders— though as discussed, these descriptions fall more neatly on a continuum than into boxes. In the past, the prophet held sway, with supernatural origins dominating the origin of prophecy. The same division is made with the people today who make predictions about the future, except that the norm is inverted. Today, the elder and the intellect prevail.

Supernatural Agency There are no hopaii or specialized prophets today. Further, only a few scattered medicine men and women continue to work in the communities, and their time seems to be devoted to healing patients rather than predicting the future. When medicine men and women are credited with prophecy, it is, like their medicine, directed at an individual.16 But the role the hopaii held, that of sacred leaders, does have a parallel in contemporary Choctaw culture, at least for Christians, in the form of the preacher. When I asked Carmen Denson if there were any prophets today, he told me, “Preacher. They’re supposed to be a prophet. That’s my opinion.” He then added: The religion came into play and that’s why I say it’s supposed to be the preachers; they’re supposed to be the hopaii. They’re supposed to foresee things. But they’re doing it in the terms of, I don’t want to say Anglo too much, but [laugh] in that term they’re doing it, they don’t foresee themselves as a hopaii or prophet. But they should try to practice it in my opinion. Because the only

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way that they practice it is that they read from the Bible. Maybe they do, I don’t know, maybe they have visions, I don’t know. Among the roles recognized in society today, the preacher seems a logical choice for the human conduit to God for divine prophecy. Yet as Carmen notes, the preachers have not taken up this responsibility. They focus entirely on interpreting the past (in the form of the Bible) rather than attempting to forecast the future. Some preachers, in fact, make a point of denouncing the traditional beliefs in the supernatural, arguing that they are incompatible with Christianity. With no preachers originating modern prophecy, and so few medicine men left, people naturally declare prophecy to be dead. But not only do predictions continue to be made, some originate as they did in the past: through visions. While it is uncommon today, it does happen. There are people who have medicine men in their bloodlines and have various supernatural tendencies, including prescience. One woman noted that even when she and her son have not talked in months, he is always able to recount to her what she has been doing and what her plans are for the near future. Many people admit to having extrasensory knowledge, or a sixth sense. People see accidents before they happen, know with certainty the gender of a baby and its health status from a vision while daydreaming. Such intuitions or visions are certainly not con¤ned to the Choctaw, though many in the community do believe they are more apt to have such abilities as they are more aware of the supernatural presence in this world. The major difference between these visions and those of the prophets is that the hopaii were able to evoke visions with esoteric rituals. Such power among non-medicine people today is a gift that comes unsolicited. While extensive and elaborate visions seem to be uncommon, at least in contemporary Choctaw culture and when compared to such traditions among Plains Indians for example,17 at least one man has had visions of the end of the world. They are closely related to things he has heard from his mother and father, but the length and source of these visions makes them unique in the Choctaw prophetic tradition heard today. The vision more closely resembles descriptions of the visions that hopaii had in the past. Bobby Joe is not a prophet and would be embarrassed, even upset, at the presumption of being labeled as such. Yet he has spent a lot of time thinking about the future and listening to his elders. He has also had dreams about what that future holds. I have a dream with it sometime. And I see earthquake, the ®oods come, a war is coming. I don’t know which it’s going to be now, when the end of the world gets here. It’s already [?], see through what’s going

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to happen. If it is war that’s going to start, like it’s World War Three, that ain’t even going to do it. It’s going to be a ®ood again, or a earthquake is going to take us. Even though just the other night when I dreamed, and I——there was, ¤rst beginning when I started dreaming. We was doing something outside. And there was moon was sitting up here [gestures up]. And we was doing outside in the nighttime. It was few people around, I don’t know exactly where, there was people around. And I looked around, and I looked up at the sky and I looked up at the moon sitting over here, and all of that sudden I look toward the West and now that moon is sitting over there. And I told these people, said, “Y’all know what’s going to happen tonight?” And these people said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen.” “Look at this moon, there’s two moon now.” When we looked around at the moon, and dozens of them in the sky. And people start getting——yell, screaming. People said, “This going to be end of the world.” I said, “Yeah.” And the people come running up to me and said, “What can we do to stop it? There’s so many moon in the sky.” I told these people, said, “It’s ain’t nothing you can do now. Now, they show you now.” I say, “Tonight,” I say, “we may never see a daylight again.” There was little girl there that said, “What do you mean, ‘We not see a tomorrow’?” They said, “Those, the moon’s going to hit this ground and kill us people?” say. I said, “No. It probably will, but right now,” I said, “maybe tonight’s going to be nighttime forever, for a while. I don’t know how long it’s going to take.” I said, “If you see daylight break coming somewhere, you be lucky living a few more days.” I said, “That moon represents something, now.” I said, “Just like we just got one hour left.” And people just running around everywhere and just asking the question. About that time, I woke up. It’s a few times I saw it different ways, where the end of the world is beginning. It’s going to be at nighttime. And I used to dream about that. So I believe in it, the time is getting close. Where just a lot of people, I think a lot of people, they believe that, too.

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And, that’s the reason why my mother used to tell about that. Said if you believe in it, by the Choctaw way, if you keep on carrying on and doing it, said the Creator is going to save you, even if you been died, because your spirit is going to be here. So that the time is come, the Creator is going to save your spirit. They’re going to put you back on earth again. It’s going to change your life. You’re going to come back to life again, after this. Where we’re living now is that they going to be destroyed. It’s going to be changing. Said that guy would have saved you, your spirit, he’ll bring you back to the top of the earth again. She said, thing you see today is not going to be here, it’s going to be different. But your spirit, they’re going to start all over again. That’s what’s going to happen. Tom: So it will be, it’s not, so the world, when the world comes to an end, it won’t, it’s not coming to an end forever, it’s coming to an end and then it’s going to start again? [Bobby nods] OK. How long ago did you have your dream? Bobby: Well, I been have that dream since I was, I’d say about sixteen, seventeen. I seen it a few times, not a lot, you know, just, it just, altogether, maybe ¤ve or six different dreams I’ve had. Tom: And you say they’re similar, or do they change? Bobby: Yeah, sometimes it’s similar to it. But the ®ood is coming was only just one time I had that dream. People were screaming, start running, trying to get in the hill, or maybe a mountain. Try to get away from the water. But the way I see it, that water is just coming over the ground, it just, maybe about two hundred feet high, just coming over like this, just pushed everything, just washed everything. But somehow or another, when I see it, I was kind of, ®ew, up in the air. So it kind of like, it just back off, just keep watching and it just back off. I see the people running. It’s another people either. All those animals were still running. The water is just——. So, I know that was the ®ood is going to be coming. But, you can see it too. It’s going to have a World War Three. It’s pretty strong yet. That’s going to be, that World War Three is going to be our end of the world. The weapon they’re using now is going to kill everything. Throughout this discourse, Bobby Joe moves back and forth between his dreams and the things that he heard from his mother and other elders about the future. The two are, he explicitly notes, similar. In fact, when he ¤nishes

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recounting his vision, he adds, “And that’s the reason why my mother used to tell me about that.” The vision is his own; the prophecy, more communal. He concludes that “a lot of people, they believe that, too.” In some ways, then, Bobby’s vision is an interpretation of older prophecies. His vision ¤lls in the gaps of older, less vivid or speci¤c prophecies, explaining what the end will look like, feel like. But for the most part, the elements of the vision parallel what he has heard in his waking hours, including the sign of two moons in the sky, which he tells me his father and others used to tell him about. Bobby Joe’s vision resonates with Choctaw oral tradition historically as well, yet as an event of the past rather than one of the future. In a narrative told by Peter Pitchlynn to Charles Lanman in the second half of the nineteenth century, a great ®ood destroyed the Choctaw and the rest of the world years and years ago: The streams among the hills and mountains shouted with joy, and the broad rivers wound their wonted course along the peaceful valleys. The moon and stars had long made the night skies beautiful, and guided the hunter through the wilderness. The sun, which the red man calls the glory of summertime, had never failed to appear. Many generations of men lived and passed away. But in process of time the aspect of the world became changed. Brother quarreled with brother, and cruel wars frequently covered the earth with blood. The Great Spirit saw all these and was displeased. A terrible wind swept over the wilderness, and the Ok-la-ho-ma, or red people, knew that they had done wrong, but they lived as if they did not care. Finally, a stranger prophet made his appearance among them, and proclaimed in every village the news that the human race was to be destroyed. None believed his words, and the moons of summer again came and disappeared. It was now the autumn of the year. Many cloudy days had occurred, and then a total darkness came upon the earth, and the sun seemed to have departed forever. It was very dark and very cold. Men lay down to sleep, but were troubled with unhappy dreams. They arose when they thought it was time for the day to dawn, but only to see the sky covered with a darkness deeper than the heaviest cloud. The moon and stars had all disappeared, and there was constantly a dismal bellowing of thunder all round the sky. Men now believed that the sun would never return, and there was great consternation throughout the land. The great men of the Choctaw nation spoke despondingly to their fellows, and sung their death-songs, but those songs were faintly heard in the gloom of the great night. Men

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visited each other by torchlight. The grains and fruits of the land became mouldy, and the wild animals of the forest became tame, and gathered around the watch-¤res of the Indians, entering even into the villages. A louder peal of thunder than was ever before heard now echoed through the ¤rmament, and a light was seen in the North. It was not the light of the sun, but a gleam of distant waters. They made a mighty roar, and, in billows like the mountains, they rolled over the earth. They swallowed up the entire human race, and destroyed everything which had made the earth beautiful.18 While Bobby does not refer to this narrative speci¤cally, he does explicitly refer to narratives he has heard from his mother and other elders in order to interpret and explain his vision, suggesting coherence among the oral traditions of the tribe.19 There are other parallels between Bobby’s vision and the perception of prophecy throughout the community today. Just as people frequently point out a series of possibilities of how the world will end, so too does Bobby dream a series of alternatives. Sometimes he dreams of a celestial explosion on earth, other times a ®ood, still others a war, and sometimes a combination of these. Again, there is a strong parallel between his vision and existing prophecy, and existing perceptions of prophecy. But Bobby’s interpretation is markedly different for having come in a dream. Unlike the interpretations that people consciously struggle with and work through verbally or mentally but clearly consciously, Bobby’s interpretation comes during a state of unconsciousness or subconsciousness. Knowledge gained from such states was regarded in the past as being of supernatural origin and hence having particular import. Its origin makes it substantially different from other prophetic discourse. One other important difference must be noted. In this vision, Bobby sees himself as playing an integral role in the end of the world. As people look around wondering what is happening, Bobby stands as a leader, interpreting the signs and delivering the prophetic message. This role resonates with the image of the prophet in the past, that of the prophet leader. And yet shifts in community acceptance alter how such a vision is viewed. As Bobby himself notes: You know, I try to explain it to people, but if they don’t want to listen, you know, you don’t want to sit down and talk about it. If I start to say something like that, sometimes they “Oh, hey. Now you just saying that.” You just get up and go. Man like here [indicating me] you like to

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sit down and talk about it. Yeah, I can sit down and talk. But you can’t hardly ¤nd people like that. Much of this reaction stems from a lack of interest in getting together to talk that many elders note today. This used to be central to Choctaw social life, but quicker ¤xes for entertainment can be had from television and other distractions, and so these topics are often ignored. The lack of belief expressed by Bobby’s peers, however, also has to do with the fact that Bobby is not, and does not claim to be, a prophet or hopaii. Without the authority and validation of this role, there is no particular reason that the community would gather around him as they did in the past when chiefs consulted them and entire communities followed them.

Human Agency With prophecy attributed to the divine or the supernatural, discussion of origins need be taken no further. The notion of a supreme being or the declaration of supernatural powers is an explanation that cannot be falsi¤ed, nor is there any reason to make such an attempt. Prophecy is a system of interpretation of the world. That interpretation is distinctly cultural. Therefore, a native belief system of the supernatural culled from the same worldview that undergirds the interpretation of prophecy makes the attribution to the divine or supernatural implicitly valid. The other major source of prophecy regularly recognized then and now, however, invites interpretation. The recognition of gifted elders as a source for prophecy demands the analysis of prophecy as at least partially a human phenomenon. Even when divine power is ultimately credited for inspiration, there is nonetheless a recognition within the community that people are actively engaged with prophecy, thinking about the future in relation to the present and past, and developing ideas about what will be coming. In the past, prophets had esoteric rituals with which to summon visions of the future; today, elders simply sit and think. Much of this thinking is focused on the act of interpretation of existing prophecy, as examined in the previous chapter. But the act of thinking is not a restrictive act; nor is interpretation directed in only one direction. Rather, thinking about the world can lead to the creation of prophecy just as interpreting prophecy can lead to shifts in the prophecy itself and thus engender new prophecy here as well. The results of both are new predictions. Some of these predictions are best classi¤ed as adaptations and clari¤cations of existing prophecy. Other predictions ¤nd consonance in Choctaw culture and contemporary life but are voiced for the ¤rst time as prophecy and hence can be considered wholly new predictions. Both efforts help explain the human role in the varied processes of the creation of prophecy.

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CR E AT ION THROUGH INTERPR ETAT ION OF E X IST ING PROPHECY

Evolution through Interpretation When people narrate the prophecies that their grandparents and parents told them, it is sometimes unclear whether what these elders said was part of the prophetic core passed down through time or part of an effort to interpret that core by attaching to it elements of the contemporary landscape that might indicate impending ful¤llment. Is the explanation that the snakes will be coming by water part of the original prophecy or part of an attempt to interpret how the prophecy about man-eating snakes will be ful¤lled? The possibility that interpretation might move into the core is supported by comparative analysis. A single narrator in a single performance may be vague about whether a particular detail is clearly part of the core or the interpretation, but the narrator will never claim it as both. While such ambiguity is illogical within the con¤nes of the particular performance, it is not necessarily illogical in the course of interpreting prophecy. Prophecy derived through human agency is an attempt to interpret the world. The interpretation of prophecy, then, is an attempt to interpret that interpretation. When the narrator focuses speci¤cally on interpreting the prophecy, delineation between core and interpretation is usually fairly clear. However, once that interpretation begins to make more and more sense to the narrator, once that contemporary event is inexorably attached to the core as the way the prophecy will be ful¤lled, then the prophecy itself can be rephrased with this more speci¤c information. Transferring one to the other is hardly a categorical leap but rather a logical step in the larger goal of prophecy to interpret the surrounding world. When this happens, it is evidence that the narrator has accepted the onus not merely of reporting the words of the elders (not to be dismissed lightly), but of further engaging in the same act his or her elders were engaged in when they interpreted, and even originated, these prophecies. This process does not describe the creation of prophecy as much as the clari¤cation of prophecy, moving prophecy from the vague to the speci¤c. This act is at once stimulating and restricting. Once a narrator makes this move, the prophecy can be better understood by that individual, but it may close off future interpretations. The various versions of the prophecy of the Third Removal provide a good example. In the version that Estelline Tubby heard and tells today, the Third Removal will explicitly not be like the other two removals. It will not be a removal by the government. Nor will it be a forced removal so clearly disadvantageous to the people. This distinction leads Estelline in part to interpret the Third Removal as a spiritual removal, one that signals the end of the world. Regina Shoemake, on the other hand, uses the terms “Third Removal” and

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“another Trail of Tears” synonymously in the version she tells, clearly indicating that she believes the Third Removal will be like the ¤rst two. By attaching the term “Trail of Tears” to the core of the prophecy, Regina clari¤es for herself and her audience the nature of the Third Removal. The associations made to the ¤rst removals—pain, suffering, government dominance, pressure from outside cultures—are immediately applied from the ¤rst removals to the prophesied third one. Unavoidably, Regina’s Shoemake’s interpretation rules out other interpretations, including that of Estelline Tubby. Estelline agrees that there will be suffering and pain. She cannot avoid the historical precedent set by the ¤rst two. But her conviction that this removal will be different, and her belief that it may be a spiritual removal, leads her at least to consider a different emotional response to this removal, one that mingles fear of the end of the world with the hope of salvation in the end and hence a sense of liberation rather than bondage. Estelline Tubby conscientiously points out that the possibility that the Third Removal is a spiritual removal is her interpretation, and she is careful not to incorporate this theme into the prophetic core. Yet it is easy to see how future generations, upon hearing her narration, might agree with her interpretation and combine it into the core. Both women begin with essentially the same prophecy. Yet because of their initial orientation as to what the Third Removal will be like, their interpretations are dramatically different. Regina Shoemake suggests that the Choctaw will lose their land to the government and once again be forced to leave their home in Mississippi. Estelline Tubby believes that when the end of the world comes, the Choctaw will be led to salvation somewhere up in the North. One is a dramatic but localized historical event, the other the ultimate cosmological and religious event for all of humanity. Together, they exhibit a slow evolutionary process toward new prophecies. Although the process is adaptive rather than originally inspired, the result is the same. Caught in the balance are two functions of prophecy: the effort to strive toward an objective and accurate account of the future, and the effort of individuals to make sense of the world according to their own values and experiences. Incorporating more and more speci¤c information into the core prophecy presumably strives to satisfy the ¤rst but potentially compromises the second. However, the evolutionary path of prophecy is not necessarily one from general to speci¤c. Interpretation is a constant effort to draw meaning by associating the familiar with the unfamiliar. Speci¤c elements get dropped and new ones get added in. The ¤rst voicing of the prophecy may have been as speci¤c as its contemporary manifestation, even though the two may have shifted in time. While individuals ¤nd such reduction useful since a prophecy that allows for anything to happen is far weaker than one that suggests a ¤nite

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possibility of things to happen, the prophecy’s utility for future generations is restricted. Instead of a tool to facilitate interpretation, prophecy risks becoming a codi¤ed history of the future to be passed down as one more valuable, but impractical, relic of the elders.20 The means by which people in the community have worked against such codi¤cation is group discourse. While differences between the narratives of Estelline Tubby and Regina Shoemake ultimately might not be resolved, such interaction at least makes it possible to reopen the venues of interpretation if the individual ¤nds it useful. With the frequency of group interaction decreasing, however, one might predict that interpretations will become more and more localized and ¤xed.

The Example Is the Prophecy Another way in which a prophetic core can be recon¤gured into a seemingly new, distinct prophecy is when concrete examples are used to formulate the prophetic core. The result is a number of different prophecies that all trace their origin to a common, conceptual prophetic core. When narrators incorporate interpretation into the core of the prophecy as noted above, a general prophecy is made more speci¤c. In recounting the prophecy via example, however, the speci¤cs are the sum total of the prophecy; the core does not need to exist as a text at all. Instead, the prophecy exists as a speci¤c version of a general conceptual prophecy. The number of prophecies is limited only to the creativity of the narrator; for every unique example, there is a unique prophecy. Again, an example is useful to clarify. One afternoon, sitting in the miniature chairs of a ¤rst grade classroom in the school where he works as a custodian, Billy Amos talks about the stories his elders used to tell him of what would be coming up in the future. Some of these things have come up, some of them he still has not seen yet but expects to. Billy is old enough to be considered an elder himself now, but as with even the oldest people in the community, he remembers his own elders and frequently defers to them even years after they have passed away. Those elders who have accepted the responsibility of talking to their grandchildren as their grandparents did with them eventually shift out of the role of reporter to the role of storyteller. Billy is one of those elders, and not long into our conversation, he makes this shift. Billy: It’s back in the centuries. Pass on, to today, is what I’m saying. Simpler times. The elders, people used to talk, and then it goes on, and on and on. Like what you heard when my dad talked. And it’s true. A lot of times, those young kids, and when you sit there and talk, “Billy’s lying, he don’t know,” you know.

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Tom: Oh, today? Billy: Yeah, if I was sitting and talk to them, explaining, you know. They won’t believe it. Because it’s modern generation. If you look at the older talk, if you just stop and think, looking back, pass on, ’til today. And some of the things that we look at back, it’s in the spot there somewhere. But it’s modern generation. It’s good. Air conditioning, lights, TV, VCR. Yeah it’s good. But it takes money to live on. Tom: Lot more than it used to. Billy: Yeah. Even if you look at the groceries, keep going up, they don’t go down. That’s one example there. Probably the bread might cost two dollars, way there in future times. Probably eighty-nine cents back then, but now, dollar forty-two cents, whatever. Might get to, uh, two dollars. Can’t believe that, but it’ll come up. Like she used to say that. Like sack of ®our going to cost you ten dollars. Back then was two dollars and ¤fty cents. Twenty-¤ve pounds. I remember that. [laugh] Tom: Wow. Lot of ®our. Billy: Yeah, twenty-¤ve pounds. Like pants, it was two dollars and ¤fty cents. Now how much you get? Thirteen? Twenty-¤ve dollars? [small laugh] Cost of living is now going up. So that’s how they goes. That’s how they used to say that. Like, Walter Bell’s daddy used to tell me, he said that he went logging for twenty-¤ve cents a day, from sunrise to sundown, plus he had to walk a couple miles to get home. Every day. Twenty-¤ve cents a day. Billy bookends his discourse with the generalized statements that sit at the root of the more speci¤c prophecies he tells: “the groceries keep going up, they don’t go down,” and “cost of living is now going up.” As with most prophecies, there is evidence of variation in the speci¤city of the prophecy. But neither of these general statements comprise the prophecy that Billy heard growing up. Prophecy is told with the future tense. This “will come up.” Declarative statements of generalized truths are not prophecies, though as we will see, they often give rise to them. Rather, Billy uses these statements as frames for what he does perform as prophecy, marking them with the language and phrasing of the genre—the future tense and attributed speech: “Like she used to say that. Like sack of ®our going to cost you ten dollars. Back then was two dollars and ¤fty cents. Twenty-¤ve pounds. I remember that.” The prophecy as it was told to Billy was spoken with the speci¤c example as the prophecy, in essence: in the future, ®our will cost four times as much as now. In many ways, formulating the prophecy in this way is only marginally

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different from incorporating interpretation into the prophecy. But there are differences worth noting. Here the core prophecy and the concrete prophecy exist side by side, not one as an addition to the other. Where the earlier prophecies demanded interpretation to understand the prophecy, which could then be incorporated into the core, this prophecy demands that the narrator provide speci¤c examples. Further, where interpretation generally reduces the prophecy, the demand on the narrator here is to expand it. Billy’s mother formulates the prophecy by predicting that the price of ®our will quadruple. Billy himself formulates the prophecy by predicting change in the price of bread. The two options are complementary (as opposed to contradictory, as can be the case with alternative interpretations). That Billy engages in the same process as his mother is a testament to the vitality of the tradition. Billy is not merely reporting the prophecy he heard, he is actively engaging in the process of constructing and performing this genre. By doing so, he is not only able, but even encouraged, to tailor the prophecy to his own experiences, opinions, and views and thus contribute to the creation of prophecy. But he has choices. He can either recount the way his elders have formulated the prophecy, or he can provide his own examples. Here, he does both. It is perhaps useful to think of this process as one of substitutability. The core demands that you discuss the rising cost of living. You can discuss ®our or bread. You can discuss the price of pants or the rise in pay for logging. With these last two examples, however, Billy is con¤rming the validity of the prophecy rather than working within it to predict the future. The cost of pants and the wages for logging have gone up; we can see that. But whether the price increase has been ful¤lled or not, the ability to substitute a variety of options into the prophecy remains a freedom of the narrator. This notion of substitutability is made clear by Billy, often signaling this strategy with the word “like” as with any simile. His mother used to say things “like” that ®our would get expensive; he adds “like pants” and “like Walter Bell’s daddy” used to tell him. Bread costing more is “one example there.” The prophecy he adds about rising bread prices is a hypothetical prophecy. It is “like” the things they used to say. Billy remembers the kind of things people said without necessarily remembering exactly what was said. In the case of the ®our, he does speci¤cally remember the example his mother provided. But there is no reason that his example is any less valid. Billy Amos performs prophecy the same way with a prophecy about snakes crawling all over the houses if people aren’t careful. This prophecy and Billy’s interpretation of it operate the same way, as if snakes are an example of a more general prophecy: that wild animals will multiply and start taking over. Billy hints at this more general core when he adds at the end of his discourse that there seem to be more wild animals today than there used to be. But in be-

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tween, he recounts a personal experience narrative involving a panther and notes that bears and bobcats would ¤t within this prophecy as well. It is perhaps important to recognize that this freedom granted the narrator to formulate a prophecy according to concrete example may be accepted or refused. Key to this proposition is that there is a more general prophecy that lurks behind the performance constructed out of the narrator’s original example. This more general prophecy may be held conceptually and abstractly, rather than as remembered text, but it is what establishes the speci¤cally formulated prophecy as part of the stories of the elders and hence validates its authenticity.21 The narrator can choose to recount only this more general prophecy. Two years later, Billy Amos chooses this option: They translated what’s going to be come up, and explained it. And so many years times, it shows. And the next one, it’s something, it shows. And up to today. And I can’t believe it. Maybe this two thousand years, she didn’t say the year time, but probably it’s two thousand year like next year, maybe that’s a part of, she was saying something. The grocery’s going to be high. They’ll be in the store, but the money was going to be a problem. You can’t hardly buy with the money because the price is going to be up high. She didn’t say how many years it’ll be, but in the future times, so many years, it’s going to be showing. And I think that’s where we are now, little spot right now. Groceries was going to be high. Here, Billy Amos recounts the idea that prices were going to be high as prophecy, where earlier he proposed it as a general statement of the state of affairs of the world. Billy sets the prediction in the past, in the voice of his mother, and accordingly employs the future tense. The suggestion is that prices were not high then but would be in the future and so can be seen to be a prediction. Clearly, the predictions of high-priced ®our and bread derive from this prophecy. Yet when Billy initially referenced this more general prophecy back in 1997, we saw not prophecy but rather a truism, an accepted fact that has no speci¤c temporal boundaries. Prices go up, they don’t go down. This is something presumably as true in the past as it is today. The difference, then, between how Billy raised the issue of high grocery prices in 1997—as general tenet—and in 1999—as prophecy—is slight at best. A new possibility for the process of the creation of prophecy is raised. If people have recognized for years that prices continually go up, then the act of

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prophecy exists only in the concrete example, and not in what we have been calling the more generalized prophecy. In this case, prophecy originates from elders carefully observing trends and then projecting probable results of those trends into the future. This process suggests not how existing prophecies can be expanded and developed into new prophecies but how entirely new prophecies can be created through human agency. CR E AT ION THROUGH INTERPR ETAT ION OF THE WOR LD “The old men of the tribe would sit around the camp¤re and talk about things that they saw happening among their people. They said that one day, the trees will be few and the people will grow grass and feed it to the cows.” John Hunter Thompson, 1979 “Myself, I’m looking at the world. I just predict it myself, because it might happen.” Grady John, 2000 The process of thinking about the world, and talking through those thoughts, is a cornerstone of the creation of prophecy just as it is of the interpretation of it. Both arise from the same impulse but with different foci. The prophecies discussed so far have arisen through the interpretation of prophecy; but prophecy is also created through interpretation of the world. People signal the genre of prophecy by noting that their elders told them that things will change. This is a fundamental premise of how the Choctaw view the world. The world is not stagnant or stable but in a constant state of ®ux. That ®ux may be hard to see by simply looking around, but contrasting pictures of the past with pictures of the present make this change far more visible. Knowing that the world will change, elders are called upon to interpret that change, even predict it. While their predictions may differ in source, accuracy, and scope from the prophecies of the past, they are part of the same enterprise. Further, completely divorcing this process from divine inspiration is premature. Just as thinking during the process of interpretation can be attributed to divine inspiration, so too can thinking during the process of creation. The ability to identify the hints of a trend in society and then move forward in time to predict its outcome can be explained without reference to supernatural power and so it is easily dismissed as void of such in®uence. There is no particular reason, however, that such higher thought processes cannot also,

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or alternatively, be attributed to the supernatural. Some people in the community lean toward the secular in explaining this process, some toward the sacred, but people from both camps recognize that some of the predictions made derive at least partly from the prescient thinking of elders.

Extending Trends John Hunter Thompson describes a situation echoed by many in the community. The elders would gather together and talk. The nature of these talks varied, and could at any one time conjure shukha anumpa, political debate, gossip, or any of the varied stories of the elders. The ®uidity of such conversation helped ease the move between contemporary observation and prediction of the future. The same processes can be seen today among the men and women who make contemporary predictions. The process is a fairly simple one but one that people seem to engage in less and less frequently. Of the men and women I worked with, three of them—Billy Amos, Grady John, and Bobby Joe—actively engage in questions about what path they are on now, culminating in predictions about what the future will hold because of this path and these trends. They are engaged in the same process of prophecy that contemporary narrators attribute to the elders of the past. Such predictions generally arise out of conversation in two ways: from speci¤c talk of passed-on prophecy and from talk of changes seen in the community. Grady John and I have sat down many times in the past to talk, a few of those times with a tape recorder running to capture our words exactly. This was the case when Grady and I got together just a few days into the new year, 2000. Grady was familiar with my research interests and was prepared to talk about prophecy. The majority of our conversation centered on this topic, even as Grady interwove prophecy with more general discourse about change and Choctaw culture. Regularly, his generalized discourse evoked the predictions his grandfather made when Grady was young. Occasionally, it evoked predictions of his own: Grady: But, you know, my grandpa predict lot of stuff. He say we going to have different people. You know there at ¤rst we had, he had said there were Indians, Caucasians, African Blacks. But he said, later on, “Watch. You going to see all kind of people start moving to America.” I say, “How come they moving here?” “’Cause they want to have better life.” I say, “What do you mean?”

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See, here in America, you can have your own business or you can have better paying job. They want freedom of life. Just like me and you. They said that’s why they going to be start coming in. I said, “How you know?” He said, “It’s going to happen. I might predict that.” Now, OK. What do we have here in America? All kind of people living. Especially you go to New York. You can see all kind of people, right? Tom: That’s right. Grady: See, he predict that. Tom: And how about around here? Do you ¤nd a lot of people from different countries around here as well? Grady: Yeah. I saw a lot of India Indians, you know. You know there’s a bunch of them here. They’re very smart people, you know, in ¤guring stuff like that. They’re good—India. Tom: So they’re here in Henning? Grady: In America. Lot of Indian people. Because they want to start business here. So today you see a lot of those in the hotel; they buy old motel, put it up. Tom: Is that what’s happening in Henning? Grady: Yeah. It’s going to happen. It’s already happened. And you see Chinese. It’s even got a business. Lot of these foreign people, they seen American, they can have better life. You see, Americans got push-button. Over there, they crank, you know what I mean? So they want to have better life. That’s why lot of them, if you let them, if you open doors, they going to move in here. Tom: Do you see that as a good thing or a bad thing? Grady: That’s a bad thing. We’re going to have a bigger trouble with those kind of people coming in. And, uh, let me predict this. I might be wrong, but——lot of these people like, a lot of Christian people start coming in. We’re going to have, they’ll be problem there too. And this, our government, we function real good. But those other country’s people say, “We want this and that. We want to keep our things.” We can’t. See. It’s going to be corruption. The language and stuff like that. It will. After a lengthy discussion about immigration, Grady John makes a prediction himself. It is based on the prophecy of his grandfather that more and more immigrants will be coming to the United States. Grady has seen an increase in immigration, even in the small town of Henning, Tennessee, where he lives. Working from what he sees on the contemporary landscape,

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and from the prophecy of his grandfather, Grady makes a prediction of his own: that there will be problems when these immigrants come. There will be a clash of cultures. Foreign people will want to keep their languages and customs while attempting to reap the bene¤ts of a democratic American culture and society. While he is somewhat vague, it appears that he believes the corruption that will ensue will be the corrupting of American culture and the English language, as opposed, for example, to the Choctaw language. With evidence of immigration, and perhaps even incidents of disruption, Grady John makes a prediction that the effects of immigration on American culture based on his sense of how the world and its people operate.22 Grady John constructs his predictions based on fairly contemporary events. Billy Amos reaches farther into the past to construct his. Billy remembers that when he was growing up, kids began school but rarely ¤nished it. He, like his peers, grew up working in the ¤elds as a sharecropper. When the system of sharecropping ended and farming began to decline, many men in Billy’s situation found themselves untrained for any other kind of work. Federal work programs attempted to relocate American Indian men to larger cities— Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles—in order to ¤nd laborer jobs there. Billy spent ten years in Chicago working as a custodian in a factory until he and his family moved back to Mississippi, where the tribe had begun to attract various industries, and industrial jobs, to the area. More recently, tribal members have become increasingly aware that there are many jobs available to Choctaw men and women beyond backbreaking labor and factory work. But these jobs require training and education. The trend Billy notes—the move from blue collar to white collar jobs—can be traced back to his childhood. Billy: In our future——background is, when the schools start out and the few people that goes in, they had the sharecrops. The sharecrop is gone now, you know. And mostly, it’s the education is come up to now. For the people they grows up and ¤nish that school and then they get better jobs, get more education, high schools and college. That’s one of the number one priorities right there, today. Tom: Priority of who? The whole tribe? Billy: For the individual people. ’Cause if we did the, ¤nish the schools, you drop out of schools, and then it’s going to get hard to get the jobs today. Tom: You mean without a high school diploma? Billy: Yeah. Those things going to come up. Because now, they need more education. They continue and goes into high school. If they ¤nish, if they can, they go more, to college. Then they become, ¤nish the school, college, and easier to get in jobs. If you drop out of schools, you’ll never make it.

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Billy notes that this focus on education has been a growing trend since the loss of sharecropping as a viable occupation. He believes, as much of the community does, that the need for a good education will become necessary to succeed in life. Billy sees proof of the connection between success and education in more and more of the people in his community. The principal of his school is a man well known for being the ¤rst Mississippi Choctaw to get a Ph.D. Much of Billy’s talk is general discourse about changes he sees, along with a valuative interpretation of those changes. But his language veers into that of prophecy. “Those things going to come up,” he says, a common phrase that marks predictions of the future. By stating this without attribution, Billy is not reporting a prediction of the past but making a prediction himself, in the way his elders before him have.

Extending Tenets As with many of the examples provided here to illustrate the different ways in which prophecy either appears to be created anew or in fact is, Billy Amos’s prediction about the necessity of school for success relies not only on a trend that he identi¤es, but on a tenet or belief assumed to be a general truth. Billy Amos is convinced that education is not only the future path for the Choctaw but a good path. This added valence to prophecy stems not from the trend Billy sees when comparing past to present, sharecropping to schooling, but from a general belief Billy holds about the value of education. Grady John feels much the same way. He has con¤dence in both the merit of education and the ability of the youth to achieve levels of success simply not open to him or his peers when growing up. All of the new schools being constructed around the reservation make it possible to gain the kind and levels of education that many Choctaw had once associated only with white people. But unlike Billy Amos’s prediction that education will ensure such success, Grady John does not situate his narrative in the context of the growing trend of the demand for educated people for good jobs. Rather, his prediction is based solely on the belief of what education can accomplish. His prediction derives from a con¤dence in this inherent value that, if embarked upon, cannot fail to provide the desired results he predicts. It is while explaining to me why he believes the Choctaw are recognized the world over that Grady John makes his prediction. And they always thinking that we try to get ahead. And just like today. We trying to ¤nd solution that make it better for us. So that’s what Chief Martin doing now. We can succeed if we work

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hard more. We can get, that’s what’s going to happen. My prediction: if we can educate more of our Choctaw kids, we can do more. If Grady John does refer to a trend, it is to the contemporary attempts by Chief Martin to bring jobs to the reservation. But this is ancillary to the merits of working hard. Grady John combines two tenets of his value system— the merits of education and working hard—and constructs his own prediction from them. This focus on a perceived universal truth is mirrored in how Grady makes his prediction. While he labels this a prediction, it differs somewhat in kind from many of the predictions we have examined so far. By adding the “if ” here, Grady is arguing less for a prediction of success for the Choctaw by education than for the truth of the power of education. The focus is leveled primarily on the tenet rather than the future. A synthetic gray area emerges, where prophecy, general tenet, and advice blend, distinguishable only by word choice, tense, and phrasing. The question that naturally arises is whether this is a prediction at all, at least in the sense that people regard the predictions of the elders. The answer lies in a claim made earlier in this chapter: that the process of prediction engaged in now parallels that of the past. While some stories are clearly passed-down stories, many people remember hearing a grandmother or grandfather or aunt tentatively offer up a possibility of the future. In performance, the difference between the two can be as subtle as a shift in word choice—the difference between “my grandfather said that one day . . . ” and “my grandfather predicted that one day . . . ” Such predictions straddle the past and the present. The tendency to formulate prophecy as either of the past (talk of the elders) or of the present makes these transitional prophecies rare in performance, masking the process of prophecy. But glimpses of the transition from the belief in a general tenet to prophecy do occasionally appear. Just before Grady John makes his own prediction about education, he recounts a prediction his grandfather made about the success of the Choctaw. You see, we’re on the right track, right now. We Choctaws we were behind a lot of different tribes but I think we’re stepping up on them. I’m not bragging, I’m just——. Because, it’s going to be a teamwork, know what I mean? That’s teamwork, so you have to, if you work hard together long enough, you get strong. And you get you a lot of matches, and put it thick, try to break it. You can’t break it. That’s how strong you can be [pantomimes trying to break a lot of matches].

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So grandpa predict that. He said if you had one or two matches, you break that, because you’re not strong. But if you have the big large ones, you can get strong and people all over the world, going to be, start coming to your reservation. And this happened. You know, a lot of people come and tell me now, say, “I’m a Choctaw,” “I’m a Choctaw.” You know, Choctaw are a worldfamous Indian people. Grady is reporting a prediction that his grandfather made, retaining the allusions and analogies from that original performance. In doing so, we see his grandfather operating in much the same way that Grady does in forming new predictions. There is an adage that might be boiled down to something like “there is strength in numbers” but is more poetically described as a struggle to break many matches stacked together. There is also an explicit prediction of a future occurrence, something lacking in Grady’s prediction. “People all over the world going to be, start coming to your reservation,” his grandfather predicts. As an event that will be coming up, formulated with the future tense, this is unequivocally a prediction of the kind that the elders commonly tell. But one cannot ignore the adage that underlies it, that in fact seems to dominate the performance. When Grady notes his grandfather “predicted that,” is Grady referring to the truth of the adage, or the ensuing result—the coming of people from all over the world? The latter is clearly the case, but the former appears valid as well. Grady’s grandfather seems to have started where Grady does with education: with a belief in the truth of a particular tenet. Grady’s grandfather then extends this belief and projects possible implications that may occur in the future. One of them is that people will be so impressed with Choctaw success they will come from all around to see the tribe. This has in fact happened, as Grady notes. Whether this projection into the future was based on a trend Grady’s grandfather noticed or not is unclear and does not demand an answer in the context of our present discussion. What is clear is that the elements both men began their predictions with is the same, as is the process they followed. What is left for Grady to do to match his grandfather is to extend his projection a bit farther into the future, as he has previously done when he moved from his grandfather’s prophecy of more immigrants to his own—that there will be a lot of problems arising from this move. At its early stages of creation, the prediction can either remain an option (which is less a prediction than an argument that a tenet is valid) or establish a clear claim (more a prediction with the result that the tenet is proved valid). Grady John does the ¤rst, his grandfather the second. But the process is in place for Grady to make a more concrete prediction if he chooses. If Grady’s grandfather’s prediction of incoming scholars seems a stretch

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from its humble beginnings as an adage about strength in numbers, Estelline Tubby’s mother makes it clear just how easy the shift from adage to prediction can be. Estelline Tubby and I sit in her living room discussing the kinds of things she wants to see for the youth today. She stresses education, and notes speci¤cally education about Choctaw culture. The most cultural thing, I was teached and we are teached in our Choctaw tribe is keeping the—most one is about marriage. Well, we would like our children to marry whites, blacks or other tribes, but we are teached not to. ’Cause they don’t understand our ways, and they don’t understand our cultural ways. And, that’s the main one we used to be teached: not to marry out of the tribe so they could understand our language. And my mom said, well, she really did tell us not to. Because, she said, “Look at the birds,” she said. “Cardinal, the mockingbird. And if you see sometimes around your house, the cardinals don’t mate with the blue jays or mockingbird. God made that and they are beautiful, with female and male.” And she said just that. And I don’t know why she said that was, that “When the children are mixed blood, they will never be Choctaw again.” And that’s the way. “But there are days coming, too, it’s going to happen. But I’m talking to you as my children. I don’t know about the future,” she said, “but it may be going to happen.” And it has happened. You see, when they say it like that, it usually happens. Estelline Tubby retains in her narrative the humility that her mother showed when making this prediction. Her mother says she does not know about the future but proceeds to predict it nonetheless. Estelline’s comment— “When they say it like that, it usually happens”—suggests that her mother is in fact working within the genre of prophecy, not just because her mother is suggesting what will happen in the future but because of how she said what she did.23 Intermarriage among other races or ethnicities certainly traces back long before Estelline’s mother made this prediction. A major chapter in Choctaw history revolves around an informal aristocracy created through intermarriage with white settlers that culminated in the 1830s with removal to Oklahoma

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via a treaty negotiated to a large extent by these mixed-blood leaders. Intermarriage seems to have been a fear at least since then, if not before. But it is less this trend than the accepted tenet that intermarriage is unnatural that underlies this prophecy. The tenet explains the moral behind recounting it: to warn today’s youth against intermarriage. The trend has the potential to explain the origin of the prophecy itself, but Estelline does not state this explicitly. The focus is on the underlying moral. While we might be tempted to play the game of which came ¤rst, the prophecy or the tenet, what is important is that the two are inexorably tied now, and that each has the potential to engender the other. Both Grady John’s grandfather and Estelline Tubby’s mother provide rare glimpses of transitional prophecies where individuals are named as having predicted these things, and where the shift from trend and tenet to predicted event or state of affairs is in process. The result is a performance of prophecy that includes the trend or tenet not as an added moral or interpretation but rather as the source of the prophecy itself. Again we are reminded of how similar the processes of interpretation and creation are and why separating core and interpretation may be fairly straightforward in the individual performance but virtually impossible when examining the process of prophecy through comparative analysis. In many ways, this process is not unlike the kind of bold statements older people make in any culture. They contemplate life in the past, recognize current trends, and evaluate them according to moral tenets they follow. The major difference is not in the process of prediction or its content but the weight given to the enterprise. For the Choctaw, where prophecy and prediction are an established tradition, such contemplation is imbued with cultural, social, and often divine authority. Further, the Choctaw have an interpretive mechanism to address prediction, and so are better prepared to make greater use and application of these predictions once made. Prophecy derived from tenets also illustrate the value of turning these concepts into prophecy. Tenet and advice are didactically powerful but only so far as the individual who voices them is powerful. As prophecy, however, the power of the elders, the past, and the supernatural all come to bear. The act of developing prophecy from tenet is also powerful in turning less obviously marked discourse into recognizable generic form. In doing so, the abstract concept is given a concrete form that can be more rigorously analyzed. Edmund Leach describes this universal process of human thought ef¤ciently: “By converting ideas, products of the mind (mentifacts), into material objects ‘out-there,’ we give them relative permanence, and in that permanent

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material form we can subject them to technical operations which are beyond the capacity of the mind acting by itself ” (1976:37). For Leach, the material objects “out there” are tangible objects and visual ritual acts that serve as signs and symbols. However, narrative form, particularly when viewed as important traditional material to be passed down, as the talk of the elders is, is often objecti¤ed by the Choctaw when discussing their oral tradition. The act of turning concept into object is universal;24 the act of doing so in the form of prophecy, however, is culturally speci¤c. For the Choctaw, then, prophecy is a culturally sanctioned means for projecting a value system out into the world.

Extending the Cycle of History The world is constantly changing, but change can happen in predictable ways. Trends have logical patterns and progressions. There is a continuity expressed between what is beginning to happen now and what will be happening to a much larger extent in the future. Such projection is based on a linear view of time. The events that are happening now will follow a step-by-step course into the future, one following the next. Such a view contradicts much of the literature about American Indians and their notion of time. The standard approach has been to compare Western constructs to American Indian ones in order to bring the unique worldview of the American Indians to light. The claim that American Indians have a circular sense of time has been shown in many good studies25 but has been applied too loosely to all American Indian groups. The result is a stereotype of how all Indians view time, to the exclusion of any other models, including coexisting models. Such reductionism has been equally damaging to notions of Western history since the two are generally brought into contrast to make the point of just how different Indians and Westerners are. How, for example, do we reconcile manifest destiny and the ever-popular timeline with the adage “history repeats itself ”? Are we marching ever forward? Or are we merely running in circles? Just as Western concepts of time foster seemingly contradictory views, so too does American Indian thought incorporate temporal schema that operate according to different, if not necessarily contradictory, precepts. For every medicine wheel exhibiting the circularity of life, there is a buffalo hide with a chronology of painted ¤gures representing each summer and winter on a linear path. Perhaps not surprisingly then, the Choctaw too have a view of time that is not solely linear but that expresses a circularity of life. One might combine the two into a single system by noting that within the cycle is a linear progression. There are causes and effects. A parallel can be found among the Navajo. Navajo rituals must proceed in perfect order to be effective, suggesting linearity at least for a short span of time. But the entire ritual system is

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based on the idea that balance is forever shifting as in ebbs and ®ows, that the worlds of the Holy Ones and humans can overlap in ritual condensing past and present into one, and that ailments that af®icted the long dead ancestors of the past continue to plague those of the present, a cycle of health and sickness. For the Navajo, linear time seems subservient to cyclical time. For the Choctaw, however, the reverse seems true, where time marches forward, but in large sweeping cycles. Edmund Leach has attempted to describe a sense of time that incorporates both the linear and the cyclical, the continuous and the discontinuous, by noting the differences between sacred and secular time, particularly as negotiated in ritual (1961:134). But prophecy is not envisioned as ritual, at least not today. And while Leach’s model may provide an integrative picture of time in general, it does not serve us well for understanding Choctaw prophecy. A spiral seems to embody this sense of time better than any of these previous models. The Choctaw recognize that many events will occur again and again. War, disease, prosperity, starvation. The problems of the past will be the problems of the future once again. But the problems will be different. There is a sense of movement. Everything seems to become more intense in the future. The wars are more destructive, the prosperity more intense and widespread, the disease more pervasive and deadly. Just as the linear progression of trends can result in prophecy, so too can the recognition of basic recurring aspects of life such as war and disease. If something has happened in the past, or is happening now, there is the accepted belief that it could happen again. Past precedent can be applied to much of Choctaw prophecy, but much of that application would be tentative at best. One might argue, for example, that a prophecy of the coming of brick homes follows a previous precedent when Choctaws shifted from thatch homes to log homes, or again from log to planed wood homes. Such a pattern perhaps exists, but it is dif¤cult to see exactly how such vague connections help either Choctaw or scholar understand the phenomenon any better. When a narrator does make connections, however, one can glimpse the interpretive landscape of the narrator, as well as some explanation for how or why the prophecy was made. Those connections can be seen in the process of contextualization—how the narrator situates the narrative in various contexts. That process becomes more complicated, and more interesting, when narrators maintain the interpretation of their elders as they add their own. The result is a stratigraphic view of the history of the prophecy, as if standing before an eroded hill with each layer of earth marking a speci¤c time period of the past.

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Louise Wilson recounts past prophecy according to this stratigraphic approach. All of the predictions that she heard came from her grandparents, and most from her grandfather John Hunter Thompson. But as is most common, the prophecies do not originate with him, at least not most of them. Rather, he too attributed these stories to his elders. Accordingly, he was in a position similar to Louise today—of hearing prophecies about the future and trying to make sense of them. In her own attempts to make sense of these prophecies, Louise maintains her grandfather’s interpretations, wisely garnering as much evidence as possible with which to create understanding. I remember, the old house I grew up in is still there in Bogue Chitto. And we were sitting out in the back. He had——grandpa had built a shed for his truck. And the shed is still standing there as a matter of fact. But one time we were sitting out there close to the shed, and I guess it was in the nice summer afternoon, and we were through with our tasks like I said. We were sitting around there talking, and he was telling us, one time that he said, more or less, telling us to listen to him. He said that y’all don’t listen to me, but these things are——times are going to change. And he said there’s going to be an illness that——he said that his grandfather told him that there’s going to be a great illness that a lot of people is going to have. That, back in the history, there was an illness back then which killed a lot of the Choctaw people. And see, I didn’t know about the history of this. And to this day, I still, you know, know a little bit. I need to read more about our history. But he said back in his grandfather’s time, there was an illness where it killed a lot of the Choctaw people. And that they were told that an illness is going to come here that’s going to kill a lot more Choctaw people in the future. He said it will be an illness not only for Choctaws but for all the people. People are going to be greatly touched by it. And he said that “We don’t know what it is,” and he said, “I couldn’t tell you what it is, but that’s what my grandfather said,” he said. And he said now, in his time, he sees a lot of TB that gets people. And he said he sees a lot of this sugar diabetes, that gets a lot of people. And he said, “I don’t know if that’s what he was talking about,” he said, “but it could be other illnesses that he was mentioning that he knew of that we just, that I just didn’t see,” is what he was saying. And he was telling us about that. And today when I look back, I was wanting to know, he said that everybody was going to be touched by it. Well, you know, now that

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AIDS is here, I wonder if that had anything to do with what he’s talking about now. It hasn’t killed a lot of our Native American people but it’s killed a lot of other people too. But we have been touched by it, within, even within our own tribe here. You know, we’ve been touched by it. And a lot of other tribes up north and elsewhere have really been touched by AIDS so I don’t know if that’s something that was a prophecy, like you say, that, you know, that he was talking about. But in my grandpa’s time, like he said, there was that diabetes, you know. And there’s the other, what did I say? The TB, that was there. And I think there was another, that almost wiped the whole people out. Smallpox. It may be in the history book that it almost wiped the people out back then. Those history books that Louise talks about do record diseases that plagued the Choctaw in the past. In an unpublished manuscript, Nathaniel Folsom claimed that two-thirds of the Choctaw population was wiped out by smallpox sometime between 1765 and 1800 (Cushman 1962 [1869]:329). In 1820, the mumps, followed by the measles, again decimated a large portion of the population (Cushman 1962 [1869]:78). More recently, around 1918, an in®uenza epidemic swept through rural Mississippi, killing indiscriminate of ethnicity but not of economics. Poorer families were hit hardest because they were less able to maintain sanitary conditions strict enough to combat such a contagious virus. The Choctaw were among the poorest in the state. Estimates suggest that 20 percent of the Choctaw population died during this time (Peterson 1971:110–11). With John Hunter Thompson’s prophecy of another disease, it is unclear just how many historical occurrences he is referring to or exactly when they took place. What is important here is that both Louise Wilson and John Hunter Thompson, and even, it appears, John Hunter Thompson’s grandfather, all contextualized this unful¤lled prophecy within the context of historical accounts of similar occurrences. Further, there is the suggestion that the prophecy itself may have emerged out of one of these historical bouts with disease. A closer look at who says what in Louise’s narrative reveals that the prophecy is traced back to a time when disease had just devastated the community (see ¤gure 7). In other words, John Hunter Thompson’s grandfather told him about an upcoming disease that would kill a lot of Choctaw people, after just having suffered through such an event. Neither Louise Wilson nor John Hunter Thompson says that his grandfather made this prediction himself, but if the prediction predated his grandfather, then presumably the diseases he lived through would have been the ful¤llment of the prophecy. John Hunter Thompson

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7. Correlation between time period and prophecy

clearly did not believe he was being told a ful¤lled prophecy. Therefore, this performance suggests not only that prophecy exhibits a spiraling of time but that prophecy can emerge out of dramatic events that are believed to be recurrent. The recent event inspires the creation of a new prophecy. War, like disease, is another event that humans seemed destined to encounter again and again. Prophecies of war also seem to have a historical origin, in this case, a speci¤c one: World War II. Prophecies of upcoming wars comprise perhaps the most universal prophecy throughout the world. However, even cultures normally bereft of prophecy were affected by the trauma of World War II. The atomic bomb was proof of just how destructive war could be the next time the world engaged in it. Fears, and then prophecies, of nuclear annihilation blossomed in the 1950s and continue only marginally abated to this day. Just as Louise Wilson noted the historical context that surrounded the prophecy of another terrible disease, so too do many narrators note the horrors of World War II when recounting prophecies of another great war.26 Prophecies of the Third Removal are also clearly contextualized via previous removals. The name alone suggests past precedent. Evidence that the prophecy may have derived at least partially from these previous removals can be found in the historical record. Working among the Choctaw after the ¤rst removal but before the second, Henry Halbert noted that the Choctaws in the community of Bogue Chitto fought strenuously against having a school or church established in their community. He recounts how local leaders in the community argued that “two generations ago, schools had been established among the Choctaws only to be followed by the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit and the subsequent emigration of the nation to the West; and a similar result will again follow, if the Bogue Chittoes should accept the white man’s offer of a public school” (Halbert 1894b:576; cited in Peterson 1971:87).

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John Peterson notes that “The prophecy of the Bogue Chitto Choctaw mingoes that the acceptance of schools and churches would lead to removal was ful¤lled” (1971:104). It is unclear whether this prediction was regarded as prophecy given by hopaii to the local mingoes (leaders) or whether it was regarded as a more informal prediction of the elders based on past precedent. Both of course ¤t within the purview of the Choctaw prophetic tradition. The point is that just as a previous removal spawned fears and predictions of a second removal, so too might both removals have spawned prophecy of yet a third. A few tentative conclusions can be drawn from these examples. One is that the notion of cyclical time cannot fully explain the origin of these prophecies. While one might expect war and disease to be prophesied as part of the natural cycle of the world, another removal is hardly such a basic expectation of life. Even with the prophecy of disease that John Hunter Thompson heard and passed on to his granddaughter, it is not merely the fact that such cycles of illness are common that argues for its presence as prophecy. Rather, it appears that recurring past events must also have registered a dramatic impact on the cognitive and affective landscapes of the people involved. Disease is universal but it has also been particularly traumatic for the Choctaw. It is not within my purview to address the psychological dimension of this phenomenon, though it has been a standard argument in prophecy scholarship to note a correlation between moments of crisis and the rise of prophetic movements. The prophet and his message is presumed to arise as a response to crisis, providing hope in times of despair. Interestingly, the inverse appears to happen here. One crisis begets prophecy of another crisis. Providing hope does not appear to be the goal.27 Another conclusion we might draw is with respect to the function of prophecy. Tuberculosis can validly be interpreted as ful¤llment of the prophecy John Hunter Thompson heard growing up. So could diabetes or AIDS. Yet neither John Hunter Thompson nor Louise Wilson declares ful¤llment. To do so would be to render the prophecy no longer useful in interpreting the world. It becomes historical rather than practical. Ful¤lled technological prophecies are useful to establish the validity of the enterprise, but regularly relegating prophecy to this role deprives it of its far more useful function of helping people make sense of the world. The same seems to happen with removal. No one today recounts the ful¤llment of the prophetic warnings of the elders in Bogue Chitto recorded in the 1890s; rather, the prophecy of another removal is maintained as unful¤lled, something that will happen again. This impulse to maintain prophecy as unful¤lled can be found in looking at the few other historical prophecies that have been recorded. In 1979, John

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Hunter Thompson recounted a prophecy that forests would be turned into pastures of grass for cows. Certainly that came true, but it is not still told today. Rather, similar prophecies kept pace with the change. Billy Amos remembers hearing a prophecy that farmland would be turned into forests. Again, the prediction bore true as the shift from farming to logging began. Ful¤lled prophecy is only marginally useful, unful¤lled prophecy, dramatically so. A ¤nal conclusion that can be made is that the process of historical contextualization can be employed not only for interpreting the meaning of the prophecy but for deriving some sense of its origin. Louise Wilson, for example, is contextualizing not just the prophecy but previous prophetic performances. She places these past performances in historical time, which allows her to correlate the historical situation of the time (in this case a terrible disease) to the performance of prophecy (the speci¤c time that John Hunter Thompson’s grandfather told him about the prophecy of disease). In doing so, Louise implicitly provides an explanation for how and when the prophecy might have originated. Prophecy can derive primarily from explicit divine inspiration or focused human agency, but it is generally viewed as a product of both. Once passed down from elders, it is dif¤cult to identify a source, and people do not particularly try. People only distinguish between the two when the predictions are made in the present. The combination of supernatural gift and cognitive faculties allow people to interpret the world around them and their future path. Prophecy is not delivered in perfectly explicit messages; people must consciously struggle to interpret these messages. It is this struggle that makes prophecy a useful tool in understanding the world. This is why prophecy not only can be vague but often must be. Certainly the hopaii of the past were better at this process of interpretation: it was their job to be. But as Louise Wilson suggests when she wonders if she will be able to predict when she is older, or as Henry Williams argues when he says everyone back then was gifted, or as everyone admits that bits of that gift can be found in descendants of medicine men, the ability to predict was not con¤ned to people with communally recognized and sanctioned powers. Prediction could result from ¤reside talks. Those ¤reside talks seem to have become lonelier, with people holding internal rather than external conversations. But the creation of prophecy remains possible for the elder, the same today as it was in the past. Such a conclusion risks violating the dichotomy people construct between past stories of the elders and contemporary stories of people today. The stories

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are held as distinct, but the process underlying both old and new are the same. Harold Comby suggests that some of the prophecies of the past may have only become considered prophecy much later. “It may not be a prophecy until about seventy-¤ve or a hundred years. Maybe even in those days, they didn’t consider it a prophecy.” The conclusion that the processes then and now are much the same could be faulted for being based on performances in the present that purport to report performances of the past. After all, the dynamism of folklore that can be so thrilling is also a potential pitfall since storytellers the world over, consciously or not, often con®ate the contemporary landscape with the landscape of the past that they purport to portray. However, because of the structural system of their oral tradition, Choctaw narrators strive to maintain a dichotomy between then and now. If any manipulation occurs, it is more likely in attempting to make the two processes seem different rather than similar. Another general conclusion drawn from this analysis is that the systems that give rise to prophecy are the same that people employ to interpret it. The results are prophecies whose cores and interpretations are often hard to discern one from the other. People look at the world and attempt to interpret past and present. This attempt inevitably results in projection into the future, as change is inherently dynamic and forward moving. People search for past precedent and contemporary examples of the tenets they have come to believe, or the trends they cannot ignore. These examples become proof of their conviction, and often serve as the concrete data from which prophecy is built. As the prophecy is passed on through time, the speci¤c examples and clues from the contemporary landscape may fade or shift. It then becomes the task of contemporary Choctaw men and women to interpret the prophecy and hence interpret the world anew. New buildings, new social structures, new leaders and goals are applied to these prophecies, and in turn, the prophecies are applied to them. The result is a system of interpretation that both draws upon and irrevocably challenges the worldview of the individual who ambitiously attempts to answer the questions that prophecy, and life, pose.

5 The Future in Prophecy

One of the largest avenues of discourse opened by prophecy so far has been an analysis of the past and the present. In performance, the narrator moves back in time to perform prophecy from the vantage point of ¤rst hearing it. Drawing connections and noting changes between past and present allows the narrator to interpret the prophecy and create meaning. But prophecy is nonetheless the promise of things to come. Despite the parallels found in past and contemporary life, it is the future that people are explicitly depicting. But what does this future look like? Is the future something eagerly awaited? A promise of new technology? Wealth? Happiness? Is it something dreaded, creeping toward us bearing war, disease, and sorrow? Is either scenario inevitable? Or is the future more ambiguous, the view more ambivalent? Also, can people work to ensure or avoid the promise of prophecy or is it set in stone? And what exactly does prophecy describe? What stories does it narrate? What are its themes and characters and plots? To answer these questions, we must examine the cultural concept of “the future” both within the context of prophetic discourse and outside it, and then move to an interpretation of the content of prophecy and its dominant themes. This is no easy task. Philosophers have struggled with the concept of the future for millennia, breaking it into smaller parts to help identify differing cultural perspectives. Summarizing the dominant aspects that feed into a group’s perspective of the future, Nicholas Rescher identi¤es three: predictability (the ability to foresee the future), tractability (the ability to change the future), and welcomability (the degree to which the future is anticipated) (1991:197–219). Tractability and welcomability both presuppose predictability. If the future cannot be known, what is there to change or welcome? Tractability also presupposes welcomability. Implicit in the notion of whether the future can be changed is whether people would want to change it. That they would suggests that the future is not welcomed. It is impossible to completely divorce one of these categories from the other, but it is useful initially to ad-

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dress each individually in order to address more clearly how the people within the Choctaw community understand and construct the future. PR EDIC TA BILIT Y A ND THE NEGOT I AT ION OF BELIEF The question of predictability can be formulated as “Can we know it?” The existence of a prophetic tradition argues that the Choctaw believe that we can. But of course the issue is not quite so simple. A number of hurdles emerge when attempting to understand the nature and extent of the belief that the future can be known. The Choctaw are of course not the only ones to have struggled with this issue. For some scientists, the laws of physics make the future knowable. Like the mathematician who can diagram a progression of numbers based only on the ¤rst few in the list, so too can biologists predict the effect of a parasite on a tree, meteorologists predict tropical storms, and chemists predict reactions of certain chemicals based on electron count. Historians and philosophers have also attempted to validate human ability to know the future, but here based on social and behavioral rather than physical theories.1 For the Choctaw as a community, these questions of the predictability of the future are addressed not in science or social theory, but in prophecy. At the core of all of these epistemologies—scienti¤c, social, and prophetic—lies the notion of belief. “Can we know it?” can be as accurately phrased as “Do we believe we can know it?” At some level, there is always an element of faith demanded for any acceptance of fact or truth. Each person, each culture, favors different systems, imbuing them with variously wide leaps of faith. But belief is not something that you either invest in totally or withhold totally. Belief is constantly negotiated and, further, may be only nominally held. Doyle Tubby notes just how nuanced, vague, and ultimately important such belief systems can be: Sometimes——snake is a good example. I think you have to respect it, sometimes, when it gets close to your house. Sometimes it’s just a regular snake just wandering in that area. Or it could be some medicine man or somebody who’s playing the part of a snake because of the ability to transform from that, from human form to snake form. Then they can turn back into that. We’ve all been told, like I said before, owls can do that and humans can do that. That’s part of nature. Few people can do that and others

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won’t. It’s the part of nature, it’s kind of like, the unknown. We all know that there’s certain aspect of life that we know that has a universal control, but we don’t know all the facts that exist out there. We talk a lot about it, but we have to believe most of it. [emphasis his] Belief does not require knowledge. The powers of the medicine man are believable without being understandable.2 The same can be said of the hopaii, the prophets of the past who predicted forthcoming events for the Choctaw. No one seems quite sure how the prophets derived their knowledge, though the spectrum includes individual power, supernatural aid, and divine intervention (the last two separated only by degree). But most do accept that the prediction of the future is at least possible. This acceptance cannot be categorized as belief or nonbelief, at least in most cases. Complete conviction is not necessary for a person to hold and operate according to a particular idea. Belief in the supernatural, for example, is one of the most debated and negotiated belief systems in the Choctaw community. Anyone in the community over thirty has either encountered something supernatural or has a close family member or friend who has. Many teenagers tend to deny the supernatural and anything else their elders ask them to accept without tangible proof, but that is the nature of teenagers everywhere. A survey conducted in 1984 among Choctaw Central High School students,3 as well as countless admissions by older members of the community today, attests to the fact that this phenomenon is not new.4 The majority of those doubting teenagers grow up to become believing adults. The most frequent turning point is having a supernatural experience oneself, but it would be misleading to ignore the role enculturation plays in the attribution of mysterious or unexplainable events to the supernatural. At some point during the shift from youth to adult, the power of the wisdom of the past ¤nally sinks in. Many narrators are explicit about this change. Grady John says, “You know, my grandpa predicted lot of things I didn’t believe, and it’s happened.” One day, he predict one time, the tractor. You ain’t going to use, to ¤nd anymore, like that horse. I didn’t believe him. “Ah, quit telling me that, grandpa.” You know? I thought I knew it all, at ten years old. I didn’t know a thing. I’d rather listen to my granddad now. Even among adults, however, people cannot be classi¤ed simply as believers or nonbelievers. People often begin a story with a disclaimer about its truth and about their belief, but the impulse to tell the story, that it could be true, suggests such disclaimers are hardly unequivocal. Part of this contradiction

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can be explained by audience, and whether or not the speaker is comfortable discussing potentially unfamiliar and unusual beliefs with those present.5 Part can be explained by the distinction between what is being said by the elders— which can be questioned and negotiated—and that it is being said by the elders—which inherently validates it as important. And part is explained by the simple fact that people generally do not see everything in stark black and white. Not only may we not hold strong convictions about every topic, but our views of those topics may change according to context. Linda Dégh and Andrew Vázsonyi have shown just how negotiable belief can be in their study of legends. For example, far from declaring strict belief, people may recount legends as a forum for raising questions about what should or should not be believed (1971). There are people, then, who recount prophecy without being committed to it. Rather than posing a problem for analysis, however, this actually points to one of the major functions of prophecy: it serves as a tool for people to negotiate their belief in the knowability of the future. Prophecy inherently demands that the future is knowable; the existence of a tradition of prophetic discourse, however, demands only that the community engaged in such discourse allows for the possibility that the future can be known. Further, lack of conviction of the knowability of the future does not preclude more speci¤c questions about what that future holds. In other words, the demand for interpretation of prophecy (discussed in chapter 3) often supersedes admission of the belief that such things can be known at all. TR AC TA BILIT Y A ND THE DIDAC T IC FU NC T IONS OF PROPHECY The notion of tractability can be phrased as the question, “Can we alter the future?” Underlying this question is the basic dichotomy of fatalism versus free will. Is the future proscribed, set in stone? Or is it ®uid, being made as we go along? Are we stuck to playing the roles meted out to us, or can we truly choose our own paths? Wrapped up in this debate is the question of how prophecy functions within the community. Does prophecy serve to warn and prepare people for the inevitable? Or does it serve as social control by ordering and upholding a moral code and compelling people to adhere to it in order to alter the future? If the future is ¤xed, then presumably prophecy can act only as a warning to prepare for the inevitable. No change in human behavior can alter that future. If the future is tractable, however, then prophecy may serve a more explicit didactic function, persuading people to change in order to alter the future to their bene¤t.

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The two—an intractable future and moral instruction—need not be mutually exclusive. Moral systems are conveyed through the interpretation of prophecy, whether prophecy is tractable or not. By suggesting that the casino may cause removal, for example, a larger tenet is conveyed of the potential dangers of engaging in ¤nancial decisions more familiar in the global economy than among the elders in the community. Such a warning can be abstracted and applied to other situations, thus contributing to the re¤nement or maintenance of the overall moral system, a function we will return to later in this chapter. The question I want to address here, however, is whether the moral message encoded in a particular prophecy can be applied speci¤cally to that prophecy. In other words, if we heed the caution expressed in the prophecy, can we avoid the event predicted? On this level, tractability of the future and didactic function go hand in hand. Further, by addressing these views inside and outside prophetic discourse, we can establish a more complete understanding not only of how members of the Choctaw community view the future but how the genre of prophetic discourse is geared to a particular vision of that future.

Outside Prophetic Discourse Historical records provide little explicit information on how the Choctaw viewed the alterability of life. John Swanton argues that eighteenth- and nineteenth-century records from James Adair and Horatio Cushman both provide evidence that the Choctaws were fatalistic. Swanton quotes a story recounted by James Adair—who worked as an Indian trader among the Choctaw during the middle years of the eighteenth century—of the practice of some medicine men to decree a patient too ill to survive and to suggest euthanasia (Swanton 1931:212). The medicine man’s knowledge was from a vision or dream, where much of his knowledge was thought to derive. This seems to be a good example of the power the medicine man held in the community but hardly evidence of fatalism among the tribe. Horatio Cushman’s comments, however, are a bit more pertinent: “The ancient Choctaws believed, and those of the present day believe, and I was informed by Governor Basil LeFlore in 1884, (since deceased) that there is an appointed time for every one to die; hence suicide appeared to them as an act of the nearest cowardice” (Swanton 1931:214). Swanton’s conclusion that this belief is a sign that all things are predetermined in life, however, seems unfounded.6 At least today, it seems clear that the Choctaw are not generally fatalistic. Evidence comes from a forum naturally suited to such existential questions: the pulpit. The majority of Choctaw people are Christian and believe that salvation is yours to gain or lose. During a service one Sunday morning at Hope Baptist Church, pastor Henderson Williamson preached that “You can

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choose your path, but there is only one path to God. If you’re not on it, then you’re on the Devil’s path.” And yet, even within this Christian tenet, there is the notion of God’s will. Things happen for a reason. God has a plan. For many Christians, this belief in a larger plan helps them rationalize things that seem terrible. Louise Wilson notes the hardship she has faced in her life, losing many of her closest loved ones prematurely to death. Her religion has provided some measure of solace. “Grandma told me this too. This is from the Church perspective. God has a road for us to travel in, and that’s the road I’m going to be traveling,” she says. “Whatever path you go into, just remember that’s the path God wants you to go through so you can learn something.” Carmen Denson echoes this sentiment while talking about the loss of the storytelling tradition that was so vibrant just a few decades ago when he was growing up. I ask him why he thinks people stopped telling stories. He pauses for a moment. There’s a time for everything in the Bible, as it says. I guess it was a telling time for the tribe. And it was probably, to the elder people, a sad time that the tradition and culture was going away. I don’t know; I can’t tell you how sad a feeling it was, but it was probably one of the saddest feelings a person could face. But it happens. It happens, as you read it from books, tough times, troubled times build a person’s character. And that’s why it probably— —that’s why it happened. There’s a meaning to everything. God, as God is, gives everybody a chance. God’s will helps explain the events that seem to lack logical explanation and deny justice and fairness. God’s will provides comfort to people who work toward something but never attain it, to people who see loss all around them and who feel helpless to change it.7 Louise Wilson notes that everything happens for a reason. She believes the adversity she has faced in her life only serves to make her stronger. God’s will does not preclude free will; rather it precludes expected results. People make choices, but in the end, it is God’s will that determines effects and outcomes. Outside speci¤c attribution to Christianity, more emphasis is placed on those areas where people can make choices with a generally optimistic sense of control of their lives. Outside circumstances may alter one’s expectations, but it is important to try to make the life you want. Despite the hardships Louise Wilson has faced, she maintains her belief that she can alter the future by improving her life through hard work. It is a message that she speaks in word and deed to the youth with whom she works as head of the Youth Op-

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portunity Program (Y.O.P.). Taped to a wall outside her of¤ce, an inspirational poster echoes this view. Pictured on the poster are two silhouetted beach chairs facing an ocean that blends into the night sky. A crescent moon glows brightly. “Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clear. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.” The message has been adopted by at least some of these high school students who pass through her of¤ce. During the 1997 graduation ceremonies for Choctaw Central High School, the valedictorian shaped her speech around Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Traveled,” hardly unique for such speeches, but endemic nonetheless of a view of a future created by individual choices. From this primarily anecdotal evidence, a few observations can be made about the views of the tractability of the future as culled from outside the explicit realm of prophecy. The ¤rst is that the choice of paths is a clear indication of a belief in free will. The second is that this choice is inherently individualistic. The individual person can strive for salvation or success by making choices pertinent to his or her own life. The choice does not affect your neighbors, nor their choice you. The two observations are interrelated. The free will granted by such a dictum is individual free will. This free will extends only to an individual’s personal choices and only those choices that humans have any control over. “Man proposes, God disposes,” runs the adage. These two factors—individual perspective and human control—carry over to Choctaw prophecy and are integral to understanding it.

Inside Prophecy So it was more of an education I think, about life, about what’s going to happen in the future with our people. What we could probably prevent from happening, if it’s bad things, you know. Or what we should be watching for. And not only just for us personally, but for anybody or friends or any relatives we may have, too. Louise Wilson, 2000 Choctaw prophecy, in dealing speci¤cally with issues of the future, addresses the question of tractability far more speci¤cally if no more concretely. When asked whether these things might happen, or whether they will happen, people generally pause and offer impressions rather than convictions. The problem with the question is that it asks two things at once, each with a different answer. On one level, there is the question of whether these events are ¤xed in the future or whether they can be changed. On the other, however, is a question of the authenticity and validity of the prophetic enterprise. To an-

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swer that things might rather than will happen can seem a capitulation of the power of prophecy, that the prophets and past elders said it would happen but the current speakers are less sure. The respect of the people of today for those of the past makes such an answer unacceptable. People generally accept that the elders were correct in their predictions. The question is whether those predictions were of inevitable events or manipulatable circumstances. In some cases, they were both. In fact, the view of the future in Choctaw prophecy is not wholly one or the other. Rather, it depends upon the type of prophecy and the interpretation of the prophecy, particularly with respect to the performance context of the prophetic discourse and the speaker’s goals. As Louise Wilson notes, some prophecies were told to help people prevent them, others were told to warn people to prepare for them. There is room for both. Event versus State-of-Affairs Prophecies The distinction between the realm of human control, and realm outside it, helps to explain the contradiction we ¤nd in prophecy that seems to declare ¤xed events but entreats people to change their behavior with the idea of changing that future. Some prophesied events appear to exist outside human intervention. They are not caused by human actions and therefore are not directly affected by them. Such events are intractable. There are also prophecies of events that are more directly caused by human actions, actions that, if man truly has free will, one should be able to affect if not precisely control.9 Here we discover a split between those things that adhere to human action and those that adhere to larger forces outside human control or human impact. Distinguishing between the two is dif¤cult if not impossible. The struggle to do so, however, is at the heart of understanding the tractability of Choctaw prophecy. The division between the realm of the human and the realm of the natural is not clear-cut among the Choctaw. There is a general sense that both realms are intertwined, one in®uencing the other. Human actions can have massive repercussions in the natural world and vice versa. Yet repercussions and in®uence hardly entail control. Apart from special roles in the community such as the medicine man and the witch, such control over nature is limited. “Every time they didn’t have a good crop, every time something should happen, they always had a reason for why it happened,” recalls Louise Wilson about her elders. “Because there’s always a reason for something happening.” There are explanations, but those explanations are often traced to natural processes rather than human causes. Many things happen outside human control. An exercise of all the free will in the world cannot stop an earthquake. If man is not in control of many of

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the world’s events, then free will need not hinder prophecy. In other words, free will need not be antithetical to prophecy. While the lines between the human and the natural blend, there are events that generally fall into one or the other. Intermarriage and the subsequent loss of cultural and ethnic identity is clearly within the realm of human control; the switching of the seasons, although connections can be made to human action, exists more clearly in the natural world. Boundaries between the two can roughly be drawn along the line of event versus state-of-affairs prophecy as discussed in chapter 2. Intermarriage, loss of the language, loss of the social dance, an increase in unwed girls getting pregnant, and loss of farmland are all trends driven within the community, all states of affairs that are slowly getting worse. Such affairs are far more obviously linked to human action and therefore more apt to be controllable by such action. In fact, many of these prophecies accommodate a ¤xed future of events that will happen along with the ability to adhere to the moral message and alter the future. Talking with Harold Comby one morning, I asked him if he thought prophecies depicted things that might happen or that will happen. He paused for a moment before answering. The feeling I get when it’s told to me is that it will happen. And you know, just this morning, my mom was talking about our blood lines, telling me it’s supposed to get thinner. And it’s coming true. She said all of us are contributing to it. We need to preserve our culture so we can survive. In describing a state of affairs rather than a momentary event, the prophecy can be ful¤lled while still allowing for people to change their behavior and reverse the process before it gets worse. The prophecy predicts that the blood will get thinner, not that it would disappear altogether. It has gotten thinner, but people can prevent it from getting worse. In this way, the nature of the prophecy, both its content (related to human affairs) and its character (depicting a state of affairs rather than an event), suggests ways for moral and cultural instruction. Interpretation: Delaying versus Avoiding The tractability of prophecy cannot, however, be so neatly determined according to type and content of the prophecy. Much of the meaning of prophecy is constructed in the individual’s attempt to interpret it. Whether the prediction is viewed as good or bad, tractable or intractable, can depend on how the person connects the actual world with the real world in the process of interpretation.

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Estelline Tubby, for example, is convinced that the Third Removal is intractable. Not only that, she has identi¤ed the signs that will signal this removal on the contemporary landscape. Ful¤llment is not only destined, it is imminent. While these signs are human constructions—new homes, electricity, running water—such developments are signs rather than causes. With no traceable cause, Estelline Tubby ¤nds it dif¤cult to see how such an event could be altered. Odie Anderson, on the other hand, believes that removal will follow the election of a bad chief, one who loses the tribe’s land, thereby precipitating removal. Human action is the root cause of ful¤llment and therefore falls within the realm of human control. As such, this future is at least partially tractable. Odie Anderson explained that if the Choctaw are careful in their choice of chief, they can at least delay, if not totally avoid, removal. The question of delay versus avoid is worth attention. Many people who believe the major events prophesied will be ful¤lled at some time, also believe that if there is human involvement, then we have the ability to delay that ful¤llment. A compromise between a concept of prophecy that depicts what will happen and what will happen if can be constructed according to when the prophecy will be ful¤lled. In other words, the prophecy will happen, but we have the power to alter when it will happen. Social dancing will disappear, but we can delay its disappearance. The prophecy remains focused on the horizon as a constant threat, but it is a threat that can be held at bay. The ability to delay ful¤llment, and the ability to avoid ful¤llment altogether both serve to keep the virtual from becoming the actual. Further, when that delay is indeterminate, and when complete avoidance still demands constant vigilance, the two blend. So while conceptually the difference between a ¤xed future and a tractable one is massive, in practice the difference is hardly noticeable. Levels of Tractability Even with the most intractable prophecies, there is room for moral instruction. Underlying the discussion so far is the assumption that prophecy can only serve didactically at the expense of an intractable future. However, the moral may be held within the prophetic event so that while the event or change itself is intractable, the result is negotiable. This room for manipulability happens on the level of the individual, just as with Christian dogma noted earlier. God will smite the wicked, but individuals who follow God will be saved. Foreign soldiers will strike down Americans, but Choctaw who retain their language and culture will be saved. Gathered in the Choctaw Culture Center, Charlie Denson, his son Carmen, and friends Drain Sockey and Calvin Isaac sit in a circle, talking about the traditions that need to be passed on to the younger generation. The setting

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might seem appropriate, but the formal atmosphere is anything but. Such conversations happen more frequently, and more effectively, in familial settings. However, the importance of the topic draws these men to meet more formally, with tape recorder and folklorist on hand to record their discussion, preserving their words for the future. Large steel vault doors leading into the archives loom just a few feet away, a very tangible reminder of how important many in the community view such preservation efforts. Moving among Choctaw, biblical, and Western historical traditions, Charlie Denson talks about the history and the future of the Choctaw, particularly as proclaimed by Choctaw prophets. White people came. Told us how we’re going to live. White man came and destroyed our people. Bible on left hand, gun on the right. Killed and raped our people. Now with this intermarriage. Choctaw prophet said white people will come and put us in bondage. We’ve been in bondage two hundred years now. Prophet predicted this. Someone came along, integrated our people, mixed it up. So that’s where we come from. We got a lot of Negro, half Negro, half white. In the Bible it says we’re not supposed to integrate. That’s what the Bible told me. What we need is to study the Bible. To tell us how we come, where we go. My grandpa is ninety-¤ve years old. He told me I would go into the army.10 Moved to Arkansas. Second move to Oklahoma. Now we’re in the third. My prophet told me we’re going beyond Oklahoma. Past some island in the Paci¤c. China is going to come to the U.S. and give Choctaw land back to us. My grandpa told me that. He told me, if you’re going to school, to seminary, high up in the sky, don’t forget your language. If you quit your language, not speaking, you might get called on by the Chinese Army. Because Chinese going to be here. “I want to hear the Choctaw language.” If you can’t speak none of your language, they going to kill you. He [God] don’t want it to be integrated. That’s coming up. The event of war and the army coming and killing anyone who is not Choctaw is intractable. But within these events there is an if/then conditional statement: “If you can’t speak none of your language, they going to kill you,” Charlie Denson says. Linda Willis remembers a similar dictum concerning the coming war: “If you’re truly Choctaw, you would have a Choctaw shirt or

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Choctaw dress hanging up in your porch. That way they’ll know that you’re Indian living in that house, and they’ll pass by you.” The future is intractable on the level of the overall event. But it is tractable on the level of the individual. You will be saved or not according to your individual maintenance of traditions unique to your cultural identity. Performance Context The tractability of the future and the didactic function prophecy can ful¤ll also depend on the performance context. Prophecy can carry a particularly heavy didactic message when told to young people. Wrapping up a series of ful¤lled prophecies that his mother told him, Billy Amos moves to prophecies that have not yet been ful¤lled. “And the social dances is going to fade away,” she said, “someday.” These are the dancing on the weekend, Saturday night, they dance all night long in the ball ¤eld. But they think it’s going to be disappeared if they don’t watch it. So is the house dancing. And today, that’s where we at now, if we don’t watch it. Such didactic warnings are most common in performances from adults to children, whether prophecy, supernatural tales, or shukha anumpa. The “she” is Billy’s adoptive mother; the performance was to Billy as a child. Adults today describe having heard these prophecies and being scared. Part of this fear stemmed from performances that stressed that ful¤llment could happen overnight. But another part of this fear lies in the moral message behind the prophecy. As Billy Amos says, “it’s going to be disappeared if they don’t watch it.” The responsibility is placed squarely on the shoulders of the young people listening. Louise Wilson is clear that prophecy functions to educate, both to prepare the listener for what is coming as well as provide guidance for how to avoid the bad things. Speaking about her grandfather, she recalls: He said that through his father or his grandfather, they felt it was very important that what they say to them, that they do listen, and at least think about it, think about what they’re telling them. And so that’s why he tells us, or he used to tell us, those things, is for us to really think about it because he knew, or he said his grandfather knew, that it’s going to come about. Whatever they’re telling them, it’s going to come. But when you’re young and you’re listening to all of these things, you think, well if it’s not there at that time or it’s not happening at that time,

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you think well, you know, “What is he talking about?” Or you think, “How does he know?” But then as you get older and these things do come to happen, then you begin to realize and look at it and say, “They really did know what they were talking about.” So it was more of an education I think, about life, about what’s going to happen in the future with our people. What we could probably prevent from happening, if it’s bad things, you know. Or what we should be watching for. And not only just for us personally, but for anybody or friends or any relatives we may have too. In the context of elders talking to youths, future events and proper behavior are attributed most directly to the elders, rather than to prophets of the past. From what we have seen about the contemporary tradition of predicting the future based on current trends and tenets, such predictions often begin as moral treatises about the world and maintain that message in transmission. Further, by constructing a didactic frame, elders ¤nd it easy to move between a number of different verbal genres in order to instruct. When Louise Wilson recounts the predictions she heard from her grandfather, she recounts them as she heard them—in the context of general advice and “no-you-don’ts” or old wives’ tales.11 He said pretty soon there will be more mixed than full. I believe that now because they did a statistics down at the health center. If you go down there, I see people I’ve never seen before. And he said, these things will be coming. And, he said, “You see the government giving us monies for this and that. Well, all that will be taken away.” Well, I didn’t know what monies he was talking about, but I guess he was talking about the services that’s being provided, or the health care that’s being provided or I know the welfare program, the social services used to have welfare given out. And all of these things, maybe that’s what he was talking about. But he said, “You’ll see these people doing that.” And I thought, I did have a girl, a black friend when I was in Ohio, when I lived up there. I often wondered why, when I came back here, why are people so against black people? The white people, they [Choctaw] are not as against as much. In fact they bowed to them more. Even ones as poor as we were, Choctaws looked at them as higher. It was prejudice. Non-Indians treated them [blacks] differently. We were out in the ¤elds together, helping each other to some extent.

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But still, my grandfather said you can be friends but no interrelations with them. We need to stay pure blood. Louise performs the prophecy the way she heard it, beginning with the prophecy itself and moving to the explicit moral message underlying it, the advice that her grandfather added in order to avoid losing one’s possessions and identity. Grady John, too, moves back and forth between prophecy and advice when he recounts similar instruction from his grandfather. My grandfather predicted lot of things, what’s going to happen. My grandpa used to say, I may not live to see these things going to happen, but you will. Always said, anything, what anybody told you, learn. So, he always say that, my grandfather always said, “You know, you’re Indian. You’re Choctaw Indian. And eventually,” my grandpa he said that “eventually, they going to be study about you. About your culture.” And he predicted, said, “School. Lot of these non-Indian school will study about you. And it’s going to be a history,” that’s what my granddaddy was saying. He said lot of things that is going to happen. Said that we may, said, I’ll live through it, what I have seen. As long as you’re in your sight, he said, people are not going to bother you. But, he said, one of these days, things are going to be changed. “You Indians going to be, something’s going to happen,” he predicted, he said. I said, “What do you mean?” He said “Might be big school we going to build. Maybe something is going to happen, reservation.” Most of the time he was talking about we, just talking about, we had it bad, you know, sometimes we Indians having a hard time. But, it’s going to come. “That the tribe,” said, “Choctaw might build a big high school. And so you might be build a school. You might go to school. You might have a better chance than I do.” He said, “Don’t ever,” he said, “hate anybody. Anybody teach you something, learn it.” And he said, “Be sure, do not forget your culture, though. Because it’s very important.” And you know he preaches something I didn’t know. He said, “People from Europe, you know, or people, you know, we’re going, they going to be, they heard about you, they going to be coming in. They want to see your culture. And they go back and tell the other country, their country.”

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And a lot of these things, predicted. And it’s true. The old people had vision, I guess I would put it. You know— “How did——” you know, sometime I used to sit there—“How did my grandpa know these things?” But, the old people, they were pretty sharp people, they’re smart people. They can predict lot of this stuff. There is a ®uidity here between generic forms that opens prophecy for wider use. Prophecy, no-you-don’ts, and general advice all serve as possible resources for the speaker when discussing proper behavior. Should the speaker wander more freely, any of a number of animal tales, family stories, and personal anecdotes could be employed as well. There are distinctions between these genres—each has a particular form, style, and weight of authority. But when discourse is framed didactically, those distinctions may become secondary to conveying a moral system. The result is discourse that may be generically signaled as prophecy but told in the same breath as other genres. The authority of the prophets and elders of the past imbue prophecy as the most powerful of any of these genres, but as we can see with Grady John’s grandfather, prophecy can also be used as a rhetorical motif to add authority to both his own predictions and his advice to his grandson. The use of “might” as opposed to “will” signals the humility of contemporary prediction. Grady’s grandfather is suggesting what might happen, not reporting what will. He provides his grandson with an image of hope in times when life was particularly dif¤cult. But coupled with his predictions is his advice, the moral imperative not to hate anybody and not to forget his culture. In the course of such performances where speakers interweave various verbal genres in order to instruct, prophecy can be employed to address behavior modi¤cation as a rhetorical tool. By adding the weight of prophecy, the dictum to keep the language or social dance is strengthened. As such, prophecy belies the notion of an inevitable future.12 Outside the realm of prophecy, we ¤nd individuals making choices that affect their spiritual lives and their individual futures. The effects of those choices, however, are ultimately within the hands of God and therefore can be guessed but never known. A balance between free will and a preordained future is struck. The same is true within prophecy. For those prophecies with identi¤able human causes, the future events can be delayed, perhaps even avoided. While questions of the intractability of the future may not be explicitly addressed in prophetic discourse, people do actively address the possibility for human change through prophecy. In fact, it is through prophecy that those areas open to change are brought to the fore. By glimpsing the future, people are

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shown those areas that demand the most work, that demand a concerted effort of change. Prophecy narrows the obligation for change in the world to a manageable load for a community to redress. Further, as the prophecies are shared throughout the community, the possibility for human-directed change becomes more viable. As contradictory as it may seem, prophecy actually provides the tools to render the future invalid. This does not undermine the veracity and power of prophecy. Prophecy can remain a true prediction of the future while still allowing for humans to modify their behavior and delay or avoid the predicted change. One of the results of this dual nature of prophecy that suggests ¤xity but allows room in performance for negotiation is that prophecy for the Choctaw does not serve as a means to alleviate guilt about the problems on the horizon. Such a conclusion runs counter to what many scholars have found in other prophetic traditions.13 Rather, this prophetic tradition carries with it the despair of future loss coupled with the obligation to try to delay, avoid, or reverse that loss, whether individually or communally. W ELCOM A BILIT Y A ND A CONTENT A NA LYSIS OF PROPHECY Running throughout the discussion of the tractability of the future is the attempt by Choctaw narrators to avoid the prophesied events or states of affairs. The future events predicted in prophecy are bleak. Wars, disease, loss of culture and ethnicity, and the ultimate loss—the end of the world—are all slated as coming soon. Some people even derive hope from prophecy in believing that ful¤llment is still at least a little ways off. Regina Shoemake was initially surprised when her mother Katie Mae Johnson told her that she was not worried about the coming of the year 2000: You know, something amazing but, mom, the way I told you, the way she is, we were over there and talking and someone brought this Y2K and she said, “There’s nothing going to happen.” She said everything that they had talked about and stuff like that, in the Bible and also the prediction that people had said, it hadn’t come about yet, she said. So she said, there’s nothing going to happen. I was surprised to hear her say that. But a lot of those prophecies or whatever hadn’t been ¤lled yet, she said, in the Bible and also what they had said. So she wasn’t worried about the y2k. [laughter] But when those prophecies are on the horizon, then people will worry. Despite this generally dark future, there are brief moments of excitement

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and expectation, as when Billy Amos marveled that he would no longer have to walk miles each day fetching water or clean out ¤lthy kerosene lamps so he could see to do his homework. All of these expectations, positive and negative, raise the question of the welcomability of the future. Returning to Rescher’s survey of the structure of the future, we ¤nd three possible outlooks: optimism, pessimism, and neutrality.14 Within optimism, he ¤nds another tripartite system: (1) the world is already good, (2) there is a natural progression for things to get increasingly better, and (3) the world can get better as long as we do the right things (209–10). The same system applies to pessimism, with the simple substitution of opposite adjectives: (1) the world is already bad, (2) there is a natural progression for things to get increasingly worse, and (3) the world will get worse unless we do the right things. It is this last statement that applies most clearly to our discussion of prophecy so far. Again, we must look at the opinions expressed elsewhere, outside of prophecy, in order to understand the image of the future as set forth in prophetic discourse.

Outside Prophecy There are public and private forums for discussions about the future and whether it is something to be excited about or something to dread. The informal, private ones happen among family members, friends, and co-workers— the same context of prophetic discourse and other storytelling. The more formal and public ones occur during tribal council meetings, at events such as the annual Choctaw fair and school graduations, and in the news media— from tribal pamphlets and newspapers to state and national newspaper, magazine, and television coverage. The public image of the Choctaw is dominated by a picture of economic prosperity. Head of the tribe since 1959, Chief Phillip Martin has been incredibly successful in carrying out a political agenda in which economic development dominates. The visitor’s packet handed out at the tribal of¤ces in Pearl River includes reprints of the various articles published about these successes: “American Indians Discover Power Is Money” in Fortune; “Choctaw Chief Leads his Mississippi Tribe into the Global Market” in the Wall Street Journal; “Mississippi Moguls: The New Choctaw Middle Class” in Smithsonian; “We are Our Destiny” in Parade; “Miracle in Mississippi” in Economic Edge; “Choctaw Chief Takes Stand” in the Sun-Herald; and the list goes on. A book by Peter J. Ferrara, The Choctaw Revolution, explores the Mississippi Band as a case study in how Indian economic policy should be conducted throughout the country. Robert White’s less dogmatic and agenda-setting look at the Choctaw preceded The Choctaw Revolution by almost a decade, also outlining the successes of the tribe (1990).

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Chief Martin’s monthly report in the tribal newspaper focuses on these economic successes, as do his public speeches, whether for Choctaw or nonChoctaw audiences. The excitement is contagious and can be seen and heard in the less public declarations of tribal members discussing the new buildings planned or just built in their communities. During the summer of 1999, few conversations in Bogue Chitto did not lead quickly to talk of the new school, with its massive clock, modern architecture, and state-of-the-art classroom technology. The school is a source of immense pride in the community. Other developments in other communities invite similar discussion: the new school planned for Conehatta, the recreation center and lake planned for Pearl River, the new casino recently approved to accompany the current multimilliondollar-maker, the Silver Star. The future for the Choctaw in terms of economic development could not be brighter. But during formal talks such as council meetings and informal ones among members of the community, the skepticism about these projects is also expressed. For some, the debate is framed as a personality issue of politics. People are known to be either pro-chief or anti-chief. Sometimes this division follows a general ideology where pro-chief means monetary wealth, long-term goals, and massive change, and anti-chief means cultural wealth, day-to-day perspective, and the status quo. As often, however, the two sides are more alike than different. For others, the debate is framed speci¤cally according to ideology, between money and culture. People express fear that priorities have changed. Instead of working toward ¤nancial success in order to strengthen the community and reinvest in its unique cultural identity, people fear that the tribal government is working toward ¤nancial success as an end in itself, where wealth is measured in luxury cars and the newest electronic appliances. Individual prosperity is the American Dream, but this dream is one often denounced by American Indian peoples as foreign and sel¤sh. Wary of money as a bottom line, people re®ect on that which they view as the antithesis of money: culture and family, the two linchpins of Choctaw life. Human comfort may have increased, but human relations are challenged by these very luxuries. And ¤nally, for others, the debate is framed as one that pits change against the status quo. Past and present tribal council members struggle with these perspectives. The subsistence farming that dominated life until the 1970s and 80s was characterized by a view of living day to day. Looking to the future was too hard, the future too bleak. Goals were set close at hand. You worked hard to get the crop in with a pro¤t, put food on the table, and pay your debts. You could not worry about what debts would pile up next year. And there was little reason to think that next year would be any different from the current

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one. During this time, the council members’ job was to take care of the people who came to them, meeting their needs on an individual basis. Most came with humble requests for money. They generally did not go away unaided. But with the tenure of Phillip Martin as chief, the tribal government began to think farther into the future, to make longer-term goals that would bene¤t hundreds of people at a time rather than a handful one by one. Enticing factories to the reservation and slowly building an industrial empire has created thousands of jobs for Choctaw and non-Choctaw alike. Today council members are caught between past-oriented and futureoriented perspectives. Many ¤nd security in the status quo. With a vision of the future set on the immediate horizon, the plans for massive expansion create tension and unease. Change should be slow and evolve naturally; ambitious change is foreign and therefore distrusted. For others, however, the success of long-term goals set in the 1970s that have come to fruition now has encouraged a rethinking of the role of the council representative. Many constituents want people who can reason through policy debates, people who have a vision of what needs to be done now to achieve future goals. They want people who feel indebted to the community rather than to a string of individuals. They want people who will represent their interests in tribal matters rather than merely attend to individual needs. Council members not able to strike this balance quickly ¤nd themselves out of a job in four years, or even sooner, as attested to by a recent spate of recall petitions attempting to force members out of of¤ce before their terms were up.15 Underlying these factions is the shared desire for self-determination. The term “Self-Determination” serves as a motto, accompanying the Great Seal of the Choctaw as the emblem of the tribe. It has also been a catchphrase for the policy the Choctaw have adopted in government affairs since 1972 when the policy was made of¤cial by a resolution of the tribal council.16 For Grady John, the goal is concrete: ¤ll all tribal jobs with tribal members. For many, the fact that the majority of supervisory positions in the tribe are held by non-Choctaws is a both a source of tension and anger as well as a constant reminder of how far they still have to go to reach this goal.17 Yet while the goal is shared, the means of achieving it remain heavily contested. In both public and private contexts, a number of different perspectives about the course of the future are expressed. Those with an eye to economic development as the means for Choctaw success in all aspects of life see a predominantly rosy future, based on ¤fteen years of increasing prosperity that does not appear to be ending soon. Those with an eye leveled more ¤rmly on the past, with a view of life rooted in more individualized contexts and shortterm goals, where the health of the tribe is reckoned in familial relationships

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not salaries, view the future more warily, afraid of the implications of all this change.18 Choctaw prophecy arises out of this debate but speaks to only one side.19 It is the voice of caution, the conservative voice of the past warning about the future. Occasionally prophecy too presents a view of the future from the perspective of economic wealth, but inevitably the stronger current of the genre presents a counterargument, a vision of the negative impact of such change. While a wide spectrum of views of the future and change are raised in public and private discourse, in prophecy, there is only one view.

Inside Prophecy The view of the future in prophecy is a view of the past and present as well. To some extent, this must be the case. The notion of a future makes sense only in the context of notions of the past and present, just as night derives meaning only in the related context of day. The connection between the future and the past and present, however, is often made far more explicit in prophetic discourse than in general talk of the future. As discussed in chapter 2, narrators move back into the past to narrate when they ¤rst heard the prophecy. From this vantage point, they then explore the historical context of the prophecy, a description of life before things changed or had begun to change. Because of this orientation in the past, the present is often coupled closely with the future. Accordingly, it is the past and future that are most clearly referenced in prophecy. This pairing helps to explain much of the content and connotations of prophecy. Historical discourse is dominated by talk about the cultural institutions of the past—the way funerals were conducted, the practice of iyi kowa,20 sharecropping, storytelling, and dancing—and is constructed primarily in social and cultural terms. Prophecy traces these cultural institutions into the future, and the narrative it constructs is one of more and more loss. Surveying the corpus of prophecies told throughout the community, this loss becomes startlingly clear (see the appendix). At the heart of this loss is a series of contemporary shifts with alarming historical precedent. Dominating these shifts is one from a system of subsistence farming to wage-based work. As the prophecies proclaim, this shift marks two distressing trends: one of a dependence on money, the other of a loss of the connection to the land, both agriculturally and geographically. From Farm to Factory (and Back Again) Money. A litter of beagles romps around a pickup truck parked in the thick grass of Bobby Joe’s backyard. The truck’s hood stands open wide in a state

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of perpetual repair. The truck is predictable and can be worked on; the dogs less so. They’ll be hunting dogs someday, but they still have too much puppy in them to train, Bobby says, shaking his head. Bobby Joe grew up hunting. It was a natural part of the sharecropper’s life. Farming brought in vegetables, walking the woods and cultivating apple trees in the back brought in fruit, and hunting brought in meat. His life growing up was typical of the men of his generation in the community. He grew up knowing he would be a farmer just like his dad. When I was eleven, he was still doing it the old-fashioned way. He was plowing with a mule, by himself, ¤fteen acres of corn and cotton. And my mother she gave me a jug of ice water to take to him. She wrapped it up so it would be cold. I took it over there. When I looked at my father, I felt sorry for him. He was working all by himself. I walked over and he stopped. He was drinking that ice water. I looked around, I told my daddy, “If you show me how to work, I’ll help you.” He said, “You too little.” But I said, “You look like you need help.” He said, “I’ll think about it.” Next morning, my mother ¤xed breakfast. He woke me up and told me to eat and said he’d catch the other mule. When I ¤nished eating, I ran out to the barn and he had a mule for me. Go out to the cotton to start plowing. He showed me, just like driving a car. He plowed for a few minutes then I did. He said just ease it. Don’t do it too much sideways. I done it; I pushed it too much. He stopped me and told me again I can’t push it down too quick. “You’ve got to have a lot of patience.” Once I started, I picked up just like that [snaps his ¤ngers]. And that was it. But that wasn’t it. The days of farming were numbered for many people throughout the entire Southeast, Bobby Joe included. My father wasn’t an educated man, he never went to school. He wouldn’t even know how to write his name. Even before him, his daddy and mother and them. He said they used to told him what was going to happen. Now we’re looking at it today; it’s happening. Because my father was telling me, even though he don’t want this farm, he said, it’s going to quit, this farm is going to quit. He said, “I think I’m going to live to see it.” And he did. He said, “You going to see it in town; it’s going to be some kind of

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place where you can work. You going to make more money.” Said, “I’ll be old then,” he said, “but you’re going to be young. You’re going to be out there working. You probably going to make that much money in one week, you make out here farming in one year.” And sure enough, it happened. I wind up working out there at U.S. Motors, in here in Philadelphia. I’m bringing home six, seven hundred dollars a week. And I thought of that, what my father used to tell me. [I] said, “My father was——they was telling me the truth.” Said, “How did he learn? How did he know? How did he know about the things going to happen today?” Now I kept thinking and thinking, now I found out. And I learned something too. Now, what my father used to tell me about all this stuff, what I learned where he learned it, is the Creator is tells you; he reminds you, in the future. Bobby pauses to light another cigarette. But, like my father said, when I was, you know, little when he told me before I was go to work in the factory and all that, he said there’s something’s going to be out there where you’re going to make, like I told you before, where you’re going to make more money in one week what we’ve been making in one year sharecropping. When I was learned that, and when he told me, they said even he working out there, “You make big money.” “You’re going to have a nice vehicle. You probably going to have money every day. You’re going to have money every day. You may have a hundred dollar bill in your pocket everyday.” He said it’s going to happen. “And you think that’s going to last in your future. You think you’re going to last for you just as long as you live. But it’s not going to happen.” He said, “Even though you’re just making it half way, things are ¤xing, they’re going to ¤x to died out. Then you’re going to be thinking what I’ll be telling you. And then you’re going to learn what’s out there. That’s what I’m saying, you know what it is.” Now I learned now. I just been wondering how, when the father is tell me. Well, I’m working down there at U.S. Motors. I started at ’73 and everything was good. And everything was good. Anywhere in the United States, all these factories, paying good money. People make good living. Until 1980 to ’90—things is ¤xing died out.

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They giving out our technology in foreign countries. And now, Mexico is big now. They took our technology, took our jobs. They didn’t took our job. It’s the president of the United States is sent it there. And some people said Japan and Mexico and all that, they were behind us, ten or ¤fteen years behind us, United States of America. Now these people they think we’re rich. The Japanese and the Mexicans, they think we’re rich. That’s the reason why this Mexican people try to come in to American side and all that. It’s just like I said, you know, back in 1961 when they build that U.S. Motors here in Philadelphia, they won’t let blacks and Indians work there. All want white. Until this President John F. Kennedy stopped the whole things. And that’s when they, they wanted——in the South, people was mostly farming people. So John F. Kennedy, was the one that stopped that; they want the people to work in factories, make more money. Here, back then, that U.S. Motors was paying eighty-¤ve cents an hour. The one, this guy he told me he works out there for thirty years or something, no, twenty something years. He said he start working out there when they start hiring out there at U.S. Motors. He say he only get paid forty dollars a week. And he said that was, he thought, big money. And like I said, back then, you buy a drink was, Coke, whatever, I mean, candy whatever you buy was nickel. Like you go in the store and you get the little peppermint candy about this big [indicates size of a quarter], it’s about nickel a piece now. Back then that was a twofer-penny. [laugh] So that’s when, this fellow was, he get paid forty dollars a week, he thought that was rich man. Then I started working out there in ’73. I started off with three seventy-¤ve an hour. He told me, he said, “You lucky you start that much.” Because things done changed. He said, “When I start work out here, I only get eighty-some cents an hour.” Said, “Take-home paycheck, forty dollars.” He said, “Now, I make more than three or four hundred a week now.” Now look how much you make now. Things really changed, I say. Like I said, this job is going to like, go off, mostly to Mexico. Like anywhere you go clothes shopping. You buy any T-shirts like that,

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they’re made in Japan, in Taiwan. You buy the air conditioner right there, it be in Mexico. Everything is made in foreign country now. They didn’t tell us what going to be doing, but they said even though they got their factories out here, that make us big, he said, that ain’t going to last long. So like I said, this happening now. And even that U.S. Motors is about gone, and go to Mexico. Yeah, sooner or later——my father was telling me you don’t know which it’s going to be. But only thing he was for sure, everything is going to be died out of here. He said, he won’t made no money out of here, that’s what he said. You probably go back to the farm again, if you live. Bobby Joe grew up sharecropping. His father knew only this work, but saw changes coming. Prophecy predicted those changes. People would be making lots of money; things would seem to be great. But it would not last, Bobby’s father told him. It would all disappear as quickly as it came. Moving from farmland to reservation land and from self-suf¤cient work to company-driven work was understandably disconcerting. The shift was not con¤ned to the Choctaw but was true in the majority of rural communities in the United States (Peterson 1972:1288–89). Not surprisingly, such a shift created a number of problems for the Choctaw, particularly as people began to ¤nd that the jobs they were trained for were no longer viable. Also not surprisingly, these concerns and fears were expressed in the culturally developed genre that addressed change: prophecy. Sharecropping was hardly an ideal system for employment. Sharecroppers worked long hours for little compensation. But for most, such farming provided enough food to eat and enough money to purchase the items they could not grow or make themselves. Sharecroppers depended on their landlords, but the work was for the most part an independent enterprise. Some of the more fortunate families were able to escape sharecropping by securing reservation land and working as tenant farmers. Living conditions were no better and sometimes worse, but it was a price many were willing to pay to be rid of their landlords. As late as the early 1960s, the majority of Choctaw heads of households were either sharecroppers, itinerant day laborers for larger farms, or unemployed.21 But things had already begun to change, and small family farmers found it harder and harder to compete with larger, mechanized farming operations. In order to redress the problem, the U.S. government through the Bureau of American Indians attempted two major initiatives, one to encourage young men and women to continue with their education at Indian schools

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scattered across the country, the other to relocate American Indian men to urban areas where they could ¤nd jobs as unskilled laborers. Many Choctaw found themselves at Indian schools in Kansas and New Mexico, junior colleges that trained them in various job skills. Retention rate, however, was low, and many ended up back in Mississippi and back in the ¤elds. The other initiative farmed mostly young men out to major cities such as Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Jose, and San Francisco, where ¤eld employment of¤ces had been set up to assist in vocational training (Peterson 1972:1289; McKee and Murray 1986:125). Billy Amos went to Chicago. He spent ten years working as a janitor for a large company before he moved back to Mississippi, where he found custodial work at the local middle school. Charlie Denson worked as a day laborer on farms in Florida before he too moved back to Mississippi. Others moved to smaller areas with job opportunities, and word of mouth encouraged others to follow. Today, Choctaw communities continue to exist in Henning, Ripley, and Halls, Tennessee, where tracts of farmland and a John Deere farm machinery plant lured many in the 1950s. Some stayed in Mississippi. Eventually, when the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act forced open the doors of factories to nonwhites, some men, but mostly women, found work in the factories established in the area. Brief stints in the Army by Choctaw men generally resulted in a return to Mississippi when done. Then in the 1970s, Phillip Martin was able to attract outside industries to the reservation. Many of those who had moved away came back. Others who had remained on family plots trying to eke out a living farming moved onto the reservation and into newly created factory jobs. The shift was massive; within a single generation, people went from a subsistence economy and day-to-day self-suf¤ciency to a market economy and virtual total dependency on currency. A simple comparison of the community displays during the 1951 Choctaw fair with those of the 1999 fair highlights this shift. The displays are constructed by the various Choctaw communities, touting what they hold to be integral to their lives, those things of which they are most proud. In 1951, displays were completely devoted to farming. By 1999, four categories appeared on most displays—education, culture, gardening, and recreation—with farming relegated to hobby rather than occupation.22 With this shift came the promise of prosperity. People would have new homes, stable income, and the luxuries of electricity, running water, and television that had already spread to wage-earning middle-class families elsewhere in the country and state. But there was another reality bound up in this change, one that highlighted the cost of this shift. Where once people set their own hours, grew what they needed to eat, and sold the extra for what they needed to buy, now people were required to punch time clocks,23 work regard-

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less of cultural observations such as mourning, live on government-entrusted land, and engage in an economy in which luxury items became necessity items and everything had to be paid for with currency. People lost the skills to be self-suf¤cient, and many were subject to alienation, not able to afford the cars on which they worked eight to twelve hours a day. Prophecies predict this shift (see appendix: “Loss of Forest and Farming,” “Money Becomes More Important,” and “Removal”). Factories will lull their workers with more money in one day than a month of sharecropping, only to disappear as quickly as they came, leaving their employees without a job and, worse, without the skills to provide for their families. People will become dependent on money. Things like electricity and water will cost money, further forcing a dependence on this new world order. Prices for necessary food items will rise. The quest for money will become a quest in and of itself. Values and priorities will shift and decay. People will become lured by what money could buy and ignore those things that were once most valued by the community: children. “When the brick houses are all built, when the daycare is built, they will just drop the little children off and will continually go,” Odie Anderson remembers hearing her father say. “Money will mean more than the children, he used say.” The family unit, so important economically as well as socially, will be destroyed. The domination of American currency and the dependence it demands evokes an all too familiar historical parallel for the Choctaw, a parallel that has further evoked a wariness and suspicion evidenced clearly in prophecy. “One of the elderlies said we don’t know how to handle money because it doesn’t belong to us,” Harold Comby states matter-of-factly. I ask him what he means by this. “We used to barter. We didn’t use to use money. When the trading posts came, the government said we could charge as much as we wanted. But after we had been going there and charging all these things, they told us you have to repay it. They used this to steal our land.” Similar stories are integral parts of many community members’ family history.24 People interpreting prophecy believe that money will once again be the cause of removal. Money, and this new economic dependence, is symbolized in the community through two major images: the casino and the proliferation of new homes. In prophecy after prophecy, these images appear as signs of worse things to come.25 Some believe the inability to afford these homes will result in eviction. Others say that heavy taxation of the casino will result in the loss of their land. And still others fear a similar fate owing to the mismanagement of the casino. At the heart of each are expressions of loss of control, of ¤nancial systems that will be manipulated in order to wrest land from the Choctaws once again.

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The emotional power of the forced removals of the past, coupled with the prophecies of yet another one, is strong enough to engender some of the rare instances of people consciously altering their behavior in accordance with prophecy. Many men and women in the community who still own their own land say they have held onto it, even when they are not themselves living on it, because their elders told them that there would be a time when the Choctaw people would lose their land again. If tribal land is again taken, they will at least have personal land to live on. This tie to the physical land has been a historically crucial part of Choctaw identity. In a version of the emergence myth recorded around the time of the ¤rst removal, the Great Spirit warns, “I give you these hunting grounds as your homes. When you leave them, you die” (Claiborne 1964 [1880]:519). Historical precedent coupled with the power of prophecy provide edicts that people ¤nd dif¤cult to ignore. Land. The shift from farm to factory, from subsistence to market economy, does not operate in prophecy solely as a symbolic expression of the concern of the dependence on money; it also symbolizes a move from the natural world to the man-made world. On the most explicit and practical level, the shift from farming is a shift away from food production. A life devoted to making gloves one will never wear seems a dangerous choice to people whose lives have centered around producing that which they most desperately need. Even those sharecroppers who grew cotton and other nonedible crops also maintained a garden for their families. Prophecies warn of this loss of land for food production. The forests will be replaced with new houses and hay ¤elds, making it more dif¤cult to hunt game. The gardens are threatened again by new houses but also by a growing timber industry in the state. The result will be starvation.26 Linda Willis remembers hearing these predictions from her grandfather Cameron Wesley. He said, “In the future, the food, the food that we get from the grocery store—” we wouldn’t be able to get it, that it’s going to cost high, and we need to learn how to plant food and things like that. Or learn how to eat deer meat, rabbit, squirrel. And he said “That way, y’all will survive.” But there’s not going to be enough forest for animals to live in, so, he said, “Y’all might be facing, facing, that y’all will have to live without meat.” That’s what he used to say.

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Cameron Wesley recounted these predictions as he watched his sons and daughters gradually leave the farm and move to reservation land. “There’s no turning back,” he warned them. The warning mirrors other prophecies, all of which operate according to a “use it or lose it” philosophy. Bobby Joe and Louise Wilson recount prophecies that crops will no longer grow. The prophetic explanation is that the earth is getting older and is losing its fertility; but both believe the cause of this slow death of the land is the people’s lack of regard for it. “If people don’t take care of the land like it is, you know, we’re not going to have that much food,” Louise says, quoting her grandfather. “Maybe he meant that if we don’t continue to till the land and keep our garden growing, that we won’t have no food.” Bobby Joe also notes this loss in the predictions he heard, interpreting them through the changes he has already seen in the forests where he used to gather wild fruit. “Sometimes we picked wild plums,” he says. “My youngest sister made a pie out of it. Pick lots of different berries. “But now I don’t see it no more. Everything was growing in the wooded area at that time. I used to go in the woods when I was eleven and try to ¤nd those wild apples. “You won’t see those things out here no more. Those things have stopped growing. “Solid red. Almost taste like a cherry. Sweet. They don’t grow by fertilizer, just by themselves but sweet, delicious wild apples.” I ask Bobby why these things have stopped growing. “This old man was telling me about it, just say ‘Because the people don’t use it anymore.’ So he said the Creator has quit growing it. That’s what he told me.” By not farming, people risk severing their ties to the land on the most practical level of food production. But there is a sense that this severance extends beyond the practical and into the metaphysical. There are a number of prophecies that depict nature out of balance: seasons switching places, weather changing, days getting shorter, wild animals becoming more numerous and more dangerous. Grady John notes the implications of these changes on farming, that it will be so cold in spring that they will not be able to plant their corn. Others see less speci¤c but more pervasive implications on the environment in general. “I was just talking to my mom about that this morning,” Harold Comby says, responding to my question about the prophecy his mother told him about the days getting longer. “I didn’t get enough rest last night, with all the people out at the mound.27 I was tired and she said that they used to say that the nights will get shorter and days will get shorter. That’s what she told me this morning.

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“I would compare it to these tsunamis, and that other one, where there’s a hot front and cold front—el niño. They’re all about man messing with the environment, screwing up nature and the environment.” Many others do not draw an explicit connection between the changes in nature and man’s actions, suggesting that there is no modi¤cation of behavior that will avert these disasters. In both cases, however, some view this imbalance of nature as a sign of a larger trend leading to something far worse and far more ¤nal: the end of the world. Both Bobby Joe and Louise Wilson draw this connection, believing that the slow death of the land, its loss of fertility, is a sign that the world is about to end. These doomsday interpretations are attributed to many of the prophecies told throughout the community but most consistently to prophecies of war (see appendix: “War,” “Signs of the End,” and “End of the World”). Here too we ¤nd historical parallels that seem to underlie these prophecies. Those previously discussed could be traced to economic shifts that occurred within the community as well as without. The in®uence on prophecies of war and the end of the world, however, are more expressly external. War and the End of the World Cultural history. Prophecies of approaching war are told frequently in the community. Many tell about a war that will be coming, instigated by foreign powers who will decimate the American people. The cause of the war is not given and apparently not known, but it is clear that the Choctaw have done nothing to instigate it. As with removal efforts conducted by the U.S. government, this war promises to bring loss and destruction to a people who have attempted to remain outside the fray. During removal, this attempt at avoidance was characterized by the retreat into the swamps to avoid displacement, hiding from government agents who attempted to round them up. This passive resistance is echoed here in prophecies of another war, but with the warning that such efforts will be ineffective. With all the new homes being built, the trees and swamps have become neighborhoods with houses packed closely together. Linda Willis recounts the words of her grandfather Cameron Wesley: And then he would tell us that there’s going to be a great big war coming to the United States where, he would tell us, there would be more houses in the future where you can see everybody, neighbors to neighbors, just like we’re living right now. And he would say there would be no place to hide, for us to hide, so we’re going to end up being killed. “Not unless——” they said if you’re truly Choctaw, you would have Choctaw shirt or Choctaw dress hanging up in your porch. That way

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they’ll know that you’re Indian living in that house. And they’ll pass by you. The motif of hiding appears again and again in these prophecies as a strategy that will no longer be effective. Instead, ¤rm proof of one’s identity will be necessary to remain outside national and international affairs. Despite the difference in strategies, the impulse to remain a distinct and separate group remains. Just as hiding in swamps removed the Choctaw physically in order to remain a distinct and separate group rather than be subsumed by the larger American population as the treaty dictated for those Choctaw who remained in Mississippi, the exhibition of a unique cultural trait removes the Choctaw symbolically from the rest of Americans. These prophecies address the level of tribal identity in carving an identity separate from other Americans and strengthening that identity through the maintenance of cultural customs. Shared tribal history is evoked in the repeated motif of hiding that makes this prophecy distinctly Choctaw. However, there is another series of prophecies about war that draws upon a different historical precedent and negotiates identity on a much broader level. International history. World War II changed everything. Or more precisely, the nuclear bomb did. Humans now had in their hands the power to destroy the world. Prophecies of the end of the world now seemed inevitable, and inevitably soon: “The dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 initiated an era of nuclear apocalypticism that has ®ourished in American religious culture, folklore, and popular culture; the most widespread and persistent belief that emerges from both religious and secular speculation about nuclear weapons it that they will be used to bring about the end of the world” (Wojcik 1996:297). Fear not only of another war but of the ultimate war spread throughout the country and throughout the world. The Choctaw were not isolated from these fears. Choctaw men voluntarily served in the U.S. Armed Forces during the world wars as well as wars in Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf;28 they were a part of national affairs, despite their marginal status as Americans, a status thrust upon them but also often embraced. Even had the Choctaw not engaged in such global affairs, the threat of nuclear power would have included them. No one will survive a nuclear holocaust. But this involvement in national affairs physically in war as well as aurally and visually by attending to the mass media made fear of nuclear war a concern throughout the community. Whereas war with the possibility of salvation for those who have maintained their Choctaw culture argues for a unique Choctaw identity, one that distinguishes them from the rest of America, war via nuclear arms destroys

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those distinctions; death will come to all humans, regardless of ethnicity. As in apocalyptic traditions around the globe, nuclear bombs are regularly recognized as the tool for this mass destruction. Choctaw narrators make this connection explicit in their interpretation of these end-of-the-world prophecies involving war. Linda Willis heard yet another prophecy of war from her grandfather, one that would bring about the end of the world. Well anyways, he used to tell us that if his children didn’t see it, that we would see it, or our children would be the last to see the world being destroyed, that’s what he used to say. And, he would tell us what to do. He would tell us that it’s going to be the people destroying the world. It’s not going to be God destroying the world, he said, it’s going to be people destroying the world. Because, I guess, when I remember those, and when they’re making these nuclear bombs and everything, and I would think back to what he was saying. I said, “That’s why he used to tell us that these things were going to happen, that people were going to destroy each other. Destroy the world.” And I kind of believed that because it’s happening all over the world. People are destroying one another, killing one another and I think we’re going to face that. This bomb imagery is also performed as part of the prophecy itself and not only in interpretation. Recounting a prediction made “a long time ago” by her father’s great-grandmother, Sally Allen says: They’re going to cut down more trees, and put up more houses, where it’s just going to, they’re not going to have anything to hide them. And they’re going to throw a big bomb and destroy all the people. You know, those are the things that was talked about. And I think, at one point, there was this war going on, you know, several years ago. Nuclear bomb or something, you know. At that time is when Dad said that that’s coming, because it’s happening now. Because that was predicted a long time ago by his great-grandmother. The Bible. For many Christians, the nuclear bomb ¤ts neatly within biblical prophecies of the end of the world where “the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and elements shall melt with fervent heat, the heart also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (II Peter 3:10). When Choctaw

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narrators mention end-of-the-world prophecies, most mention God or the Bible by name, ¤nding an obvious parallel to biblical prophecy. Yet these references are not necessarily signs of adoption. Rather, biblical prophecy suggests a means of interpreting Choctaw prophecy by providing a coherent interpretive frame. The substantive content of the prophecy derives from within the Choctaw community, but its meaning is constructed through interpretation via the Bible. Sally Allen draws parallels between the two: “When they hear the wars and stuff coming, coming and stuff, and then in the Bible, when you hear rumors of wars, you know, pestilence and stuff like that. You know, that’s the signs of time. So that’s what they were talking about, and that’s in the Bible.” Sally recognizes that the general decline noted in many of the Choctaw prophecies she heard from her elders growing up ¤ts easily within the biblical prophecies of the end of the world. The two are not confused for the same thing, however. Most people are conscientious about distinguishing between Choctaw prophecy and biblical prophecy. Louise Wilson remembers that her father sometimes told stories from the elders, sometimes read from the Bible. Both were valid sources for instruction. But they were and are held as distinct traditions. After recounting a number of Choctaw prophecies, Louise Wilson pauses to think of other things her grandmother had told her. “What else? Of course I know a lot of things they used to say in church. But I’m trying to think of the things that came just from her and grandpa about things that would happen in the future.” Donna Denson remembers that her father “used to tell us things in the Bible. He used to say that the ¤rst time God destroyed the earth with a ®ood. The next time it will be ¤re.” Both grew up with the Bible as a valid and important text; but both also recognized what was biblical and what was Choctaw. The texts are distinct, but the belief is that the two are compatible. This compatibility is a key point in how many in the community view religion. Bobby Joe explains that God gave each group a way to worship, just as he gave them different languages. All are equally valid, but each is speci¤cally suited to each group—separate but equal. Conversion to another religion, therefore, is not blasphemy, but it is a shame to refuse or ignore the gift you were given. For himself, Bobby prefers to worship in ways he ¤nds suit him and his sense of how Choctaw worshipped in the past. To do otherwise is, for him, to risk losing his identity: They do it by church ways. After a funeral, they ¤nish and get in cars and want to go places, go party. They don’t think of themselves as Choctaw anymore. Because they’re living by the Bible, they forget about

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themselves. I’m proud to be a Choctaw. I’m proud to speak my own language. Sometimes I go to the woods, I sit in the spring water and listen to birds and the winds blowing through the trees. Sometimes if you understand, those trees can talk to you. The birds can talk to you. The water, if you think hard, and be understanding, that water can talk to you too. Ideally, one should follow one’s own religion. Bobby Joe desperately wants to regain the old Choctaw religion, but information in books and from elders provides scant material. His solution has been to explore nature as well as other American Indian religions. Carmen Denson also mourns the loss of a traditional Choctaw religion. He is bothered that he must so frequently turn to the Bible rather than to his own traditions for guidance. “I keep referring to the Bible,” he says, “because I don’t know about my history. Because it was not written and it was kind of lost.” That loss was not necessary. He is convinced that Jesus did not intend to wipe out the world’s religions but to work within them. It is an interpretation he is careful to attribute. This is my opinion. And my name is Carmen Denson and this is my opinion. Jesus, when he was here, he even said it to the people on the other side of the ocean, he told them that “I didn’t come to destroy the prophets’ sayings, the old ways. But I came to ful¤ll it.” And that’s the way we probably should have looked at it, but we didn’t. We converted it. And it might have been a mistake on our part. But we didn’t understand fully. Christianity was meant to expand the Choctaw view of the world, not replace it. Even Bobby Joe notes that comparison between the two can provide useful results. The Bible, I’m not really pulling down the Bible, ’cause a lot of words in there is——sometimes you can compare together by those Indian ways, you know. And, in the Bible, they say, Jesus was said, “don’t feel the pain. Whatever happens, don’t feel it.” He said that’s when you going to be selected to people, at the end of the world. If you feel it then it’s, scream. Just like this volcano, when it erupted when it started, exploded. All the lava is coming down, raining hot. Now, I’m beginning to understand, that’s the Hell that’s going to be.

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And it’s, in different countries, they have it already. Just like Mt. St. Helen’s. But that one, it didn’t really get that hot. But it will. The connection people make between Choctaw prophecy and biblical prophecy, then, seems to be one of expansion and exploration rather than adaptation or adoption. Choctaw men and women quote the Bible. They also quote biblical prophecy. Some images may slowly be synthesized and syncretized, as with Estelline Tubby’s image of a man in ®owing robes leading the Choctaw from their homes in Mississippi. Yet the impulse is to maintain the two as distinct if equally valid. The in®uence the Bible and Christianity have on Choctaw prophecy—and there clearly is one—operates more signi¤cantly on the level of interpretation rather than of the core prophecy itself.29 The use of the Bible to interpret these prophecies of general decline as steps toward the end of the world is likely a relatively new strategy. The universal concerns of a nuclear holocaust, coupled with the growth of Christianity among the Choctaw, have brought end-of-the-world scenarios to the fore. Carmen Denson believes the elders never prophesied total destruction but rather provided open-ended prophecies, where people could strive to improve, strive to reverse the troubling trends. Why would people bother changing, he argues, if the world was just going to end? You have your people today predict that the end of the world is going to come. They going to throw atomic bomb and it’s going to destroy every living thing on the earth. They never predict it that way. They predict destruction, but I don’t think they ever predicted total destruction. See, they told us there might be wars coming, but they didn’t say it was going to wipe out the whole civilization. Today, there are people who assume, suspect, that they predicted that doomsday is going to come. Like even, I think they didn’t, they did that so you wouldn’t, you know, go totally nuts over it. You’ve got to live life today. You got to, you know, a person keeps growing day after day, spiritually and physically, and lot of people might, you know, if you say “The world’s going to end” you know, why try to improve? To me it’s——they told these prophecies because, and the way that they tell, is, they give you hope, even if there’s destruction that’s going to be. They didn’t say it was a total destruction. It was meant to, you know, keep you growing, spiritually, because if the world is going to end, if the world is going to destroy, be destroyed, why, you know, why do the things that you do, to improve yourself, spiritually, morally, if it’s going to end?

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General Decline Far more numerous than end-of-the-world prophecies are prophecies that depict open-ended decline and loss without such a dramatic culmination (see appendix: “General Decline”). This decline is re®ected in some of the prophecies of nature out of balance, but it is most evident in those concerning human social interaction. These prophecies have been addressed earlier in this chapter, but it is worth noting them here in contrast to the prophecies of the end of the world. These more common prophecies depict the family splintering apart as unwed girls become pregnant and divorce becomes commonplace. Children will be dying at younger and younger ages. People will be killing people indiscriminately. Often the murderers are children, showing just how extensive the lack of respect among the youth has become. Instead of inevitable signs of the end, these prophecies are constructed as a perpetual state of worsening affairs. Interpreted as such, these prophecies most explicitly balance prophecy as something that will happen with prophecy as an instructional tool to encourage moral and cultural improvement. Choctaw blood has thinned out; but people can alter their behavior and build it back up. The prophecy can be ful¤lled and a moral is conveyed and adhered to, reversing the destructive trend. Technology and Hope The focus of Choctaw prophecy, it has been argued, is on loss and destruction. Whether this is inevitable, can be delayed, or can be completely reversed or avoided is debated implicitly in prophetic discourse. But the fact that there may be room for change, that the future may be tractable whether individually, communally, or universally provides a glimmer of hope. The glimmer is faint and easily ignored. But there are those who view prophecy as predominantly instructional, as a chance to ¤x things before it is too late. While the prophecies we have studied so far do not themselves convey hope, the leeway for avoidance and reversal of these prophetic visions do. The hope that can be derived from prophecy is not an explicit part of the genre, even though the call for change is. One could rephrase many of these prophecies more hopefully: Keep your language and you will be saved, marry within the community and strengthen tribal identity, keep your farms and eat well. But prophecy does not voice messages so optimistically. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, the belief that the world can get better as long as we do the right things is the exact corollary to the belief that the world will get worse unless we do the right things; the only difference is in perspective: one optimistic, the other pessimistic. Choctaw prophecy is pessimistic despite the hope that may be glimpsed in the morals conveyed.

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There is, however, another major category of prophecies that we have not yet addressed. These are the prophecies of coming technology, prophecies that have uniformly been ful¤lled. Here we ¤nd talk of electricity and the running water that tantalized young sharecroppers. Here are the prophecies of new homes. Here we seem to ¤nd prophecies, not just interpretations, of hope. The loss that permeates most of Choctaw prophecy is focused on the loss of cultural practices, customs, and ways of life, all institutions imbued with the power of the traditional. These prophecies are trained more heavily on a view of the past than a view of the future, on what may be lost rather than what can be gained. Prophecies of technology, on the other hand, seem to address the other side of change. Here is where people express excitement about a new school, recreation building, or casino, or about moving into a home with central air conditioning. The welcomability of the future depends on this perspective. When focused on culture, loss permeates the view; when focused on new technology, gain. One inspires pessimism, the other optimism. Or so it would seem. Change is of course made up of both aspects of life, both perspectives. Carmen Denson notes the duality inherent in change and the demand to strike a balance in life. “The Choctaws are compromising people today,” he says. Like, even though I really believe in my tradition, I will play football, I will watch TV. I think, that’s the way it is today. It’s compromise. They’re compromising people today. Because, you know, not everything is good, not everything is bad. You can use technology a good way, and you can do it a bad way. You can use your car in a good way and you can use your car in a bad way. It’s how you choose and do it.30 Grady John also recognizes the duality of change, noting particularly that there is an inherent give and take to change. His grandfather used to stress this to him: You know, the older person, I can sit around for hours and hours because they were so interesting. They tell you what’s going to happen. What’s going to be this and that, thing’s going to be here, here it’s going to be here. They tell you all that stuff. You’d be sitting up there. Said “I

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wonder if it’s true, I wonder if it’s going to happen.” But you know today, I’ve seen it, it’s happened. They said we Indians, lot of them, we going to lose our culture if we don’t watch ourselves. I say, “What do you mean?” “’Cause this world, you know, Caucasians bring lot of stuff. You going to like it. You going to forget your culture. But I don’t want that to happen, OK?” He said, “Always keep the culture. ’Cause they going to be studying about you. Schools.” I say, “How do you know grandpa?” He said, “It’s going to happen. Just wait and see.” And I’ve seen it now. The siren song of modernity can exert a strong pull, particularly on the youth who do not yet have strong ties to the traditions of the past. The idealist may believe that new things may be added into a community ad in¤nitum while retaining what is there already, but the realist recognizes that this process is eventually one of substitution, not addition. For every new television there is one fewer social dancer. For every new car, one person who moves farther away from the family. Depending on one’s focus, then, on either the cultural traditions or the technological innovations, one may interpret prophecy optimistically or pessimistically. When new technology is viewed narrowly, on the explicit function of the item only, then prophecy may be welcomed. But when technology is viewed in its broader cultural context, a different picture emerges. Sally Allen remembers hearing that when the old dirt roads were ¤rst beginning to be paved, many people were excited at the prospect of not having to slog through muddy ditches after hard rains. The prophecy of paved roads seemed an optimistic one. This was the optimism Billy Amos expressed when talking about electricity, indoor plumbing, television, and VCRs. But there were others who viewed such “progress” with more suspicion. They remembered more extensive prophecies—that with roads came access to their community by outsiders, enemies bringing war, and that more cars meant more deaths in car accidents. In fact, virtually every prophecy of change that has been interpreted with anticipation has alternatively been interpreted with dread (see ¤gure 8). The variation in valence noted in the ¤gure is based on the fact that the core of technological prophecy is often neutral in valence, projecting an act but no commentary on that act. Rather, prophecy gains valence in the process of interpretation. This is not always the case. With some nontechnological prophecies, such as those regarding war, disease, and starvation, the future

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8. Alternate valences attributed to prophecies of technology

event seems inherently negative. Inventions would seem to follow suit, where electricity and running water would necessarily be positive. But such an assumption examines only the immediate, the here and now. Prophecy demands that we think about the consequences, that we consider the future implications. So while electricity may seem inherently positive, the Choctaw people are far more wary when viewing it through prophecy and in a broader cultural and temporal context. In fact, prophecy acts explicitly to remind people that rapid change can be dangerous. This sentiment is echoed in prophetic discourse from the prophets of the past as well as the discourse of today. Carmen Denson has paid attention to the words of the prophets and the warnings they provided.

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They knew that there was a change taking place. And they didn’t appreciate. That’s what I was saying. We’re going through change today, more. We accept it more than the people used to. They were ¤ghting mad when they tried to change it, you know. Now people just change, just like that. Every time you turn around. Prophecy acts to stem the ®ood of progress. Prophets were there to warn against change. And so, even the new technology that promised easier daily living was regarded with suspicion in prophecy. Prophecy functions similarly today. “It’s modern generation,” Billy Amos says. “It’s good. Air conditioning, lights, TV, VCR. Yeah it’s good. But it takes money to live on.” “Lot more than it used to,” I agree. “Yeah. Even if you look at the groceries, keep going up, they don’t go down. That’s one example there. Probably the bread might cost two dollars, way there in future times. Probably eighty-nine cents back then, but now, dollar forty-two cents, whatever. Might get to, uh, two dollars. Can’t believe that, but it’ll come up. “Like she used to say that. Like sack of ®our going to cost you ten dollars. Back then was two dollars and ¤fty cents. Twenty-¤ve pounds. I remember that.” [laugh] Air conditioning is good. Lights, television, VCRs—all good. But with the good come repercussions. And those repercussions are noted in prophecy. “So that’s how they goes,” Billy adds. “That’s how they used to say that.” How they used to say that is in the form of prophecy. Modernity is good when you consider the technology but not so good when you consider the ¤nancial demands that accompany it. Prophecy provides the context, the fuller implications, the negative possibilities that temper short-term excitement. High salaries will come with factory jobs, Bobby’s grandfather told him, but they will be short-lived. Not only does prophecy itself provide a picture of the negative side of the future, it encourages this perspective in the contemporary world. There are a few instances of hopeful prophecies that belie this general pessimistic tone. Bobby Joe remembers his grandfather saying that a new world will come after this one dies out. Like other Choctaw prophecies, people will return to farming, but here it is seen as a happy return to old ways, rather than a forced necessity after the economy crashes. Such a prophecy of rejuvenation echoes those prophecies of the charismatic American Indian prophets of the nineteenth century. Yet unlike the visions such as prophesied by Wavoka, this new world is not reserved for Indians. Bobby remembers no rationale for who

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will be brought back to life for this new world and who will not. The new world is not for him a picture of rejuvenation of the Choctaw or of American Indians but more broadly of the world. Charlie Denson, on the other hand, does see rejuvenation, or rather retribution, for the Choctaw. In the version he tells of the war that will be coming, the Chinese invaders will not merely spare the Choctaw who can speak their language but will return to them the land that was unfairly taken by the U.S. government over the past few centuries. War is bleak, but the outcome of this war, for Charlie Denson, is quite positive. And ¤nally, there are contemporary elders who look into the future to make their own predictions about where the world is headed. These men and women are not necessarily pessimists or optimists (such categories rarely ¤t any but the most extreme), though they could be either. Accordingly, their views of the future need not be con¤ned to cultural loss, but as easily may depict the other side of change, the gains that may be made. Grady John and Billy Amos both, for example, predict a future dependent upon education. Both derive their predictions from general tenets of what will equate to success. Grady John believes that “We can succeed if we work hard more. We can get, that’s what’s going to happen. My prediction: if we can educate more of our Choctaw kids, we can do more.” His grandfather told him that with teamwork, the Choctaw could become stronger and stronger: “So grandpa predict that. He said if you had one or two matches, you break that, because you’re not strong. But if you have the big large ones, you can get strong and people all over the world, going to be, start coming to your reservation.” Billy Amos echoes the sentiment that education can lead to success, but he articulates it with a tempered balance of the positive and negative: “Those things going to come up. Because now, they need more education. They continue, and goes into high school—if they ¤nish, if they can, they go more, to college. Then they become, ¤nish the school, college, and easier to get in jobs. If you drop out of schools, you’ll never make it.” We will remember that such predictions are not strictly considered prophecy within the community. Speakers employ the form and structure of prophetic discourse to make these predictions, and in time, they may be passed down and become considered part of the prophetic tradition. The lack of such optimistic prophecies today, however, suggests that this positive tone is not conveyed through time, that the generic norms of keeping progress in check, of portraying the cautious and dark possibilities of the future, will weed out the positive. Perhaps because these predictions sit outside the established prophetic tradition, they re®ect the spectrum of views of the future that are voiced in the community. There is less of a generic restriction, therefore, to

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depict only the negative implications of change. Or perhaps, like the prophecies of coming technology, these optimistic predictions will remain but be reinvested with interpretations that suggest more sinister implications. Before we conclude, however, it is worth mentioning one other possibility for the nature and tone of prophecy, a possibility that demands a historical depth simply not present in the record of prophetic discourse. One can hypothesize that prophecy has not always acted uniformly as a view of the worstcase scenario but rather as a balance with how life is generally perceived at the time. In this way, prophecy provides a contrastive picture of the present. If that present is ¤lled with hunger, despair, and poverty, then prophecy would operate to provide the community with what it needs to put life back into balance. Here prophecy would provide pictures of hope, of new homes and new technologies that would enable people to live without the threat of perpetual hardship. If that present is ¤lled with material luxury, however, then the needs of the community shift. The picture needed is one that reminds the community of the culture that is being ignored in favor of material wealth and immediate but temporary satisfaction. Here, a reminder of tradition is necessary to restore balance to the community. Such a system could explain the investment of technological prophecies with negative connotations and the fact that no unful¤lled technological prophecies exist today (such things are not needed in a world over®owing with affordable and accessible technology). In fact, it is possible to reevaluate technological prophecies less as predictions of invention than as predictions of access. If the goal of prophecy during these bleak, hard sharecropping days was to provide hope, then it would be the coming of electricity and running water and roads to their homes and communities, rather than the actual invention of such things, that would hold meaning for those listening. This ¤nal conjecture is provocative but ultimately unanswerable without a more complete historical record of prophecy. What remains true is that today—in these times where material comforts are widespread and new items, opportunities, and ideas are being evaluated, interpreted, created, and adapted into the community—prophecy functions to remind people of the other side of change, the loss that accompanies such gains.31 Prophecy remains primarily a vision of the future looking backward. Historical context provides a picture of health and wealth of culture and social relations, which is contrasted with a bleak future where material comforts grow but traditional cultural resources disappear. Even if it were possible to categorize an entire tribe as optimistic or pessimistic, the Choctaw are not universally pessimistic. Their prophecies, on the other hand, generally are. The future is something to avoid, not anticipate. And yet there is hope. While the prophecies are bleak, the messages within

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them can provide hope by encouraging change. The prophecies say that the future is ¤xed with devastating loss. But the performance and interpretation of prophecy encourage listeners to restore balance to their lives, their communities, and, ultimately, the world. There is room for negotiation. There is room for hope. THE FOCUS OF IDENT IT Y

Maintaining Cultural Identity At stake in these prophecies is the most fundamental aspect of Choctaw culture: group identity. Every shift, every change, threatens the notion of what it means to be Choctaw. Choctaw prophecies outline this loss of ethnic and cultural identity. In many of these prophecies, it is the value system that underlies Choctaw life and hence culture that is seen to be eroding. Odie Anderson remembers her father’s predictions that people would care more about money than their family. Childcare centers and wage employment are evidence that this is coming true. Bobby Joe heard that kids would be killing each other, Viola Johnson that girls would be getting pregnant at younger and younger ages without being married. At the heart of these predictions is the disintegration of the family, traditionally the focal point of Choctaw life. You worked with your family in the ¤elds and you socialized with them at night. Weekends and holidays meant reunions with extended family members. That pattern has persisted up until the last decade or so. Recently, signs of the splintering of the family can be seen. Family dinners held once, twice, even three times during the week with four generations and a slew of cousins, aunts, and uncles are becoming rare. To compensate, families are organizing formal family reunions. The informal trading off of children with their cousins to allow parents a night out has been replaced with paid babysitters. Small signs, hardly widespread, but enough to provide fuel for prophecy’s dark predictions. Here, the loss of Choctaw culture is at its most basic level: the family, and with it, the values of a strong and cohesive family unit. Here culture is viewed as life lived, as daily practice. Other prophecies identify more speci¤c cultural practices as disappearing. Billy Amos, for example, remembers hearing that the social dance will disappear if they are not careful. But the loss most avidly warned against is the biological loss of identity through intermarriage with other races. The Choctaw have one of the highest blood quantum requirements for tribal membership in the United States: 50 percent. Intermarriage is seen as a very real threat to Choctaw identity on the most basic genetic level.32 After two generations of intermarriage, one’s children cannot be enrolled as Choctaw, a devastating pronouncement for a

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family who continues to live in Mississippi, continues to live in the Choctaw community. The loss of identity, ethnic or otherwise, is a common human fear that can emerge as a negative reaction to other groups or a positive impulse for the preservation of one’s own. In American Indian prophecy speci¤cally, this fear is particularly well articulated, as a brief survey of the prophetic movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries will attest.33 As with these earlier prophetic movements, the Choctaw dictum to avoid intermarriage is not deemed unacceptable based on a notion of purity of blood. Rather, it is the loss of cultural practices, beliefs, and customs associated with intermarriage that is viewed as so dangerous. Most often, this cultural loss is symbolized in the loss of one tradition in particular: the language. With schools conducted almost entirely in English, the home is the most obvious place for the Choctaw language to be used and learned. Interracial couples, however, generally choose English as the language spoken in the home, since virtually all Choctaw can speak English but the reverse is rarely true. This loss is particularly troubling since the Choctaw language is generally regarded as the single most important symbol of Choctaw identity. Billy Amos and Herman Frazer complain that the youth today are becoming nahollo (white) because they only speak English. Carmen Denson notes, “When you talk about tradition, you talk about the language and the culture. When you go abroad, you speak a language and people can identify you. If you don’t speak your own language, people won’t know who you are.” The late Emmett York argued for the power of language as the ultimate symbol of identity when he stated simply: “If he speaks Choctaw, he’s Choctaw” (Thompson and Peterson 1975:187). The fears expressed in and outside of prophecy are hardly unfounded. In 1997 language test scores conducted by the Tribal Language Program with early childhood education students ages four to ¤ve revealed that only 3 percent of Choctaw children are ®uent in Choctaw, 11 percent speak a mix of Choctaw and English, and 86 percent have little to no knowledge of the Choctaw language at all. Tests for 2000 showed these numbers had grown worse, with only 1 percent ®uent, 7 percent with limited ability, and 92 percent speaking none at all (“Choctaw language to be lost by 2005,” Dec. 1999:5), despite active attempts to reverse the trend, including in-school Choctaw language classes and language immersion summer camps. The adoption of a common American Indian slogan for these efforts highlights the increased awareness of this loss and the need for something explicit to remind people that a culture and its language are vital to one another: “A culture without its language is like a bird without wings.”

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This plea to keep the language is echoed by virtually every adult in the community, even those whose own language skills are admittedly poor. Prophecy echoes this sentiment as boldly, but with the added weight of supernatural origins and the succession of ancestors who have passed this prophecy down through time. Actual prophetic texts have only been rarely recorded among the Choctaw, but one of the earliest incorporates this plea to keep the language. On a worn audiocassette tape, passed throughout the community and dubbed over and over again, is a collection of house dance and social dance songs and music by some of the best-known musicians to have sung and played: Wagonner Amos, Henry Joe, Prentiss Jackson, and Tony Bell. On the tape, Wagonner Amos tells a story of the creation of the Choctaw, a story originally told to staff members of the student publication Nanih Waiya in 1985. It is a syncretic story combining elements of the biblical Genesis, Choctaw tradition, and other in®uences not found in either. Wagonner Amos frames the entire discourse as prophecy: As in the past and still today, people talk of Nanih Waiya. So as not to confuse people, I will translate what I have heard from the old people They stated that the events that are occurring now would happen. The creator of man, God, was the one who told them of future happenings. The incidents that have occurred are a prediction of the older generation. It is even talked about in preachings at churches today. The origin of the incidents are all related to the Choctaws. Within his account, he nests a speci¤c prophecy about the sun dying and the summer disappearing. Speaking about the creation of the ¤rst Choctaw man and woman, God says: “Now you two shall be together and pass on to other generations what I have given. If not they shall come into confrontation with the sun. I have created the day, the moon, the sun, and all. If it is false and bright, many men will follow it. Then will little children not understand. If not spoken to and taught they will not know what to do. Then and there will the sun begin to die. You will notice the death when there won’t be any summers. That is when, as stated, it will begin to die.” So as it was to be, we are now living in what was to happen. For one who did not hear, there are doubts, but we are living now as predicted. What he said he would do, he did. As clearly seen with the languages and nothing else has been said. As he had laid down the language, it still remains. If we do not believe that, we shall meet something evil. As it is, we are in somewhat of a tangle and we do not understand all that we

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do. This he said would lead into losing our summers and we are leading to that point. The prediction is contingent; the sun will only disappear if people no longer follow God. It is a warning of proper behavior, a warning heard frequently throughout the Bible. Wagonner Amos ties this warning to the gift of language, bestowed upon them by God, suggesting that the loss of language would lead to the loss of the sun. God’s ¤nal words to the ¤rst man on earth make this loss clear: “He talked to the man stating for him to keep what he had given him: ‘Keep the language!’” This entreaty is couched in prophecy perhaps no less explicitly by Charlie Denson when he recites the words of past prophets: “If you quit your language and not speaking, you might get called on by the Chinese army. Because Chinese going to be here: ‘I want to hear the Choctaw language.’ If you can’t speak none of your language, they going to kill you.” It is the language that will save the Choctaw during the great war. Language is not only proof of ethnic identity, it becomes the instrument for salvation. The word, if not the pen, is indeed mightier than the sword. While language is the most common symbol of identity, it is not the only one. As noted earlier, Linda Willis and Grady John both recount prophecies of a great war where the invaders will charge across the land, killing everyone except those who have Choctaw shirts hanging out in front of their houses. Whether language or clothing, both serve equally to invest Choctaw culture with symbolic as well as very real power.34 What is at stake in these prophecies, therefore, is what it means to be Choctaw.

Expanding Identity The analysis in this book has focused on identity and meaning negotiated at the tribal level. While the study has attempted to address individual variation, how people in speci¤c contexts perform, interpret, and employ prophecy, this is nonetheless Choctaw prophecy, discourse shared throughout the community and viewed as relevant and applicable to all Mississippi Choctaw alike. This is not prophecy of the Amoses or Willises, nor solely of the Conehatta or Bogue Chitto communities, just as it is clearly not about all American Indian prophecy, or all prophecy in general (though there are important rami¤cations and implications for all of these levels). Removal, loss of land, disease, increases in young people dying—these prophecies are tribally democratic; all tribal members risk being affected. Further, Choctaw prophecy most explicitly addresses valuative and symbolic expressions of tribal identity.35 This tribal focus appears, however, to be a shift from the past. Working

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with the tribe primarily from the 1950s through the 1970s, John Peterson found the Choctaw still deeply immersed in a tradition of isolation.36 Not accepted as equals by Mississippi whites and not wanting to be treated as poorly as Mississippi blacks, the Choctaw chose to remain to themselves in this strati¤ed South. Tribal identity, whether esoterically or exoterically constructed, was rarely challenged. Rather, Choctaw identity was negotiated most speci¤cally and most vitally on the level of the community. As noted in the preface, the Choctaw reservation is divided into eight distinct communities. Such division has not always been con¤gured exactly in this way, but division into smaller, localized communities has been a part of Choctaw organization since at least the turn of the eighteenth century. The geographic isolation of people within these communities resulted in further divisions according to kinship and language (Thompson and Peterson 1975:187–89). Some of the only times these communities interacted with one another were during weekends of stickball games and social dancing. While fellowship dominated these weekend events, rivalry between groups underscored the community-held differences in identity. Even then, however, Peterson also recognized that these de¤nitions of identity were hardly stagnant and that new challenges were facing the community, from the individual level with the need to ¤nd work to the communal level with the growth of national Indian rights movements. The categories were not necessarily being rede¤ned; rather, the dominant sphere of shared identity was shifting levels, from the level of localized community to the broader level of the tribe. This shifting outward has continued. Choctaw men and women continue to explore identity on broader levels, even on levels that extend beyond the tribal. This does not suggest that new levels of identity are being created but rather that new levels are garnering value and importance as useful spheres for the negotiation of communal identity. For example, people talk more and more often about being Americans, not just Choctaw. Such discussions generally happen casually in conversation, particularly when talking about national and world events, but they are also happening in more clearly de¤ned, more clearly traditional verbal genres, including prophetic discourse. Some of the older members of the community, like Charlie Denson, maintain prophecies focused on the salvation of the Choctaw as a tribal, ethnic entity. Despite his conversion to Christianity, when the Chinese invade America, it is not Christians who will be spared, but the Choctaw, regardless of religious af¤liation. Tribal identity outranks religious identity, and clearly divorces itself from American identity. And yet, the negotiation of identity is not quite so simple. While concerted tribal identity is explicitly foregrounded, the moral of the prophecy is one

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directed at us versus us, rather than us versus them. The message operates internally with the implication that Choctaws without their language are not Choctaw at all. They are, therefore, indistinguishable from the general population who will be killed during the war. The message therefore is twofold: tribal identity is the key to salvation (exoteric perspective), but this identity will be established person by person (esoteric perspective). Estelline Tubby interprets identity as constructed in prophecies of the Third Removal even more expansively. She recognizes parallels between this prophecy and those of other Native American tribes. During a trip to New Mexico for the Gathering of Nations powwow, Estelline heard a speaker who spoke of removal for all Indians. We went there and the chief said that one day all of us would meet together. And, “You can see surrounding in this building, is twenty-eight thousand Indians, all kind of tribes there. But it is more in the United States,” is what he mentioned. So I guess there is large amount of tribes, too, in the United States. If they meet, well, it would be a large crowd I guess. Not twenty-eight thousand but more. I think that’s the way they mentioned, the older people. Estelline Tubby explicitly points out that when she heard the Choctaw prophecy of removal from her aunt, the prediction referred only to the Choctaw. However, she sees how the Choctaw prophecy could be compatible with the larger prophecy she heard in New Mexico.37 Increased interaction at intertribal events has led to increased awareness of other tribes’ traditions. Places where they diverge help foster a sense of unique tribal identity; places where they converge foster a sense of a larger community of American Indians.38 This larger category of “Indian” was once thrust upon them by Europeans and Anglo Americans but has since been adapted and reinvested by the Indian groups themselves. Estelline Tubby has expressed this trend in prophecy, but it is easily seen throughout Choctaw culture with the growth of participation in intertribal powwows, national Indian organizations such as NASA (Native American Sports Association) and U.S.E.T. (United South and Eastern Tribes), and the Chahta Alla Youth Council, which meets with American Indian youth groups across the country. In 2000, the Choctaw Community News picked up the syndicated news summary “Around Indian Country” that spotlights major news events in the United States that affect American Indians.

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This investment of American Indian identity is hardly uncontested. Because of past tendencies by non-Indians to lump all American Indians together as one homogenous group, many people still ¤nd it necessary to declare tribal individuality. Bobby Joe describes one of numerous encounters he has had with non-Indians: The people, we used to work together, they asked me, said, they thought all those Native Americans, they thought they all spoke Choctaw, you know? If you see some kind of movie called——you ought to watch that “Winterhawk” movie. “Windwalker and all that.” It’s just only Indians plays that. They made it kind of like they talking their own language, you know? These people see those movies, then they come back to me, said, “Did you understand that movie? You watched that movie?” I said, “Yeah.” “Do you understand those Choctaws?” Said, “That ain’t no Choctaw!” [laughter] Said, “What are they?” I understand those people are kind of like, they are movie stars. I said, “You understand, it’s maybe a couple of Cheyenne or Sioux tribes, you know?” They said, “I ain’t never heard that kind of name.” I said, “What? Which school you go?” you know? [laughter] I explained it to him. He said, “So, those, the other Native American people living in the North and all that, y’all don’t understand that?” I said “No. They got his own language. I said we can’t understand, and he can’t understand with us.” Bobby turns to me. Like your people. And like, “If you look at German. It look like your color. It look like you. You look at the French. French is the same thing. You look at the British. The British is the same thing. “But, you could not understand German. You can’t understand French. And you can’t understand British. But yet, skin is the same color, same color hair.” That’s what I told, you know.

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Such negotiations are intensely contextual. Outside of these explicitly exoteric interactions of them and us, there is more willingness to recognize an af¤nity with other Indians. In the context of a discussion about religion, for example, Bobby Joe is open to borrowing from the Mohawk because he believes they have a similar worldview as the Choctaw, stemming at least in part from a shared identity as American Indians. At the heart of this negotiation is a fairly simple model, captured formally in law with adoption policies for American Indian babies: (1) ¤rst, placement with a family member, (2) next with a member of the same tribe, (3) then an American Indian family, and (4) only as a last resort, a non-Indian family. Just as family identity supersedes the tribal, so too does tribal supersede Indian. The greatest tension is when the tribal and the intertribal are seen competing with one another on the same level. This tension is generally avoided when Choctaw members participate in national American Indian organizations, where it is clear they are Choctaw ¤rst, American Indian second. These are not American Indians at a conference, these are Choctaw and Navajo and Kwakuitl at an American Indian conference. This layering can blur in the process of cultural borrowing, however. Intertribal dancing is not Choctaw; the steps are derived from Plains Indian traditions. Operating on the same level as Choctaw social dancing, many people in the community view intertribal dancing as destructive to the maintenance of their unique tribal traditions. A similar sentiment is leveled against the growth of the sweat lodge. Adherents point to vague mentions in written records and spoken memories that the Choctaw traditionally engaged in sweats, arguing for tribal validation. They acknowledge that the way the sweat lodge is conducted today is borrowed from Indians in the Southwest, but only because their own traditions have been lost. In search of rituals and ceremonies to help them pray and heal in a way that seems resonant with their American Indian identity, some people are turning more and more often to other tribes for inspiration, whether an eagle ceremony to heal the community ravaged by a triple-murder, or the sweat lodge for regular devotion.39 Henry Williams refers to the sweat lodge as the Indian’s church, a tradition shared by all Indians. This expanding view of identity has been actively negotiated in the community for some time; glimpses of it are being re®ected in prophecy now, too. Grady John suggests an even more radically expanded view of identity when interpreting prophecy, one that moves beyond the simple hierarchy noted in the analogy to adoption laws. Like Charlie Denson, Grady remembers a prophecy with salvation delivered solely to the Choctaw. But he also recounts prophecies in which the us versus them is not Choctaw versus other Americans but Americans versus other nationalities. One might be tempted to read a similar message into Charlie Denson’s prophecy, but the focal point

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is not Chinese versus Choctaw but rather the non-Indians who will be killed versus the Choctaw who will not. Grady John, on the other hand, sees himself on the level of national identity—not the Choctaw nation, but the United States of America. This is not merely a shift in levels of identity. Grady John does not believe the Choctaw hold nuclear secrets. Rather, Grady sees himself as a participant in national affairs as an American. With tribal identity dominating shared verbal genres such as prophecy, one might note how national identity would be viewed as one level of this identity. That is, Choctaw men and women, as Americans, deserve certain rights, share certain traits, and so forth. Here, national identity is interrelated with tribal. But in the battle for nuclear secrets, Choctaw identity plays no role whatsoever. Rather, Grady’s involvement is solely as an American, not as a Choctaw in America. Yet again, this shift is noticeable anecdotally in Choctaw life. When John F. Kennedy Jr.’s plane was lost at sea, people within the Choctaw community called their family and neighbors regularly to discuss the situation and keep each other updated on the latest clues as to what had happened. Debates about national issues and elections are not uncommon. More and more, people are looking beyond their communities and cultivating a sense of identity on broader levels. This shifting sense of who will be affected in the prophesied events dramatically affects interpretation. Recalling Harold Comby’s interpretation of man-eating snakes discussed in chapter 3, we will remember that Harold identi¤ed direct parallels elsewhere in the United States but only partial ones in Choctaw communities in Mississippi. But if the prophecies are opened to include non-Choctaw people who share membership with Choctaws as Americans, then ful¤llment may have already happened. Such a shift is hardly widespread and may not continue to be explored in the future. For the most part, the conservative nature of prophecy precludes such radical re¤guring of Choctaw identity within its generic borders. While people employ the genre to explore such issues, the predominant picture is of the values of the past rather than of the future. THE FOCUS OF PROPHECY Just as the themes within prophecy are shifting and being renegotiated, so too is the genre of prophecy itself. It has been argued that while Choctaw prophecy is clearly moral, that moral system is cultural rather than interpersonal. Actions are determined to be positive or negative based on their impact on Choctaw culture. Such a moral system is based on cultural laws (do not replace garden plots with homes) rather than interpersonal ones (thou shalt

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not kill). Of course the cultural and the interpersonal do intersect, particularly during interaction between Choctaw and non-Choctaw. The dictum is cultural (for example, “Don’t intermarry”), the implication interpersonal. For both, however, the moral code of Choctaw prophecy is culturally relative rather than universal.40 Accordingly, Choctaw prophecy is moral without speci¤cally being tied to the divine. It is, however, generally tied to the supernatural. As discussed in chapter 4, the power to see into the future is most closely linked to the power held by medicine men, a power that is part supernatural gift, part heredity, and part cultivation. While such power may be traced back to a single supreme deity, it is more directly traced to speci¤c supernatural beings who are powerful, but only as one of a number of supernatural beings. In other words, prophecy is not speci¤cally the word of God. What we ¤nd, then, is that Choctaw prophecy deals predominantly with this world rather than the otherworldly, with the human rather than the divine. Social and cultural dimensions dominate religious ones. This focus may be owing in part to a lack of a native religion known or practiced today among the Choctaw. Prophecy cannot be interpreted within a framework that does not exist. Yet this orientation may be changing. Many Choctaw are devoutly religious. Beginning in the early nineteenth century, Christian missionaries began to make major inroads into Choctaw communities. Today, the majority of Choctaw are Christian, most Baptist or Catholic. Some have embraced Christianity but without synthesizing it with what they hold to be Choctaw culture and custom. For them, the two remain distinct. Others, however, strive for coherence between two, where each tradition has the potential to inform the other. For prophecy, this means many have turned to Christianity, and speci¤cally to the biblical prophetic tradition, in order to understand Choctaw prophecy. When asked where the inspiration for prophecy comes from, many pause to think, ultimately shrugging and answering simply “I don’t know.” But as discussed in chapter 4, some have suggested that Choctaw prophets were gifted in the same way that biblical prophets were, drawing parallels between biblical prophecy and Choctaw prophecy with respect to prophets and the origin of prophecy. People also reference this biblical prophetic tradition on the level of content, particularly the parallels between the major wars and destruction described in Choctaw prophecy and the Apocalypse of the Bible. Estelline Tubby compares the prophecy of another removal to both the removal of Moses and his people from Egypt as well as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. This synthesis suggests a radical restructuring of Choctaw prophecy with

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respect to its worldly or otherworldly orientation. Choctaw prophecy has traditionally been focused upon this world. Failing to adhere to the moral admonitions of prophecy will result in more and more people dying young, the loss of social dancing, or the loss of ethnic identity altogether. But nowhere is one’s soul held in the balance. Where biblical prophets threatened eternal damnation as punishment and eternal salvation as reward, Choctaw prophets and prophecy have hardly been so metaphysical. The synthesis of Choctaw prophecy with biblical prophecy, however, has the potential to add this otherworldly dimension. The response of high school student Curtis Willis to the prophecies recounted by his aunt and her co-workers suggests how powerful this transformation can be. When they were saying something about their grandparents talking to them about the future——What my grandmother was telling me is that, OK, what I used to hear was, when the end comes, everybody is going to hell, everybody is going to be burning, if you didn’t behave yourself, or something like that. But now I understand clearly that it’s something, not pertaining to what we’re talking about, but, it’s like, if you have Christ, well, that’s what my grandmother told me that, if you didn’t behave, you were going to burn in hell. But that’s the only thing she told me. And I was scared then but now, I understand completely of what you can do by not going to hell and all that. That’s all I heard. All this thing that I heard now is new to me. So, I was just trying to put that in there. Curtis recognizes the parallels between the Choctaw prophecies his aunt was recounting and the biblical prophecies and moral codes of the Bible that his grandmother instilled in him. The genre is the same; the moral dramatically different.

Conclusion

This book began broadly, with the whole of Choctaw verbal narrative. Slowly, we moved to the more speci¤c, focusing on prophetic discourse at the level of the individual performance. Then, with our discussion of the origins of prophecy, we began to move outward again to illuminate the broader themes that underlie Choctaw prophecy. These are the themes that carry prophecy beyond discrete generic boundaries and reintegrate it with patterns coursing through Choctaw thought, guiding home decoration, health care practices, and social dancing. In conclusion, we move one step further from prophecy as speci¤c verbal performance to prophecy as both an artistic and social construct, an enterprise not restricted to the Choctaw but shared by disparate cultures throughout the world. My discussion here is impressionistic. I have not tried to construct a universal de¤nition of prophecy since such an effort, deriving from what has been a culturally speci¤c analysis, would be impossible. Rather, I want to make some wider connections to other forms of prophecy as a means of suggesting new venues for the study of prophecy. THE A RT A ND A NTHROPOLOGY OF PROPHECY When prophetic speech derives directly from the divine, when a prophet speaks the words to the people for the ¤rst time, the prophet prophesies. This act has been observed in numerous cultures at different points in history. The distinctiveness, authority, and “otherness” of the supernatural is marked in the language used to convey the message to the rest of the people. Clearly there are practical reasons for this; marked discourse not only aids interpretation but claims authority for the message. Prophecy has most often been analyzed according to these practical and social dimensions of discourse rather than the art and poetics of it. In his book Poetry and Prophecy, however, James Leavitt and the authors he has gathered in this edited volume attempt to explore the connection between the divine and the poetic as it emerges in prophecy. Both poetry and

Conclusion / 209

prophecy, he argues, derive from divine inspiration. In fact, in numerous cultures of the past, the role of prophet and poet was held by one and the same person.1 Poetry and prophecy derive not merely from the divine, Leavitt argues, but from experience with the divine. This altered state of consciousness results in a unique form of discourse, a form found in both poetry and prophecy. Initially, these parallels between poetry and prophecy do not seem to apply to the Choctaw. Any experience with the divine the old prophets had, and the subsequent marked speech patterns of that experience, rest in the past. That is, today’s elders strive to quote the old prophecies as elders before them have, not as divine voices may have initially uttered them. One might theoretically trace this discourse back to the ¤rst elders who recounted the prophecy after hearing it from a recognized prophet. It would be possible for the marked discourse of the prophet to be adopted by these elders and those elders after them. While possible, no one makes reference to such verbal competence. Rather, the patterns come from the elders themselves: “Makato, makato, makato, achili—It was said at the time, it was said at the time, it was said at the time, now I say it.” While prophecies are still being made, they are not created in the explicit act of communion with the supernatural that people identify with the hopaii. Choctaw prophetic discourse is clearly marked, but marked as any recognizable verbal genre is marked, with no particular heightened sense of the poetic because of its origins. However, the parallels between culture and literature that are raised here are useful to Choctaw prophecy, to our larger frame of discourse of examining prophecy as a distinct verbal genre, and to the explorations of prophecy that many American Indian authors are making in their novels and poetry. By bringing both literary and anthropological analysis to bear on this nexus of poetry and prophecy, Leavitt, and most explicitly one of the contributors to the book, Paul Friedrich, identify two areas for exploration: poetic prophecy and prophetic poetry. Poetic prophecy lies initially in the realm of anthropology and folklore—the cultural creation and lived experience—but is examined according to its literary dimension as one might do with poetry, looking at forms, structures, tones, and rhythms. Prophetic poetry, on the other hand, begins in the realm of the literary scholar—the poets and poetry of individual authors such as T. S. Eliot, William Blake, and Ralph Waldo Emerson—but is examined according to its visionary nature and ecstatic inspiration of both person and product.2 This work follows the ¤rst: the study of poetic prophecy. Prophecy among the Mississippi Choctaw is a verbal and cultural construct and purports to be ¤rst and foremost a prediction, not an artful creation. I have encountered no Mississippi Choctaw narrators who describe themselves as poets or authors.

210 / Conclusion

Nor have I encountered any members of the community writing novels or poetry based on the prophetic tradition of their community.3 I expect this will change as written forms of communication gain favor where oral ones still dominate. Such a trend can already be seen among the growing number of American Indian authors of other tribes who draw inspiration for their works of ¤ction from the oral traditions of their respective communities. Such extension of Friedrich’s terms outside the realm of mantic inspiration is clearly not what he or Leavitt intended for their work. The connection between prophecy and literature is not, as Leavitt argues is the case with poetry, one of divine source or a common ecstatic experience resulting in heavily marked, abstract, oblique, manic, and mantic language. However, an extension of their mandate to combine anthropological and literary approaches to prophecy seems both useful and appropriate in light of the works of contemporary American Indian authors. Contemporary American Indian authors are casting prophecy into their work as theme, motif, literary technique, symbol, and cultural discourse. It is the last that is the most relevant to this discussion, where prophecy is a focal point of the work and not merely a plot device. Prophecy is given such a role in books by American Indian authors Leslie Marmon Silko, James Welch, and D’Arcy McNickle, among others.4 When read in the context of these authors’ respective cultures, this literary approach to prophecy can be seen as a means of carrying on the same discussions tribal members hold in oral discourse. That is, written literature is simply a different medium for the same negotiation and interpretation traditionally engaged in verbally. In order to understand American Indian prophecy more broadly, therefore, attention must also be paid to prophetic poetry, or prophetic literature more generally. A R ESE A RCH AGENDA The focus on prophecy as oral literature and oral performance has dominated this study. Accordingly I have addressed prophetic discourse on the level of performance, particularly the relationship between speaker and prophetic “text” as constructed during speci¤c speech events; the level of interpretation, particularly intertextual allusions, native hermeneutics, and the negotiation of the virtual with the actual world; the level of function, particularly with respect to the moral injunction to change and the fostering of respect for generations past; and the level of content and theme, particularly as it resonates with a historical past. All of these themes and relationships demand attention in cross-cultural analysis. As noted in the introduction to this work, Anthony Wallace (1956) has attempted comparative analysis of prophecy on the level of cultural contact

Conclusion / 211

and crisis and by Thomas Overholt (1995) on the level of human and divine agency. Choctaw prophecy has demanded a different approach since it occurs neither in historical moments of extreme cultural crisis nor with speci¤c prophet leaders. I have addressed Choctaw prophecy primarily as verbal discourse since that is how prophecy is categorized within Choctaw culture—as part of the talk of the elders. The analysis and the subsequent research agenda proposed here maintain that bias. Nonetheless, the overlap of prophecy as a concept with other broad concepts such as history, religion, and literature demands an agenda somewhat more ambitious than a guide to verbal genres alone. Below I have addressed some of the areas that have been neglected in the past and deserve attention when discussing a culture’s prophetic tradition. The list is not intended to be complete but rather is suggestive of some of the gaps in the current literature, as derived from the case study of the Choctaw. 1. Location of prophecy in community’s cultural and semantic system. Prophecy will be viewed, categorized, and interpreted in one dominant arena, while in®uencing and being in®uenced by many. Identifying that dominant arena, however, is crucial to analysis. For the Choctaw it is in the realm of traditional stories. For the Hopi, it is in the realm of politics, even though its roots are in religious myth. These arenas can shift through time. For example, the historical record of Choctaw prophecy, although scant, suggests prophecy was an integral part of the leadership of the tribe in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and an integral part of spiritual thought throughout the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Clearly the function of prophecy shifts depending on its dominant arena of negotiation, interpretation, and performance. Does prophecy act as religious treatise structuring ritual practice and faith? Is it primarily a rhetorical tool used to negotiate political power and change? In any of these realms, we must also ask how prophecy is conveyed. Is prophecy held in words and stories? Pictographs? Customs and rituals? Daily actions? Of course, we might also need to move even further back, to question the term prophecy itself. Is there a native term that suggests a dramatically different dimension to this phenomenon? One linked inexorably to healing or poetry? And ¤nally we must attend to the methods of interpretation that community members engage in to make sense of the prophetic message. What means are used in order to render the unfamiliar familiar? The vague concrete? And the ambiguous meaningful? 2. Relationship between history and prophecy as a temporal and moral concept. Prophecy would seem to be dominated by dimensions of time, but, in fact,

212 / Conclusion

dimensions of morality may be far more vital. Further, while the future would seem to dominate, it may be the present or the past that most fully informs prophecy and how people interpret it. What valence is attached to past, present, and future? What is the relationship between content, value, and the origins of prophecy and that of historical event? Does prophetic time operate rationally, according to cause and effect, or spiritually, where God’s plan operates according to a logic different from human expectation? 3. Negotiation of and between worlds. The interaction between this world and the otherworldly may be enacted in the relationship between the supernatural and the prophet, and then the prophet and the general populace. It may also be expressed in how the moral system is conveyed through prophecy and whether the focus is leveled upon community interaction in this life or individual salvation in an afterlife. To what extent does this orientation suggest some of the functions of prophecy? To what extent does it suggest the worldview of a community? If the focus is leveled on this world, a host of other questions arise about the relationship between the prophesied event and the actual event once it occurs. How are the two reconciled? Is the vagueness of prophecy a tool to facilitate both interpretation and reconciliation? 4. Long-term versus short-term prophecy. The division sounds simplistic but often signals fundamental differences in the nature of the tradition. Short-term prophecy need not be moral or communally relevant. It generally refers to the present without comparison between time periods or the ability to negotiate change. Long-term prophecy suggests an orientation to the world that may also be rooted in the present but speaks of a larger realm of experience—temporally, spatially, culturally, and socially. How does the existence of both traditions in a community in®uence the interpretation of each? Are some prophets more powerful than others? 5. The prophet and the origin of prophecy. Analysis of the prophet as a cultural and social role within a community has probably been the most heavily studied area of prophecy. However, a few questions and relationships might be usefully added for analysis. How democratic are these roles? Is the ability to predict the future shared among many or the gift of the select few? How does this affect social boundaries? For example, for communities where a vision quest is a typical means of gaining insight into the future, do the barriers between social roles break down? And if individual visions hold communal resonance, what does this suggest about the relationship between individual and community?

Conclusion / 213

If attempts at etic de¤nitions for terms such as “religion,” “myth,” or “trickster” are any indication, an etic de¤nition of prophecy may not be possible. In fact, the agenda outlined above suggests that the answers to the questions posed will be dramatically different from community to community, questioning even the most fundamental claim we might make about prophecy. Assumptions that prophecy demands prophets, that it derives explicitly from God, or that it is supremely religious in nature have all proven invalid in the Choctaw example. Rather than attempt to de¤ne prophecy, let us instead set our goal of understanding the range of prophecy. It is neither knee-jerk reaction to cultural crisis nor mystical religious dictum nor hard-working tool for negotiating value systems deeply entrenched in culture, but alternately all of these things. But let us also not ignore the similarities we see in prophetic traditions across the globe. Thomas Overholt’s claim that we cannot deal with the content of prophecy comparatively dismisses these parallels too quickly. A quick glance at the prophecies of South America suggest a striking similarity to those of Indian cultures in North America. Historical parallels of colonization may explain the reoccurrence of prophecies about the coming of white men, new technology, disease, and war, but such an explanation is impotent to address why so many cultures have prophecies of an upheaval of the natural world where summer becomes winter and vice versa. Perhaps an explanation is as elusive as why similar tale types exist in disparate cultures. But perhaps an explanation rests in some fundamental aspect of prophecy. A catalog of the images, themes, and motifs of prophecy need not lead to a brilliant but marginally useful index as long as the data is recontextualized in subsequent analysis. That is, such an index could suggest useful areas for comparative analysis, analysis that would then be conducted emically in each culture. In this way, parallel functions and structures of prophecy could be identi¤ed, thereby establishing a more coherent set of de¤nitions for prophecy, if never the de¤nition. These are a few routes to further analysis. I believe they are useful ones, necessary ones to expand our understanding of prophecy beyond the strictly religious or sociopsychological. If I were bolder, I might attempt to predict where this analysis might lead us, what conclusions await us. But training has made me timid and so I will continue to analyze that which has come before and leave the future to those who know.

Appendix Summary of Prophecies

The following is a summary of the prophecies I have recorded among the Mississippi Band of Choctaw. I have numbered each prophetic narrative only once; different versions of the same prophecy by the same narrator are listed under a single number. Many of the prophecies can be categorized under more than one heading. The ¤rst time the prophecy is listed, it is numbered; the second (and sometimes third) time, it is marked with an asterisk. A parenthetical addition at the end of these entries indicates where the overlap lies. WA R 1. War is coming. So many houses and so few trees, we’ll be able to see the war coming—Sally Allen 1997 (Loss of Forests and Farming) Cut down trees, put up houses, no place to hide and then they’ll throw a bomb and destroy everyone—Sally Allen 2000 (Loss of Forests and Farming) 2. War is coming. Lots of houses, neighbors can see neighbors, no place to hide, you’ll be killed unless you have a Choctaw shirt—Linda Willis 2000 3. War is coming; some Choctaw will die but most will be spared because their black hair signals their identity—Mallie Smith 1999 4. Short people from across the ocean will invade our country but we will be left alone if we wear the Choctaw shirt—Grady John 1999 5. They foresee war coming to this land—Carmen Denson 2000 6. The Chinese will come and kill anyone who cannot speak Choctaw. They will return the land to the Choctaw—Charlie Denson 1996a, 1996b 7. Big, tall, hairy creatures will come and destroy all but the Choctaw— Jesse Ben 2000 8. World War Three will come and destroy the world—Bobby Joe 2000 (End of the World) 9. War is coming and people will be hiding in our houses—Estelline Tubby 1999 10. Paved roads will be used for war—Regina Shoemake 2000 (Technology)

216 / Appendix

11. Paved roads will make it easier for the enemy to come in—Sally Allen 2000 (Technology) 12. Paved roads will make it easier for the white people to use during war—Mallie Smith 1999 (Technology) 13. World War Three will come and destroy the world—Bobby Joe 2000 (War) R EMOVA L 14. When new homes are built, non-Indians will take them because we lost the land—Regina Shoemake 1997 When new homes are built, non-Indians will take them and we will be removed—Regina Shoemake 2000 Casino will lead to loss of sovereignty, leading to removal—Regina Shoemake 2000 15. A bad chief will be elected, we will lose our land and have to leave, eating tadpoles and burning buffalo dung—Odie Anderson 1997 16. When we have good homes, a man will come and tell us to leave, go north—Estelline Tubby 1996, 1997, 1999 (End of the World) 17. They will move people for progress—Harold Comby 2000 18. They foresee removal again—Carmen Denson 2000 19. We will lose our homes and land again—Annie Tubby 1977 20. Good white houses will be built but Choctaws will not be able to pay and get evicted and have to work for the white man—Mallie Smith 1999 LOSS OF IDENTITY

Intermarriage 21. You won’t be able to recognize the Choctaw—Harold Comby 1997 22. When the children are mixed blood, they will never be Choctaw again—Estelline Tubby 1999 23. Choctaw will no longer be 100 percent—Grady John 1998, own prediction 24. People will become spotted—John Hunter Thompson 1979 25. You’ll see more spotted people—Louise Wilson 1997, 1999 26. There will be more mixed blood than full—Louise Wilson 1999 27. We’re going to lose the Choctaw people—Louise Wilson 1997

Loss of Culture 28. People will lose their language—Louise Wilson 1997 29. We’ll be going to other races and we will lose our language because of this—Louise Wilson 1999

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30. Immigrants will corrupt our language and religion—Grady John 2000 31. Indians are going to lose their culture because Caucasians will bring lots of things you’ll want. You’ll forget your culture—Grady John 2000 32. Christian weddings and ceremonies and religion will be coming in, replacing Choctaw practices—Grady John 2000, own prediction 33. If you follow the white man’s ways, you will be lost, you won’t be Indian anymore—Bobby Joe 1999 34. Social dance is going to fade away—Billy Amos 1999 LOSS OF FOR EST A ND FA R MING 35. Cotton, corn, watermelon patches will be replaced with pine trees— Billy Amos 1999 36. Farming is going to quit. Factories instead where you’ll make lots of money, but then it will disappear quickly—Bobby Joe 2000 (Money) 37. Trees will become few and people will grow grass to feed cows—John Hunter Thompson 1979 (Nature)

Starvation 38. Build all these houses, no more farmland, not enough food, people will starve—Regina Shoemake 2000 (Nature) 39. Forest will disappear, no more animals to hunt, may have to live without meat—Linda Willis 2000 (Nature) 40. You’ll try to grow a garden but the land is old so there will be a shortage of food; kids will have white hair and you’ll know the land is dying—Louise Wilson 1999 (Nature, Signs of the End) 41. If people don’t keep tilling the land, the land will no longer produce crops—Louise Wilson 1999 (Nature, Signs of the End) 42. You’ll plant things but they won’t grow—Bobby Joe 2000 (Nature, End of the World) MONEY BECOMES MOR E IMPORTA NT * Farming is going to quit. Factories instead where you’ll make lots of money, but then it will disappear quickly—Bobby Joe 2000 (Loss of Forest and Farming) 43. Government will provide Choctaw with things but then take it all back, forcing them to return to their lives in the wilderness—Jesse Ben 1986 44. Brick houses, day care, and new jobs will signal money being valued higher than people—Odie Anderson 1997

218 / Appendix

Prices Rise 45. Groceries will be high, bread will be high—Billy Amos 1997 Prices will be high, groceries will be high—Billy Amos 1999 46. Grocery prices will be so high, we won’t be able to afford them—Linda Willis 2000 47. Water is going to cost. Everything we want is going to be expensive— Donna Denson 1999 48. Water is going to cost—Mallie Smith 1999 49. Water is going to cost; sewage too—Harold Comby 1999 NAT UR E OU T OF BA L A NCE 50. Seasons will switch—Carmen Denson 2000 51. Seasons will switch—Harold Comby 1997 52. No more summers, sun will die if you do not follow God’s path— Wagonner Amos 1975 53. Days will get shorter, year pass by more quickly—Harold Comby 1997, 2000b 54. Weather’s going to change. Cold in spring, can’t plant corn—Grady John 2000 * Trees will become few and people will grow grass to feed cows—John Hunter Thompson 1979 (Loss of Forests and Farming) * Build all these houses, no more farmland, not enough food, people will starve—Regina Shoemake 2000 (Loss of Forests and Farming) * Forest will disappear, no more animals to hunt, may have to live without meat—Linda Willis 2000 (Loss of Forests and Farming)

Dangerous 55. There will be man-eating snakes—Harold Comby 1999 56. So many snakes, they’ll be crawling over your house—Billy Amos 1997 57. Tornadoes will come not just in summer but anytime in the year— Grady John 2000 58. Disease will kill many people—Louise Wilson 1997

Land Gets Old * This land is borrowed. No longer here for us. We get 2000 years. Biblical—Judy Billie 1997 (Signs of the End) * You’ll plant things but they won’t grow—Bobby Joe 2000 (Loss of Forest and Farming, Signs of the End, and End of the World) * You’ll try to grow a garden but the land is old so there will be a shortage

Appendix / 219

of food; kids will have white hair and you’ll know the land is dying—Louise Wilson 1999 (Loss of Forest and Farming, Signs of the End) * If people don’t keep tilling the land, the land will no longer produce crops—Louise Wilson 1999 (Loss of Forest and Farming, Signs of the End) GENER A L DECLINE 59. Kids killing people—Bobby Joe 1999 (Signs of the End) 60. Kids dying at younger ages—Annie Tubby 1977 61. Unwed girls getting pregnant—Viola Johnson 1974 62. Relatives will be at each other’s throats—Linda Willis 2000 63. People killing each other more and more; no respect for themselves or each other—Linda Willis 1999, 2000 64. More people will be getting divorced—Louise Wilson 1999 65. Human life will not be respected; people will be killing people and themselves—Louise Wilson 1999 66. Killings of Choctaw will increase from car accidents and stabbings, often related to liquor—John Hunter Thompson 1979 67. So many killings, people robbing and burning things. People hate each other—Grady John 2000 (Signs of the End) 68. Starvation and killing within families before the end of time—Jesse Ben 1986 (Signs of the End) 69. Family life will change when women disrespect their husbands by declaring themselves the head of the household—Jesse Ben 1986 70. So many cars crawling over one another—Bobby Joe 1999 (Signs of the End, Technology) SIGNS OF THE END 71. Two moons in the sky—Bobby Joe 2000 72. Too many people, too heavy for the earth—Bobby Joe 2000

General Decline * Kids killing people—Bobby Joe 1999 (General Decline) * So many killings, people robbing and burning things. People hate each other—Grady John 2000 (General Decline) * Starvation and killing within families before the end of time—Jesse Ben 1986 (General Decline) * So many cars crawling over one another—Bobby Joe 1999 (General Decline)

220 / Appendix

Land Gets Old * This land is borrowed. No longer here for us. We get 2000 years. Biblical—Judy Billie 1997 (Nature) * You’ll plant things but they won’t grow—Bobby Joe 2000 (Loss of Forests and Farming, Nature) * You’ll try to grow a garden but the land is old so there will be a shortage of food; kids will have white hair and you’ll know the land is dying—Louise Wilson 1999 (Loss of Forests and Farming, Nature) * If people don’t keep tilling the land, the land will no longer produce crops—Louise Wilson 1999 (Loss of Forests and Farming, Nature) END OF THE WOR LD 73. The earth will break loose and sink into the ocean—Louise Wilson 1999 74. Anything can happen (Flood, Asteroids, Great Fire, Earthquake, World War Three)—Bobby Joe 2000

Fire 75. Great ¤re will come and destroy the world—Harold Comby 1999 [Harold notes biblical connection] 76. God said it would not be a ®ood this time but ¤re—John Hunter Thompson 1979 77. God said it would not be a ®ood this time but ¤re—Donna Denson 1999

Killing/War * World War Three will come and destroy the world—Bobby Joe 2000 (War) 78. People, not God, will destroy the world—interpreted as nuclear holocaust—Linda Willis 2000 79. Christ might be coming back. So many people killing each other, end may come soon—Grady John 2000

Removal * When we have good homes, a man will come and tell us to leave, go north—Estelline Tubby 1996, 1997, 1999 NEW WOR LD 80. After the world is destroyed, a new world will begin again—Bobby Joe 1999, 2000

Appendix / 221

TECHNOLOGY

Highways 81. Dirt roads will become blacktop—Regina Shoemake 1997 82. The roads here will be laid out wide, they will be paved—Odie Anderson 1997 83. Roads would be black—Harold Comby 1997 84. Black roads will be going all over—Grady John 1998, 1999, 2000 85. Smooth roads will go from where the sun comes up to where the sun goes down—Jesse Ben 1986 * Paved roads will come and be used for war—Regina Shoemake 2000 (War) * Paved roads will come and make it easier for the enemy to come in—Sally Allen 2000 (War) * Paved roads will make it easier for the white people to use during war— Mallie Smith 1999 (War)

Cars 86. Something with two eyes will be running on the path—Odie Anderson 1997 * So many cars crawling over one another—Bobby Joe 1999 (Signs of the End)

Tractor 91. No more horses for farming—Grady John 1998

Grocery Scanner 92. Things like scanners will be in all stores—Regina Shoemake 1997 93. Stamp on your forehead scanned when you purchase things—Herman Frazer 1997 94. Stamp on your forehead scanned when you purchase things—Billy Amos 1999

Running Water 95. Turn the faucet and hot and cold water will come out inside your house—Billy Amos 1999

Electricity/Electric Lines 96. Flip a button and lights come on—Billy Amos 1999 97. Spider webs all over the place—Bobby Joe 1999, 2000

222 / Appendix

Airplane 98. Machines ®ying like a bird in the air—Sally Allen 1997 99. Things that ®y without being an animal—Harold Comby 1997 100. Lot of things, ®ying around in the sky—Bobby Joe 2000 101. Things like that bird are going to be ®ying over you—Grady John 1998 102. Birds will ®y with straight wings—Grady John 1999a 103. You’re going to see like a bird ®ying, just like you riding a bus—Grady John 2000 104. Metal birds taking people through the sky—Donna Denson 1999 105. Things ®ying in the sky—Jesse Ben 1986

Space Travel 106. People will be going to the moon—Louise Wilson 1999

Radio 107. People sitting around, listening to a box—Sally Allen 1997

Television/VCR 108. People sitting around, watching a box—Sally Allen 1997 109. Flip a button and watch white people’s movies—Billy Amos 1999

Machine 110. Everything will be done with machines—including travel—Judy Billie 1997

Telephone 111. In days to come, there will be something in the house that can be talked to and talk to the other house—Estelline Tubby 1999

Notes

PR EFACE 1. For a more thorough discussion of the emergence of the Choctaw in intercultural contact, see Peterson 1992. 2. This role is discussed in many of the histories of the Choctaw. For a speci¤c analysis, see Wells 1986. 3. Kendall Blanchard addresses the centrality of sport, and stickball in particular, to Choctaw life in his book The Mississippi Choctaws at Play (1981). Accordingly, in addressing sports, he ends up writing what borders on an ethnography of the Choctaw in the second half of the twentieth century.

INTRODUC T ION 1. The major exception is theologians working within a speci¤c religious tradition to interpret its sacred texts. 2. According to Johnson, “Our understanding of Native American prophecy must remain incomplete at the present time to await additional information and prophets who may choose to come forward with new materials and possible prophetic movements for our re®ections” (1996:606). His call is ironic since his article is an excellent source of contemporary prophecy, much of which focuses far more on the message than the messenger. 3. The scholarship on these prophets is too extensive to cite fully. Some of the major works include Aberle 1959, Barnett 1957, Edmunds 1983, Hunter 1971, Mooney 1896, Ruby and Brown 1989, Spier 1935, Trafzer 1986, Wallace 1956. 4. See in particular Mooney 1896 and Trafzer 1986. 5. See in particular Overholt 1986:4–19 in which he summarizes past scholarship dealing with prophets as intermediaries. 6. Even when, as with the Code of Handsome Lake, the prophetic movement generated major interest after the death of the prophet, the focus of scholarship has been on the codi¤ed versions of the prophecies written into a book with little mention of the narrative forms told by the people. 7. See Aberle 1959, Miller 1985, Mooney 1896.

224 / Notes to Chapter 1 8. Nativism has generally been de¤ned as a community’s conscious effort to revive or perpetuate cultural traditions that they regard as being intrinsically their own. See for example Edmonson 1960:183–84. 9. Anthony Wallace notes that “bizarre antiwhite prophecies began to circulate which violated both the word and the spirit of Handsome Lake’s preachings” (1972:330; cited by Overholt 1986:322). 10. The notion of the longue durée was developed by Fernand Braudell to describe the slow changes that occurred as part of the natural course of cultural life (1980 [1958]). It stands in opposition to event-driven history where change is seen as externally motivated. Henry Glassie has recently employed this basic distinction in order to reconceive of history as a balance between the two impulses (1999). 11. See most notably Historical Metaphors and Mythic Realities (1981). 12. As among the Wishram (Sapir 1909 as recompiled by Hines 1998:90–91), Lenapé (Hítakonanu’laxk [Tree Beard] 1994), and Nomlaki (Goldschmidt 1951). 13. See George Blondin’s work among his own Dene community in Canada (1997), Frederica de Laguna’s work with Alaskan Dena peoples (1995; stories recorded in 1935), Mildred Thornton’s collection of Squamish oral history and narrative (1966). 14. As among the Cheyenne. See Grinnell 1908, 1926. 15. Such prophetic traditions can be found among the tribes of the Eastern Woodlands including the Delaware, Munsees, Ottowa, Seneca, Shawnee, Cherokee, and Creek (Dowd 1992), Kauwerak (Oquilluk 1973), Dogrib (Helm 1994), Dene in northern Alberta (Moore and Wheelock 1990), Hopi (Geertz 1992), and Sioux (Black Elk and Lyon 1990; DeMallie 1984; Erdoes and Ortiz 1984; Walking Bull and Walking Bull 1975). 16. See for example the culture hero of the Cheyenne commonly referred to as Sweet Medicine (Grinnell 1908) and Piankettacholla (Point hill green) of the Taos pueblo people (Miller 1898:44). 17. See for example Lee Irwin’s The Dream Seekers (1994). 18. DeMallie makes a similar argument about the need to look beyond historical analysis to understand the Ghost Dance (1982). 19. See also Beattie and Middleton 1969 and Martz 1998. 20. Despite Johnson’s natural inclination as a scholar of religious studies to uncover a nascent religious movement among these prophecies, his work is invaluable for its compilation of contemporary examples of American Indian prophecy (1996). 21. I use the term “performance,” therefore, in its broadest sense and not as Dell Hymes has de¤ned it: as those moments when a speaker breaks through from rote narration to performance according to the full stylistic and linguistic demands of the genre (1981). I discuss this more fully at the beginning of chapter 3.

CH A PTER 1 1. When Mallie Smith discussed this prophecy later in the interview, she indicated that the white landlord used the tenant woman as his mistress. 2. See Cushman 1899:147–48, Swanton 1931:125, and Wright 1828:178–79.

Notes to Chapter 2 / 225 3. For a more detailed description of the storyteller and storytelling among the Choctaw, see Mould 1998. 4. John Peterson has written numerous articles detailing community identity among the Choctaw. See in particular 1971 and 1972. 5. There is a tendency to build slowly to the climax or punch line. Narrators reveal increasingly more information to alert the listener of the source of the humor until a critical point is reached when the narrator signals with laughter, if the story is funny, raised eyebrows if dramatic, the end of the narrative. Used to punch lines that are sprung rather than slowly released, I found myself laughing either too late in the narrative, or overcompensating and laughing too early. It soon became apparent that the narrator was guided far more by audience response then by some polished point in his narrative when that climax should arrive. Back-channeling cues provided by an audience—nods, um-hms, yeses—all signal the narrator that the audience is following along. Recognition on the faces of the audience is a cue to the narrator to begin either the ¤nal, extended climax or an immediate burst of laughter, signaling that enough has been provided for this narrative to have successfully entertained its audience. 6. While scholars have developed useful de¤nitions for the concept of tradition (see particularly Handler and Linnekin 1984), the vernacular use employed in speech by most, including the Choctaw, is one of a tangible passing down of the knowledge and customs of the past. There is not only a sense of long ago but also a sense of ethnic identity involved in the term. 7. See Mould 1998 for a number of stories of personal encounters with this being. 8. The division between legendary and contemporary tales is clearly apparent in the corpus of supernatural stories told throughout the community, but the issue is a bit more complicated. From my initial analysis of these tales, there appears to be an important distinction between the supernatural beings that are regularly encountered today and those that are not. Kashikanchak is not, and there are legends concerning this being, passed down stories from the past. But na losa chitto and bohpoli are still frequently encountered. Virtually every adult either has had such an encounter or has a close family member or friend who has. In some ways, communal and passed-down legends simply do not seem necessary since more vibrant contemporary encounters abound. 9. Louise Wilson, for example, remembers that her grandfather, John Hunter Thompson, always distinguished between the stories that had been passed down and those he made up himself (2000). 10. Thanks to Jesse Ben of the Choctaw language program for helping me understand the actual usage of tuk and tok.

CH A PTER 2 1. I am drawing upon Erving Goffman’s work on keying (1974:40–82). 2. See for example the prophecy of impending disease told by Louise Wilson in chapter 4. 3. There is no suggestion of ritualized speech where quoted parts indicate memo-

226 / Notes to Chapter 2 rized segments, exact from performance to performance, though these quoted parts are expected to be fairly stable. Rather, quoted speech clearly codi¤es the past performance as a distinct event. 4. This double attribution is worth noting. Estelline Tubby’s great-grandmother was a medicine woman. As I will discuss in chapter 4, medicine people were often noted for being able to prophesy. While Estelline does not think these prophecies are exclusive to her great-grandmother or that they originated with her (she refers to “the old people” more generally, for example), it does make sense to her to trace the prophecy back to such an authoritative voice. 5. A number of scholars have noted the power of quoted speech as an indicator of the most stable part of the discourse, and arguably its focus. Richard Bauman notes this stability in his chapter “‘Hell, yes, but not that young!’: Reported Speech as Comic Corrective” in Story, Performance, and Event (1986). He picks up this topic again in his article “Contextualization, tradition, and the dialogue of genres: Icelandic legends of the kraftaskáld” (1992) and notes that the quoted speech of the verse is not only ¤xed but is in fact the focus of the larger narrative in which it is embedded. The power of quoted speech has also been recognized in bilingual narratives. Robert Moore, for example, concludes in his study of ¤ve versions of the Wasco coyote cycle that ¤xed quotes are always performed in Wasco, even when the rest of the narrative is performed in English (1993). 6. It is important to note that while these other scholars were working with structures con¤ned to the “text” (here paralleling the prophetic core), my analysis expands those boundaries to accommodate the heavily contextual nature of the genre of prophetic discourse. 7. When we compare ful¤lled prophecy to unful¤lled prophecy in the larger speech event, we see this function extended to other speci¤c types of prophecy. 8. Billy is referring to when he was cooking outdoors a week earlier. 9. One could compare the word “but” to the word “so” in many narratives performed in the United States. As Richard Bauman notes in Story, Performance, and Event, people often use “so” to move from background information into the speci¤c narrative (61). Here, “but” is used to move back and forth between genre, though the difference is not that great since the “used to” story also acts as contextual material for the foregrounded text. 10. For a more extensive discussion about the affective nature of the performance of expressive folklore, see Roger D. Abrahams’s “A Rhetorical Theory of Folklore” (1968). In it, he notes that such affect created between performer and audience is often one of sympathy (147–48). 11. The pleasure derived from reliving one’s past is certainly not culturally speci¤c, but it should not be dismissed lightly. This is a major reason people revisit the past. Henry Williams, after talking for over an hour about his life growing up, commented that he felt he was right there when he was talking about the past and that he even got tired when he was talking about picking cotton. He said he enjoyed reliving the past in that way. The emotional appeal to such narration has been discussed by Tristram Cof¤n in relation to ballads as the emotional core (1957).

Notes to Chapter 3 / 227 12. David Wong notes just how useful analogy can be to interpret the new and complex in his study of science teachers who presented their material through analogy (1993, cited in Pugh 2000:53). Keith Basso notes how metaphor among the Apache can serve to ¤ll gaps in the lexicon, describing categories that do not have a single word assigned to them (1990:68–79). In this way, the metaphor works to ground the concept cognitively as well as linguistically. 13. For a more extensive discussion of the parallels between prophecy and riddling, see “Prophetic Riddling: A Dialogue of Genres in Choctaw Performance” (Mould 2002). 14. Henry Glassie makes exactly this point in Folk Housing in Middle Virginia, that the scholar must move deeper within the structure to identify the set of rules that underlie the structures, rules that enable the person working with words or wood to create perceivable things. Understanding these rules, therefore, allows us to understand how people can innovate (1975:20). 15. The most famous of these families were the LeFlores, Pitchlynns, and Folsoms, many of whom served as community leaders as well as delegates to Washington, D.C., for federal matters. See Wells 1986 for a discussion of mixed-blood families in Choctaw history. 16. The dramatic notions of time are particularly exploited in performances to children, part of the more heavily didactic function of such performances. Since narrators often return to the time they ¤rst heard a prophecy in recounting it, such fears, and such notions of instantaneous change, frequently remain in contemporary prophetic performances with or without children present. I address these didactic functions more fully in chapter 5. 17. In the Choctaw language, the year is divided in two—summer and winter. Spring and fall are linguistically derivative of this initial division. This may explain how the seasons will “switch” since there are only two seasons. 18. I discuss this in more depth in chapter 5. 19. See the discussion of these movements in the introduction. 20. This function is shared in other prophetic traditions. See for example the prophetic discourse of a Zuni woman (Tedlock 1992:131), quoted in the introduction of this book.

CH A PTER 3 1. Alan Dundes usefully summarizes some of the scholarship dealing with sign and causality in his discussion of superstitions (1961). He argues against past scholars such as Lucien Levy-Bruhl who asserted that sign implied cause, and instead heralds those like W. R. Halliday who note that “Mere priority is not causality” (30). Donald Ward points out some of the fallacies of Dundes’s argument with respect to superstition (1996:696), but those fallacies do not impugn the statements here or their application to the interrelations forged in prophetic discourse. 2. Bobby Joe is one of the few people to incorporate concern about the year 2000 into Choctaw prophecy. Judy Billie notes that her preacher used to say the world

228 / Notes to Chapter 3 might end after two thousand years but she did not seem particularly worried about the coming date. In fact, some actually employed prophecy to discount the general panic about the year 2000 that had been reported so much in mainstream media. Regina Shoemake quoted her mother, Katie Mae Johnson, who derived solace rather than fear from the prophetic tradition, believing that since many of the signs had not yet been seen, nothing dramatic could possibly happen on January 1, 2000. 3. Before we began taping, we were talking about food, speci¤cally, the fact that many foods in grocery stores have preservatives and other unhealthy additives. Bobby says that more and more people are getting sick from this. 4. While talking about grocery store food and wild food, Bobby Joe explained that these fruits are not growing anymore because people have screwed up. People have been ignoring the wild apples, no longer picking and eating them, and so the fruits are disappearing from disuse (the ignored gift is revoked). 5. Bobby Joe may be referencing the same prophecy that Louise Wilson is, thereby suggesting a symptomatic connection. At the least, he is drawing a relationship of indication. 6. See for example Linda Willis’s account of a prophecy told by her grandfather Cameron Wesley (chapter 5). 7. Social dancing is one of the few such events, though it is arguably a secular event as practiced today. The Choctaw wedding, rarely practiced in its traditional form, could be considered such an event. While not public, it is nonetheless communal. It deserves detailed study of its own. The main rituals performed within the community are individualistic—rituals performed by medicine men and women to address particular problems and particular people. I have employed a rather narrow de¤nition of ritual here, including only well-de¤ned, communally recognized rituals and not the smaller, daily rituals that all people engage in, in different forms. 8. One of the most useful de¤nitions of superstition is provided by H. J. Rose in the Encyclopedia Britannica entry for Superstition: “the acceptance of beliefs or practices groundless in themselves and inconsistent with the degree of enlightenment reached by the community to which one belongs.” 9. Numerous stories support this orientation. One other is worth noting. Sitting around the kitchen table one evening when Harold Comby was visiting the Vaughn family, Harley Vaughn described an unusual event at the Nanih Waiya mound in which a huge cloud of bees came swarming up through the sky. At the end of his account, he turned to Harold and asked him what he thought it meant. Harold replied that his mother said there was strong medicine there at the mound, the sacred point of origin for the Choctaw. What is clear from this interchange is that unusual events are generally believed to have deeper, often hidden, meanings. 10. Of course, the event may not be interpreted as an omen until after “something bad” has happened, making it a poor predictor. Superstitions and omens are often viewed as so effective for this reason. When something bad happens, our impulse is to search for reasons, often landing upon an unusual event a day or two earlier. For many people, unusual events are quickly forgotten if nothing “bad” happens that

Notes to Chapter 3 / 229 forces them to search for an explanation. However, for groups who are particular sensitive to omens like the Choctaw, such unusual events are less easily forgotten. Further, unusual events are often identi¤ed immediately as possible omens, lending them more predictive power than might be expected. 11. Richard Bauman addresses this issue in his book Story, Performance, and Event, noting that some scholars have suggested that events do not give rise to narrative but rather the reverse; that it is our system of signi¤cation that allows us to interpret events and hence make them real (1986:5, citing in particular Louis O. Mink’s “Narrative Form as a Cognitive Instrument” in The Writing of History, ed. Robert H. Canary and Henry Kozicki [Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978], 129–49, and Barbara Herrnstein Smith’s “Narrative Versions, Narrative Theories,” in On Narrative, ed. W. J. T. Mitchell [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981], 209–32). While Bauman does not resolve the debate, he effectively argues for the power of narrative either to create or to reconstitute the past. 12. For studies addressing such transformative acts, see Margaret Mary Kelleher’s “The Communion Rite” (1991); Claire R. Farrer’s “Singing for Life: The Mescalero Apache Girls’ Puberty Ceremony” (1980); and Richard Bauman’s “Contextualization, Tradition, and the Dialogue of Genres: Icelandic Legends of the Kraftaskáld” (1992). 13. This is a fundamental difference between prophecy and curse, and yet the boundaries may be blurred, at least ¤ctionally. Leslie Marmon Silko, for example, plays with these boundaries in her books Almanac of the Dead and Ceremony. Characters in her books tell stories, and through the power of language, create the world. This draws upon a mythic power common in American Indian religion, as well as, for example, Christian religion (where God makes the world by speaking the word). Some of these prophetic stories in Almanac of the Dead, however, are clearly prophetic, as the stories recorded through the ages in the Almanac appear to be. But these stories are ®exible and demand interpretation. The suggestion is that while the prophecies depict a set course of events, there is actually great latitude for alteration. To some extent, this ¤ctional play by Silko is played out in Choctaw prophecy as well, as we see in chapter 5, where ¤xity and alterability of prophecy is discussed. Further study of this blurring would be, I believe, immensely productive. 14. My goal here is to uncover what Armin Geertz has termed “indigenous hermeneutics”: the activity within the group of producing meaningful interpretations (1994:12). Few scholars have explicitly addressed this process, though it lurks as the unstated goal of the majority of folklore and anthropological research. (Geertz goes on to employ the term “ethnohermeneutics” for the subsequent study by scholars of this native process [12].) Thomas Dubois’s examination of lyric songs in northern Europe is one of the few studies that methodically addresses this process, with fruitful results (1996). David Young’s study of a Plains Indian healers’ concept of “the Grandfathers” is another (1996). 15. I have suggested another possible reason for the vagueness of prophecy tied to its origins and the problems of translation from mantic discourse to human speech (Mould 2002). Brie®y, if prophecy is conveyed in a vision, translation into words can

230 / Notes to Chapter 3 be dif¤cult, particularly for predictions of things not yet familiar in the world (such as airplanes or telephones). 16. This interview was conducted by John Wallace, a high school student writing for Nanih Waiya, a student publication modeled after the Fox¤re project in Appalachia. Annie Tubby had been raising John Wallace at the time of the interview (1977:19–24). Annie Tubby was then sixty-seven years old; she has since passed away. 17. The power of analogy to make sense of the unknown via the known is convincingly illustrated by David Wong’s study of students who, in attempting to explain a piston/cylinder device, employ analogy and thereby are able to develop a more complex understanding of the mechanism (Wong 1993 cited in Pugh 2000:53). 18. Michael Lieber summarizes the study of semantics, noting that “Linguists and philosophers of language have identi¤ed at least three semantic levels: (1) signi¤cation, (2) denotation, and (3) connotation” (1976:259). It is at the level of signi¤cation that drawing these initial parallels is conducted as people identify similar traits of each and form a class or category that incorporates these similarities. However, as this connection is established more ¤rmly, people will bring to bear the item’s individual connotations and apply them as well, as Estelline Tubby does when she interprets the prophecy of the Third Removal via the Bible (later in this chapter). 19. This interaction was not tape-recorded. I took detailed notes and then transcribed the performance immediately after leaving Harold Comby’s of¤ce. 20. This type of analogous relationship has been described by Claude Lévi-Strauss in a number of his books, particularly in his discussion of totemic systems, where he argues that the Crow clan may have absolutely no shared traits with crows; rather, meaning is held in the relationship of the respective set so that the Crow clan is to the Owl clan in the same way that crows are to owls (1964). 21. It is equally important to note, however, that they can. In fact, it has been common in linguistic studies of metaphor to argue that such connections do transform the cognitive system by creating new categories (Hamnett 1967:382). 22. There is debate within the community about exactly what the oka nahollo are. Some describe these beings as mermen. In a legend recorded by David Bushnell from the Choctaw community in Bayou Lacomb, Louisiana, the beings were once men and women who were lured into the water and have become part ¤sh—scaly and translucently white (1909:31). The Choctaw term can be translated literally as “white people in the water.” 23. It is worth noting that snakes as a motif appear throughout Choctaw culture. One could attempt to trace the motif back to the ¤fteenth-century moundbuilders of the southeastern United States who covered their walls with images of snakes, both feathered and not (such imagery can be seen at the Chucalissa mound site in Memphis, Tennessee). Proving continuity between these prehistoric people and the contemporary Choctaw, however, becomes dif¤cult, particularly considering the lack of any historical data for the Choctaw concerning the snake beyond its mundane presence in the area. A more recent source was identi¤ed by one of the contestants for

Notes to Chapter 3 / 231 Choctaw Indian Princess during the 1997 Choctaw fair. Modeling her Choctaw dress, she explained that the diamond design sewn into the hem and neckline comes from the eastern diamond-back rattlesnake. These snakes, she continued, aided the Choctaw by eating the mice, rats, weevils, and other pests that attacked their crops. The diamond design is in fact ubiquitous in the community, appearing on all traditional clothing, in beadwork, on quilts, and as a standard motif for tribal publications. The snake itself is equally ubiquitous in Choctaw oral tradition. In addition to the prophecy and legend recounted here, there are legends of men turning into snakes, stories of large snakes living in the sacred Nanih Waiya cave mound, and a playful tale of a hunter who mistakes his big toe for a snake and shoots it off (see Mould 1998 as well as out-of-print tribal publications put together in the 1980s by the Bilingual Education for Choctaws of Mississippi program and archived in the Choctaw Cultural Center). 24. Estimates vary on how many Choctaw were in Mississippi before removal, how many actually removed, and how many remained in Mississippi. The numbers here come from Ronald Satz (1986:6–7), who drew upon numerous contemporary and secondary accounts, many of which can be found in Memorial of the Choctaw Nation, 42nd Cong., 3d session, Feb. 1, 1873, H. Misc. Doc. 94, pp. 6–11. Arthur H. DeRosier Jr. suggests that the total before removal was 17,963, referring to the census taken by William Armstrong just before removal (Register of Claimants for land under Treaty of 1830 held in the National Archives [1970:137, 162]) and that the number removed was closer to 12,500, based on of¤cial roles, letters, and news reports of the time, drawing heavily upon the previous research of Muriel Wright (particularly her article “The Removal of the Choctaws to the Indian Territory,” Chronicles of Oklahoma, 6[2]:103–28). Satz points out these discrepancies and notes that estimates about how many Choctaw remained in Mississippi vary anywhere from 2,000 to 7,000 (1986:28). 25. I am referring to the migration legend told frequently in the community of how the Choctaw were led from the West to their new homelands in the East (in Mississippi). I was not aware at this point in my ¤eldwork that people differentiated between the various removal attempts. 26. I have discussed this topic more fully with Estelline Tubby in a subsequent conversation, and she has clari¤ed this potentially ambiguous statement in exactly this way—as the Second Coming. 27. The exact in®uence of these cultural categories is debatable, but few would argue against their effect at all. See William Sturtevant’s article “Studies in Ethnoscience” for an examination of the power of such systems to classify experience (1972). 28. In his study of the interpretation of symbols, Edmund Leach argues that the string of assumptions that guides our behavior in turning on a light switch is similar to the most mystical of magical incantations. What Leach calls habit I have called faith; both are assumptions void of scienti¤c knowledge to explain the act (1976:32). 29. For example, the medicine man is traditionally employed to interpret indi-

232 / Notes to Chapter 3 vidual encounters with the supernatural. In Choctaw Folk Tales, I have compiled a number of people’s narratives about their encounters with supernatural beings in the woods (1998). A common motif in these personal experience narratives is an unwillingness or inability to identify the being and hence interpret the encounter. Typically, a medicine man is conferred with in order to make sense of the experience. 30. While the method of interpretation may not have changed, the shift in source material certainly has, with potentially massive implications. The mass media, by de¤nition, is accessible to the masses. It serves, therefore, as a common denominator throughout the Choctaw community as well as outside it. By drawing upon such distant and shared resources for interpretation, one “risks” opening the prophecy up beyond the culturally speci¤c to apply more widely. This expanding realm of interpretation runs parallel to, and may even have spawned, the expanding notion of identity with respect to who is affected by Choctaw prophecy, a topic that will be addressed in chapter 5. 31. This becomes particularly clear in a taped interview with Harold Comby in 1997 when he responds to the majority of my questions by beginning with, “Well, my mother says—.” Harold notes that his mother is also careful to distinguish between her own views and experiences and the talk of the elders by saying, “It’s not my words. It’s the words of the elderly or the old ones before me” (1999). 32. Woodlin Lewis and Roger Bell, council members for the Pearl River community. 33. “She” is Sally Allen. This discourse is from an interview with Regina Shoemake and Sally Allen on January 10, 2000. As before when they have gathered to talk, often also with Judy Billie, Regina and Sally engaged in dialogic interpretation, building on one another’s comments to create meaning. 34. Many people I talked to during this time were struck by the extensive media coverage and mentioned it as a newsworthy part of the debates. Newspaper coverage can be found in the Meridian Star during the ¤rst weeks of March and in the January, February, and March editions of the Choctaw Community News. The vote occurred on March 8, 2000, and was defeated, allowing plans for the second casino to proceed. 35. As we will see in chapter 4, prophets were asked to provide guidance in political matters. Prophetic discourse, however, never seems to have been used in this arena. 36. William Bascom outlines four major functions common in folklore, one of which is social control (1954). Scholars have usefully challenged this system case by case, providing many instances when folklore challenges rather than supports the social and cultural norms of the community. Choctaw prophecy, however, is intensely conservative. As we have seen and continue to see throughout this book, Choctaw prophecy is far more a voice of the past than one of the future. 37. See, for example, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s study “A Parable in Context: A Social Interactional Analysis of Storytelling Performance” (1975), Alan Dundes’s attempt to de¤ne genres via context as one important but ignored component in “Texture, Text, and Context” (1964), and Hymes’s body of literature on the subject, particularly as argued in his book Foundations in Sociolinguistics (1974), as well as slightly

Notes to Chapter 4 / 233 more recent studies such as Richard Bauman’s Story, Performance and Event (1986) and Joel Sherzer’s “Strategies in Text and Context: The Hot Pepper Story” (1987). 38. See particularly page 223, where Briggs provides a diagram of this continuum.

CH A PTER 4 1. This more contemporary version seems to have been adapted from a version recounted by Peter Folsom in 1899 to James Welch, an Anglo neighbor, who then recounted it to Henry Halbert, who wrote it down (1894a:215–16). 2. From a photocopied handout included in a packet of materials handed out to interested visitors to the tribal of¤ces in Pearl River. 3. The script is a photocopy of one used in the pageant, labeled on the front with the title “Chatha Siyah Hokan: I am a Choctaw” by Nell Rogers. A copy can be found in the Choctaw Cultural Center. 4. “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 morning 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 encampment, which was one mile square, with the men encamped on the outside, and the women and children in the centre; which is the centre of the old Choctaw nation to ‘this day’” (Catlin 1965 [1841]:112–13). 5. The account comes from Cushman 1962 [1899]:258–60. Cushman is not explicit about how he received this eyewitness account from Pitchlynn. He does note that he was friends with Pitchlynn’s sons Peter, Silas, and Jack (242). The account likely was derived from oral versions held by the Pitchlynn family and written by Cushman, as it maintains the same ®orid and sentimental language that Cushman uses throughout his book. 6. Making connections outside traditional Choctaw culture is not unusual, especially as the realm of daily life expands. After telling a story about Kashikanchak, a legendary creature in the past who used to eat children, Odie Anderson told her daughter it is like Candyman, referring to a legendary character in American culture that has spawned a movie franchise. Glenda herself ¤nds it more useful to compare Kashikanchak to a witch in order to make sense of it and the story. Odie may be making the reference to aid her daughter rather than herself, and Glenda’s connection to a witch is more likely the Choctaw notion of a witch than a mainstream American one. Nonetheless, there is a sense that the realm of experience and context for the modern Choctaw is shifting, where ¤gures in contemporary American culture and Western religion are becoming more resonant than ¤gures from past Choctaw culture.

234 / Notes to Chapter 4 7. See for example the description of a ball game provided by George E. Starr to Stewart Culin (1975:602–4) or Horatio Cushman’s summary of the migration legend (1899:19). The most common con®ation in these historical texts is of prophet and medicine man, a confusion that continues today. One example is highlighted above. Another is perhaps even more indicative of the problems of translation. Earlier in this chapter, we encountered a version of the migration legend told by Peter Pitchlynn and recorded by Charles Lanman. Another version of the legend was recorded from Pitchlynn by George Catlin that is far shorter but notably describes the person carrying the pole not as a prophet but as a medicine man (1965 [1841]:112–13). 8. In an unpublished term paper, Jean Allen surveys the role of witchcraft among the Choctaw, addressing the breadth of terms for various kinds of witches (1985, housed in the Choctaw Cultural Center). 9. Others who have drawn similar connections between the coming of white people and the confusion over the role of medicine men in the community include Harold Comby (taped interview July 23, 1999:432); Norma Hickman (untaped conversation June 2, 1997); Estelline Tubby (taped interview Aug. 5, 199). 10. Estelline Tubby and her son Doyle both point to Estelline’s great-grandmother; Charlie Denson points to Cameron Wesley. Both were medicine people. 11. Once again, thanks to Jesse Ben of the Choctaw Tribal Language Program for his help with these terms and their usage in the community. 12. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, both prophet and prophecy were ¤rst used in the Ancren Riwle in 1225 and in at least one case referred to the prophecies of Saint John the Baptist. 13. See John Swanton (1931:194–99, 212) who cites Alfred Wright (1828), Horatio Cushman (1899), Henry Halbert (1895), and David Bushnell (1909). 14. See for example Halbert 1895 and Blanchard 1981. This belief continues to be shared throughout the community. 15. From an untaped conversation held in Donna Denson’s of¤ce in Conehatta with Glenda Williamson and Meriva Williamson. 16. One of the few recent instances of prophecy by a medicine man (as the role is recognized today, avoiding the confusion of terms of the eighteenth century) is recalled by Charlie Denson. His grandfather was a medicine man who, when Charlie was young, predicted that Charlie would join the Army. Years later, Charlie did. Henry Williams also comments on the ability of medicine men to see into the future, but again, the focus is on the individual. He notes that the really powerful doctors could tell your future and know when you were going to die. This belief is echoed in the historical record as well (Swanton 1931:213). 17. See in the introduction the discussion of the vision quest tradition among many of the Plains Indian communities. 18. The story continues, following the biblical story of Noah, with the prophet who foretold the ®ood ¤lling the role of Noah, a raft substituting for an ark (1870:494). 19. This coherence speci¤cally relates to the use of the body of oral tradition as an interpretive resource for individual texts, as discussed in chapter 3.

Notes to Chapter 5 / 235 20. The dilemma presented here in prophecy is similar to one presented by the existence and use of artistic genres. Within the in¤nite number of ways to communicate, genres provide the speaker a narrowed choice of possibilities. Genres provide a system and rudimentary guidelines for expressing oneself. Without them, the endless choices can sti®e rather than liberate. 21. Except for memorized texts, all oral narratives are held abstractly until voiced. The difference here is that the more general prophecy need not ever have been voiced to the narrator by the elders. The contemporary narrator may be the ¤rst to voice the general prophecy, having only heard speci¤c ones. 22. The process that Grady John engages in can be elucidated by the comparison Leslie Marmon Silko makes between prophecy and mathematical fractals. In a 1995 interview, Silko discusses her fascination with stories of the past as clues to events of the future and subsequent use of this phenomenon in her novel Almanac of the Dead: “One of the impulses that lay behind what happened with Almanac of the Dead, is to say ‘See, all this is perfectly, all of these things are interconnected, and if one thing happens, these other things can follow,’ to the point where I got fascinated with telling the future. As in mathematics, when they work with fractals, they, with just a few dimensions and equations they can plot a whole coast or shape, the whole contours of a whole coastline. I believe that one can do that with narrative” (Bellinelli 1995). Where the mathematician relies on formal laws of math, Grady relies on personal beliefs about the world. But both employ what they accept as valid and true in order to make their predictions. 23. In chapter 2, we discussed the power of various keying elements to invoke a frame and signal a particular genre. The few times that people have explicitly referred to this style (Estelline Tubby here, Billy Amos in his narration of the prophecy of higher prices), the speakers seem to be indicating more than the genre of prophecy but speci¤cally the act of prophecy or prediction. 24. In addition to Leach’s comments, Claude Lévi-Strauss has discussed this concept as the science of the concrete (1966), while Gregory Bateson has termed the phenomenon “abduction” (1979) (as noted by Glassie 1982:326). 25. See, among others, Paula Gunn Allen’s article “The Sacred Hoop” (1996). Her illustration of the Plains Indian medicine wheel as support of this model is particularly convincing (if still tribal and not true of all American Indians). 26. See for example Sally Allen’s account of the prophecy of the destruction of the people in chapter 5. It is there that I will address the themes of prophecy such as war. For now, I intend only to note the historical basis for many prophecies. 27. The function of prophecy, particularly with respect to the valence of its perspective of the world, will be addressed in chapter 5.

CH A PTER 5 1. For a summary of these various schools of thought and major proponents of each, see Rescher 1991:201–3).

236 / Notes to Chapter 5 2. In describing the powers of a medicine man, Carmen Denson notes, “We can’t, we don’t understand how it happens” ( Jan. 12, 2000:480). But it is clear from his discourse and from ethnographic ¤eldwork that people do believe it does happen, that it does work. 3. The survey consisted of seven questions relating to students’ experiences and beliefs about the supernatural (Ketcher 1985:104–6). Many had not made up their minds about whether they believed or not; those who had were fairly evenly split. No follow-up survey has been conducted and published so no quantitative conclusions can be made concerning historical shifts. The numerous claims by older members of the tribe that they didn’t believe their grandparents and parents about these things when they were younger but that they do now provides strong anecdotal evidence that age is integrally tied to belief in the supernatural. 4. One woman in Pearl River laughed about this, saying that when she scoffed as a child at her mother and her beliefs, her mother told her that one day she would come back and ask to know about such things. Sure enough, she did, but her mother refused to teach her. 5. Audience is clearly important here. Many of the men and women I have talked to have mentioned that they believe if they were to talk about some of their beliefs to a non-Indian audience, those people would laugh or ridicule them. Such admissions have been made to me, a non-Indian. But trust is constantly negotiable. In some conversations I am regarded skeptically, in others, embraced as sympathetic. Of course, audience is hardly the only factor. There remain many people who accept what the elders say as vital and true on some level but who have not invested themselves in the particular tenet to the point of adhering to it in daily life. 6. Swanton claimed that the Choctaw were fatalistic. The term, as applied only to the notion of death (fatal), certainly could apply here. However, the de¤nition of fatalism is generally much more broad: “a doctrine that events are ¤xed in advance for all time in such a manner that human beings are powerless to change them” (Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary). 7. The comfort derived from believing there is a larger plan that one is unable to control has been noted in some prophetic visions. Among the Sioux, for example, Raymond J. DeMallie has identi¤ed such sentiment with respect to the prophetic visions of elders in the tribe, speci¤cally of Black Elk (1984:301). As we will see, however, while this parallel is valid within the religious realm of Christianity, it does not necessarily hold for Choctaw prophecy. 8. Y.O.P. provides high school students with summer jobs around the reservation to allow them to explore future employment possibilities 9. This distinction between those things controllable by humans and those things that are not has been taken up by various scholars in dealing with omens and superstitions (see particularly Dundes 1961). In fact, Newbell Puckett has employed the term “prophetic” to help describe this distinction, noting differences between control signs in which humans can alter events and prophetic signs that deal with “those

Notes to Chapter 5 / 237 undomesticated causal relationships in which the human individual has no play . . . man has no control and submits helplessly to the decrees of nature” (1926:312, cited in Dundes 1961). The problem with this terminology, however, is that there are prophecies that are within human control. 10. Charlie Denson did in fact join the Army. He comments elsewhere that his grandfather was a medicine man and prophet. When he comments a few lines later that “my grandpa told me that,” it carries the weight of prophecy. 11. If one were to expand Choctaw verbal art beyond what people in the community recognize as stories, one could incorporate these “no-you-don’ts,” as Louise Wilson has termed them, within a long list of customs and superstitions, situated under “talk of the elders.” The advice of no-you-don’ts generally applies to natural but not everyday occurrences in life such as rules about pregnancy, new babies, and death. 12. Scholars have found similar patterns in biblical prophecy. Prophets voice disaster that can only be avoided by following God. See for example Martz 1998. 13. My contention is not, of course, that the assessment in other cultures is incorrect, merely that the prophetic tradition of the Choctaw does not follow this model. I have already mentioned Raymond DeMallie’s assessment of the Sioux. Daniel Wojcik notes a complete reversal of pessimism about the future among dispensationalists: “Dispensationalist traditions explicitly address a sense of helplessness and meaninglessness associated with thoughts about the threat of nuclear war, restoring a sense of control and moral order” (1996:314–15). By ¤tting nuclear destruction into God’s plan, and remaining ¤rm in their faith that they will be saved, the apocalypse is defused of terror. Such reactions can be applied to end-of-the-world prophecies, but the majority of Choctaw prophecies are not so cataclysmic and do not provide consolation via the possibility of heavenly salvation. 14. Oddly, Rescher’s neutral category indicates a mixture of the ¤rst two rather than true neutrality, where the future is viewed with no valence at all. Among some Choctaw prophecy, valence is added by the narrator. For those who do little to interpret the prophecy, there may be no valence at all. This is particularly true of technology prophecies of airplanes, an invention that many Choctaw ¤nd no particular use for. 15. These recalls were held on January 18, 2000. Both failed to remove the representatives from their positions. 16. The resolution enacted in 1972 (CHO 18-72) was ostensibly given federal sanction with the passing of the Indian Self-Determination and Assistance Act of 1975. 17. This tension has existed at least since the early 1970s when the tribal council began to wrest control over tribal programs from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Many in the community were concerned that the tribal leadership was not suf¤ciently trained to run these programs. The question of whether to move ahead with nonChoctaw employees or to wait until Choctaw members could be suf¤ciently educated and trained remains debated (Peterson 1992:144, 146). 18. Similar issues of optimism and pessimism are addressed in the body of litera-

238 / Notes to Chapter 5 ture dealing with life satisfaction. Much of this literature attempts to understand how people rate the past and future quantitatively, using questionnaires and scales, particularly as developed by Hadley Cantril. 19. Ruth Finnegan notes that stories may “express the views of minority or divergent groups within society at large, or convey ideas pleasing in a literary context but not necessarily acceptable in everyday life” (1977:265). One might add that particular genres, too, can convey particular viewpoints not representative of the range of opinion held in the community and even by a single individual on a particular topic. 20. Iyi kowa literally means broken foot. The term describes the practice of helping members of the community who were sick or hurt with their work. Generally, this meant helping them plant or harvest their crops. Community members would gather together for a long day of work, punctuated by extensive meals and lots of joking and storytelling. Iyi kowa is often brought up in conversations today to highlight the changes, and particularly the loss, in the culture and community today. 21. See Ferrara 1998:46 and Peterson 1972:1287–88. For more extensive discussions of these economic shifts, see White 1990 and Ferrara 1998, a useful if heavily one-sided and agenda-driven account of the past few decades. 22. Photos highlighting this shift can be found in the Choctaw fair program from 1999. 23. A common joke made in the community when events start long after they were scheduled is that they are operating on Choctaw Time. This is most often used by the organizers themselves, whether the host of a family dinner or the speaker at graduation. 24. Jake York for example tells a similar story about how grocery bills were used to trick non-English-speaking Choctaw families out of their homes and land (Mould 1998). 25. In fact, prophecy has been a useful construct to allow people to express their fears and concerns about modern development by interpreting these events through prophecy, as noted in chapter 3. 26. Growing up in a sharecropping family, Charlie Denson remembers his father arguing with the white landlord about what he would plant. Charlie’s father wanted to grow corn and peas—immediately useful crops for them; the landlord wanted him to plant hay. Alienation can be seen even in farming, not just factory work. 27. The mound Harold is referring to is the Nanih Waiya Cave Mound. A group of people form Oklahoma were camped at the mound, and as captain of police, Harold was there to ensure safe and appropriate behavior. 28. The United States government never of¤cially declared war in any of these three places, substituting “military action” or “con®ict” instead. In common parlance, however, “con®icts” in Vietnam and the Gulf are referred to as wars. 29. Evidence of this can also be seen in the discourse of Charlie Denson noted earlier in this chapter, where he evokes both Choctaw and biblical traditions but attributes each. One might also note other parallels people draw between Choctaw prophecy and biblical prophecy. Some attempt to explain Choctaw prophets by equat-

Notes to Chapter 5 / 239 ing them with biblical prophets, suggesting that God spoke to them and provided them with their knowledge. 30. I have used extra indentions to indicate the rhythm and symmetry of Carmen Denson’s speech as it was such a powerful element of his speech when listening to him. 31. These characteristics and functions of prophecy correspond with related studies of prophetic and mediumistic traditions. In their edited volume on spirit mediumship in Africa, for example, John Beattie and John Middleton argue that “Almost always traditional mediumistic cults are essentially conservative, for they express and help to sustain the traditional standards and values of the society” (xxviii). This also seems the case with the major American Indian prophetic movements of the nineteenth century (see the discussion in the introduction). 32. Russell Thornton has studied the demographics of American Indians throughout the country and has found Indians marrying outside their ethnic group at a faster rate than any other Americans (1990; cited by Bordewich 1996:329) 33. See the introduction for a brief discussion of these major prophetic movements, their nativistic bent, and speci¤cally their avowal of limited interaction with whites. 34. Choctaw culture has become increasingly symbolized. A ¤nite number of “artifacts” have been invested with the power to represent the Choctaw people. These artifacts are identi¤ed frequently when people are asked about Choctaw culture: basket weaving, stickball, Choctaw shirt and dress, hominy and banaha, and social dancing. Not surprisingly, these are the artifacts most conspicuously on display at the Choctaw fair. Such cultural symbols are arguably the most powerful means of expressing collective identity. Edward Spicer notes, “A relationship between human individuals and selected cultural elements—the symbols—is the essential feature of a collective identity system. . . . In addition to land and language symbols, common constituents of identity systems are music, dances, and heroes. What makes a system out of identity symbols is not any logical, in the sense of rational, relationship among them. The meanings that they have ¤t into a complex that is signi¤cant to the people concerned. The meanings amount to a self-de¤nition and an image of themselves as they have performed in the course of their history” (1971:796, 798). Alan Dundes goes further in stressing the importance of cultural symbols and folklore in general in cultivating identity, arguing that “folklore is not simply a way of obtaining available data about identity for social scientists. It is actually one of the principal means by which an individual and a group discovers or establishes his or its identity” (1983:259). There is in fact a body of literature that has addressed the use of cultural practices as symbols of identity (see summary by Dundes 1983:240–41). 35. David De Levita provides a useful de¤nition for group identity that is effective in its simplicity: “By group identity is meant what a group continues to show as constant features in spite of the fact that the members of the group vary” (1965:52 in Dundes 1983:237). However, the concept of group identity is not uncontested. Elliott Oring, for example, has argued that group identity is merely an extension of indi-

240 / Notes to Conclusion vidual identities (1994). Logically, this seems right. But if the adage that the whole is more than the sum of its parts holds true, then group identity can comprise something other than the sum of individual identities. An individual will construct a sense of themselves as a member of a group, but they will also construct a sense of the group itself. Rarely are the two synonymous. When they are, the person must conceive of himself or herself as the quintessential member. Generally, group identity is constructed as an ideal. Rarely does anyone ¤t that position. Rather, group identity is a conception individuals construct from their sense of its members, not just from their sense of themselves. Accordingly, discussing Choctaw identity re®ects both a community endeavor and a valid humanist one. 36. Peterson notes that Southern Indians were not sociocultural isolates (1971:129); their choice to remain fairly isolated was a reaction to race relations at the time. Further, their shifts in identity must also be understood within the larger context of southern history. 37. Jesse Ben says the same with respect to the prophecies he heard from his grandmother. He says she used to say things would be coming to “us” and that “we” would be seeing these things. He says he isn’t sure whom she meant, whether Choctaws or all Indians, but he tends to interpret the pronoun more expansively as all Indians. 38. This dual phenomenon has been addressed by William K. Powers in his book War Dance (1990). In it, he notes how interaction fosters both intertribal identity through shared dance forms, as well a renewed interest in tribal traditions as people attempt to differentiate themselves from all the other American Indians present. See also Brown 1969. 39. This broad American Indian identity also resonates in how people decorate their homes, of¤ces, and cars, proudly displaying dream-catchers, Plains-style drums, and Pueblo katchina dolls. Certainly these may be considered souvenirs of trips taken, but the proliferation of art depicting the dejected Indian, head lowered, spear sagging, riding an equally dejected horse, suggests a more powerful expression of shared identity. 40. It is perhaps useful to remember that this notion of cultural relativity runs throughout Choctaw belief systems. Religion, language, and culture were all given to the Choctaw as distinct gifts for them and them alone. Other groups were given other ways to worship. A universal system of morality, religion, or custom denies the uniqueness of these gifts.

CONCLUSION 1. Leavitt cites early Archaic Greece, parts of Ancient China and Ancient Europe, classical and contemporary Indian and Persian culture, and contemporary communities in Africa and Polynesia (1997:5). 2. See for example Martz (1998), Wojcik (1984), and Leavitt (1997:20–25), who surveys much of this literature.

Notes to Conclusion / 241 3. The closest exception I can offer is Norma Hickman in Bogue Chitto, who has been adapting oral narratives of encounters with the supernatural into short stories, primarily for a young audience. 4. See Silko’s Ceremony and Almanac of the Dead, Welch’s Fools Crow, and McNickle’s Runner in the Sun.

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INTERVIEWS CITED

Tape recorded unless otherwise noted Allen, Sally [with Judy Billie and Regina Shoemake]. Interviewed by Tom Mould and Curtis Willis on June 3, 1997. 1 [with Regina Shoemake]. Interviewed by Tom Mould on Jan. 10, 2000. Amos, Billy. Interviewed by Tom Mould on June 19, 1997, and Aug. 1, 1999. Amos, Wagonner. 1975. Interviewed by staff of Nanih Waiya. Published Nanih Waiya 2(4):53 and 3(1):21–24. Anderson, Odie [with Jef¤e Solomon]. Interviewed by Tom Mould, Glenda Williamson, Meriva Williamson on Aug. 12, 1997. Billie, Judy [with Sally Allen and Regina Shoemake]. Interviewed by Tom Mould and Curtis Willis on June 3, 1997. Clegg, Cynthia. Storytelling session at Choctaw Language Immersion Camp recorded by Tom Mould and Liasha Alex on July 27, 1997.

254 / References Cited Comby, Gus. Interviewed by Roy Ketcher on Nov. 26, 1984. 1. Interviewed by Gregory Keyes and Ken Carleton on Dec. 16, 1990. Comby, Harold. Interviewed by Tom Mould and Liasha Alex on June 4, 1997. 1. Interviewed by Tom Mould on July 23, 1999, July 31, 2000, and Jan. 10, 2000. Denson, Carmen. Interviewed by Tom Mould on Jan. 12, 2000. Denson, Charlie, and Carmen Denson. Interviewed by Tom Mould on Mar. 12, 1996, and May 25, 1996. Denson, Donna. Interviewed by Tom Mould, Glenda Williamson, and Meriva Williamson on July 21, 1999. Untaped. Frazer, Herman. Interviewed by Tom Mould with Billy Amos on June 27, 1997. Untaped. Gibson, Esbie. Interviewed by Tom Mould, Glenda Williamson, Meriva Williamson and Lionel “J. J.” Dan on July 25, 1997. Gibson, Lillie. Interviewed by Tom Mould, Glenda Williamson, and Meriva Williamson on Aug. 5, 1997. Joe, Bobby. Interviewed by Tom Mould on July 30, 1999, and Jan. 6, 2000. John, Grady. Interviewed by Tom Mould on Feb. 22, 1998, July 17, 1999, and Jan. 15, 2000. Johnson, Katie Mae. Interviewed by Tom Mould, Glenda Williamson, Meriva Williamson on Aug. 12, 1997. Shoemake, Regina [with Sally Allen and Judy Billie]. Interviewed by Tom Mould and Curtis Willis on June 3, 1997. 1 [with Sally Allen]. Interviewed by Tom Mould on Jan. 10, 2000. Smith, Grace. Interviewed by Tom Mould and Glenda Williamson on July 30, 1999. Smith, Mallie. Interviewed by Tom Mould and Glenda Williamson on July 30, 1999. Solomon, Jef¤e [with Odie Anderson]. Interviewed by Tom Mould, Glenda Williamson, Meriva Williamson on Aug. 12, 1997. Steve, Rosalee. Interviewed by Tom Mould on Feb. 21, 1998. Thompson, John Hunter. Interviewed by Cynthia Thompson in 1979. Published in Nanih Waiya 7(1–2):25–31. Tubby, Annie. Interviewed by John G. Wallace in 1977. Published in Nanih Waiya 4(3):19–24. Tubby, Doyle. Interviewed by Tom Mould on May 30, 1996, and July 2, 1997. Tubby, Estelline. Interviewed by Vernon Tubby in 1976. Published in Nanih Waiya 4(1):114–18. 1. Interviewed by Tom Mould on May 31, 1996, Aug. 5, 1997, July 19, 1999, and July 22, 1999. Tubby, Tom. Interviewed by staff of Nanih Waiya in 1973. Unpublished interview housed at Neshoba County Library. Vaughn, Harley. Interviewed by Tom Mould on May 31, 1997. Williams, Henry. Interviewed by Tom Mould on June 24, 1997. Willis, Gladys. Interviewed by Tom Mould and Rae Nell Vaughn on May 23, 1996. 1. Interviewed by Tom Mould on Aug. 6, 1997.

References Cited / 255 Willis, Hulon. Interviewed by Tom Mould on May 27, 1996. Willis, Linda. Interviewed by Tom Mould on Jan. 7, 2000. Wilson, Louise. Interviewed by Tom Mould and Danielle Dan on June 10, 1997. 1. Interviewed by Tom Mould on July 29, 1999, and Jan. 11, 2000. York, Jake. Storytelling session at Choctaw Language Immersion Camp recorded by Tom Mould and Liasha Alex on July 29, 1997.

Index

acculturation, xxviii, 4, 6 actual world, as compared to virtual world in interpretation, 78–82, 104, 107, 165 Adair, James, 160 affective element in prophecy, 49, 50 agriculture. See farming Allen, Sally, xiv, 1, 41–42, 52–56, 66, 69, 74–76, 102, 186–87, 192–93 alikchi. See doctor, Choctaw ambiguity of prophecy, 56–57, 81, 133; with respect to origins and prophets, 125. See also vagueness of prophecy American Indian prophecy, 2–12, 198; comparison to Choctaw prophecy, 3, 12; contemporary tradition 10; historical tradition, 3–9. See also individual tribes Amos, Billy, xi, xxv, 1, 43–52, 55, 61, 63, 66, 68–70, 135–40, 142–43, 167, 180, 192–95, 197–98 Amos, Wagonner, 199–200 Anderson, Greg, 85, 89 Anderson, Odie, xi, 24–25, 28, 107, 118– 19, 165, 181, 197 arts, material, xxiv arts, verbal. See verbal art assimilation, historic, xxiii–xxiv atomic bomb. See nuclear bomb attribution: of Choctaw prophecy, 31–36, 48, 57, 102–3, 122, 125, 168; of Choctaw stories, 26 audience: for Choctaw storytelling, 23–

24, 26; relating to, in prophetic discourse, 50, 63, 100 authority: claimed through prophecy, 170; negotiated in prophecy, 112, 170 Bauman, Richard, 32–33 belief, 101; negotiated in prophecy, 33, 37–38, 53, 57–59; questioned about prophecy, 67–68, 157–59, 162–63; related to prescience, 111, 125, 132, 168, 177. See also truth Ben, Jesse, xxxv Bible, xxxii, 23, 76, 96–97, 98–99, 102, 127, 161, 166, 186–87, 200 biblical prophecy, 10, 99, 118, 171, 186– 89, 206 Bierhorst, John, 53 Billie, Judy, 1, 41–42, 69, 102 Black Elk, 8–9 Bogue Chitto, 43, 152–53, 173 bohpoli, 27, 120, 123, 124 bomb, atomic. See nuclear bomb Briggs, Charles, 110 Brightman, Robert, 7 Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), 179–80 cargo cults, 68 casino, xix–xx, xxvii–xxviii, 109; as sign of ful¤llment of prophecy, 108–9, 181 Catlin, George, 116 Chahta, 114–15, 116 chant, xxiv. See also dance Cherokee Indians, 115

258 / Index Chickasaw Indians, 115, 118 Choctaw communities, xxi, xxviii, 201. See also names of individual communities Choctaw Fair, xxiv–xxvii Choctaw Nation (Oklahoma), xxxiii Choctaw Princess Pageant, xxvi Christianity: among Choctaw, xxviii, 19– 20, 102–3, 160–62, 187–89, 206–7; in®uence on Choctaw prophecy, 118– 19, 122, 206–7; role of preacher as prophet, 126–27 Civilized Tribes, Five, xxiii Clegg, Cynthia, 28 Comby, Harold, xii, 1, 60, 79, 82, 84–92, 97–103, 116, 164, 181, 183, 205 Conehatta, 16–17, 67, 89, 173 context: contemporary, as part of narrative structure of prophecy, 48, 57–58; historical, as part of narrative structure, 36–40, 47–52, 58–59; of narrated event, 34, 48, 63; role in constructing meaning, 110. See also historical context; performance of prophecy, context creation of prophecy, 133–55; from examples, 135–39; through interpretation of existing prophecy, 133–35; through projection of historical cycles, 148–55; through projection of tenets, 139, 143–48; through projection of trends, 139–43. See also origin of prophecy Creator (God, Great Spirit), 123, 129, 177, 182–83 Creek Indians, 115 cultural crisis, 4–5, 8–9, 153, 210–11 cultural loss prophesied, 164, 167, 191–92, 197–200 cultural maintenance, 169, 173, 205–6 cultural revival, xxiv Cushman, Horatio B., 116–18, 121, 160 dance, xxiv–xxv Dégh, Linda, 159 Delaware Indians, 115 Delaware Prophet. See Neolin DeMallie, Raymond J., 8–9

Denson, Carmen, xii, 29, 64, 100–101, 113–14, 118–19, 121, 126–27, 161, 165, 188–89, 191, 193–94, 198 Denson, Charlie, 23, 114, 118, 165–66, 180, 195, 200, 201, 204–5 Denson, Donna, 23, 124, 187 DeSoto, Hernando, xxiii disappearance of Choctaw prophesied, 164. See also interracial marriage; removal disbelief of prophecy. See belief, negotiated in prophecy disease: historical accounts, 150–54; prophesied, 67, 150–54 divine inspiration. See supernatural, as origin of prophecy Dixon, Jeanne, 76 doctor, Choctaw (medicine person), 101– 2, 116, 160; connection to prophets and witches, 119–23; as originators of prophecy, 119–23, 125 economic success of tribe, xxiii, 172–73 education, 29, 43–44, 142–47, 195 elders: in®uence upon interpretation of prophecy, 103; as originators of prophecy, 123–25, 132, 195 employment, 142–46 end of the world prophesied, 60, 66, 73– 77, 127–29, 184–90, 207; spiritual end, 95–96, 99, 133 environment. See nature epistemology, 101–2 ethnicity. See identity ethnopoetics, xxxv–xxxvii fair. See Choctaw Fair family, xxviii–xxix, 173, 197 farming, xxviii, 77, 143, 176–80, 182 farmland loss prophesied, 66, 77, 154, 182; houses replacing crops, 107–8, 182 fatalism, 159–64 ®ood: historical, 130–31; prophecy of, 127–29 Folsom, Nathaniel, 151 food, xviii–xxix; prophesies about, 182–83 formula: in Choctaw verbal art, 26, 28; in

Index / 259 prophetic discourse, 31–42, 57, 60–61, 63. See also attribution framing: in Choctaw prophecy, 33–34, 36–38, 57, 78, 136; in interpretation of prophecy, 106–7 Frazer, Herman, 198 Frazier, Crystal, xxv free will, 159–64, 170 Friedrich, Paul, 209–10 ful¤llment of prophecy, 39–40, 62–65, 81, 88–89, 109; ignoring, 153–54; ongoing ful¤llment, 60–61. See also signs of ful¤llment of prophecy function of prophecy, 11, 212; didactic, 66, 159–60, 164–71, 200; interpretive, 66–67, 78–110, 153; personal, 50; social, 50, 100; social control, 109–10, 159–60, 190; validating knowledge of elders, 70; validating phenomenon of prophecy, 68–70 future: as conceptual category, 156–75; predictability of 156–59; tractability of, 156–57, 159–71, 189–90; viewed as negative, 171, 174–97; viewed as positive, 171, 174, 190–97; welcomability of, 156–57, 171–97 Geertz, Armin, 10, 11 Ghost Dance, 4; Wovoka and, 3, 5–6 Gill, Sam D., 4 Glassie, Henry, 80–81, 110 God. See Creator government. See politics Great Spirit. See Creator Halbert, Henry Sales, 119–20, 152 Handsome Lake, 3, 4, 5; Code of, 9 Henning, Tennessee, 140–41 highways prophesied, 32, 69. See also roads prophesied historical context, 67; for past prophetic performance, 154, 175. See also context, historical historical patterns in prophecy, 185 history: Choctaw, xxiii–xxiv, xxx–xxxiv, 67; nature of, xxx, 80–81; relationship to prophecy, 80–81, 211–12

hopaii, 2, 23, 101, 113–23, 126–27, 158, 209. See also prophet, Choctaw hope, negotiated in prophecy, 75, 153, 170–72, 189, 190–97. See also optimism in prophecy Hopi, prophetic tradition of, 10–11, 109, 211 human agency: in altering the future, 162–71; in prophesying, 123–25, 132–55 Hymes, Dell, 34 identity, xxxi; intertribal, 202–5; national, 185–86, 201–5; regional, xxviii; tribal and ethnic, xxviii, xxxi, 184–85, 188, 197–205 Indian Shaker church, 4 Indian Territories, xxiv interpretation of prophecy: according to cultural systems, 100; additive nature of, 149–51; connection to prophetic core, 95–96, 102, 133–39, 155; demand for, 56–58, 71–72; individual variation in, 82–103; in®uenced by gender, 100; as intellectual pursuit, 86–92, 132–35; intertextual, 98–100, 130–31; as personal quest, 92–99; as speci¤c frame for interpreting the world, 103–10; strategies for, 61; as structural element, 57–60; 72–110; through creation of new semantic sets, 84, 88; through mass media, 100–102; through religion, 102–3, 189; through science, 100–102; working toward dominant one, 91–92, 133–35. See also function of prophecy, interpretive interracial marriage, 1, 60–61, 75, 146–47, 166, 197–98; prophesied, 1, 75–76, 146, 168–69 Isaac, Calvin, 165 iyi kowa, xxxii, 175 Jackson, Andrew, xxxii Joe, Bobby, xiii, 54–55, 72–74, 76, 100– 102, 127–32, 140, 176–80, 183–84, 187– 89, 193–94, 197, 203–4 John, Grady, xiii, 70, 111–12, 139, 140–45,

260 / Index 158, 169–70, 174, 191–93, 195, 200, 204–5 Johnson, Katie Mae, 171 Johnson, Viola, 61, 193, 197 Johnson, Willard, 3, 10 Kashikanchak, 20, 27 keying, 31–35, 63. See also attribution; formula kowi anukasha. See bohpoli language, xxviii; as symbol of Choctaw identity, 166, 198–200 Lanman, Charles, 114, 130–31 Leach, Edmund, 80, 147–48, 149 Leavitt, John, 9, 208–10 LeFlore, Basil, 160 legend, 89–90; prophecy’s role in, 114–16 Lewis, James, 7 Lieber, Michael, 88 literary prophecy, 209–10 little people. See bohpoli mantic discourse, 9 Martin, Joel, 5 Martin, Phillip, xxviii, 1, 101, 105–7, 172– 73, 180 medicine people. See doctor, Choctaw memory, xxxi metaphor, used in prophecy, 52–56 methodology, 14–17, 36 millennial movements, 3–7. See also salvation millennium (year 2000), 171 missionaries, Christian, xxvii, xxxiii, 121. See also Christianity mixed bloods. See identity; interracial marriage modernity, xxi Momaday, N. Scott, xxxi money, prophesied as dominant, 107, 175–82 morality: in American Indian prophecy, 5–6; in Choctaw culture, xxxi; in Choctaw prophecy, 109–10, 159–69,

189, 205–7; in prophecy generally, 9– 10, 211–12 Morris, Bessie, xxv na losa chitto, 27–28 Nanih Waiya, xx, 115, 116 narrative structures in prophecy, 39–41, 58–59, 77 nativism, 4–5 nature: becoming dangerous, 60, 183; imagery in Choctaw prophecy, 53–54 nature prophesied about: days getting shorter, 1, 183–84; disasters, 127–28; earth getting old, 73, 76–77, 183; loss of animals, 8; loss of forests, 139, 154, 182, 186; out of balance, 77, 183–84; seasons switching, 64; weather changes, 11, 114. See also farmland loss prophesied Navajo Indians, 148–49 Neolin, 4 Nickey, Roseanna, xxxv Niehardt, John G., 8–9 Noley, Grayson, 121 nuclear bomb, 185–87 Oklahoma Choctaw. See Choctaw Nation optimism in prophecy, 75, 171, 190–97 origin of prophecy, 111–55, 212. See also creation of prophecy out-migration, xxiii, 179–80 Overholt, Thomas, 9, 211, 213 past: in contrast to present, 47–52, 112; viewed as culturally potent, 112. See also context, historical; time Pearl River, xxi, 173 performance of prophecy: artistry of, 42– 56, 208–10; context, 68–70, 72–78; dramatic tension in, 48–52, 55; in relation to report, 34–35; in sequence, 72– 78; shared knowledge of, 41–42 pessimism in prophecy, 75, 164–65, 171–97 Peterson, John, 153, 200–201 Pitchlynn, John, 117 Pitchlynn, Peter, 114, 116, 130–31

Index / 261 poetry: as prophecy, 209–10; in prophecy, 208–10 politics, xxviii, 173–74; role of prophecy in, 109 Porcupine (Cheyenne), 5 powwow, xxix precognition, strategies for proving, 47, 53–54 prediction as contemporary prophecy, 2, 9–10, 112, 126–33, 139–55, 195 prophecy: axes of meaning, 12; blurring with other verbal genres, 144; Choctaw terms for, 122; as contrastive response to historical trends, 195–96; de¤nition of, 2, 9–11; study of, 210–13. See also American Indian prophecy; biblical prophecy; types of prophecy prophet, American Indian, 2–4, 7–9. See also prophet, Choctaw; hopaii prophet, Choctaw, 113–32; connection to medicine people, 116, 119–23; divine inspiration of, 117–19; as leaders, 113– 14; rituals used by, 117–18, 120; as spiritual guides, 114; terms for, 119–23 prophetic core, 15, 31, 36–37, 39–41, 48, 50–51, 57–59, 63, 95; in contrast to interpretation, 102, 106; role in creating meaning, 110. See also interpretation of prophecy, connection to prophetic core Pushmataha (Apushmataha), xxxi, 117–18 Quam, Alvina, 10–11 race relations: addressed in prophetic movements, 5–7, 140–42; divinely decreed, 166; in Mississippi, xxiii, xxviii, xxxiii–xxxiv, 4, 21, 140–42, 178, 203; referred to in the interpretation of prophecy, 88, 168–69. See also interracial marriage Ramsey, Jarold, 68 religion: American Indian prophecy as part of, 6; Choctaw, 187–88, 206–7; prophecy interpreted through, 102–3. See also Christianity removal: historical, xxiii, xxxi–xxxiii, 92, 166; prophesied (Third Removal), 1,

66, 69–70, 76, 81, 92–99, 104–9, 133– 35, 152–53, 165–66, 181–82, 202 Rescher, Nicholas, 156, 172 retroactive prophecy, 68 revelation of prophecy, 49–50, 54–55. See also ful¤llment of prophecy riddle, similarity to prophetic discourse, 52–56 ritual, 78–80 roads prophesied, 22, 69, 74. See also highways prophesied Sahlins, Marshall, 7, 79 salvation, element in Choctaw prophecy, 129, 194–95 Scott, T. J., 120 Seneca Prophet. See Handsome Lake sharecropping. See farming Shawnee Indians, 115 Shawnee Prophet. See Tenskwatawa Shoemake, Regina, xiv, 1, 26, 41–42, 63, 66, 69–70, 74–76, 102, 107–9, 123, 133–35, 171, 193 shukha anumpa, 27, 140, 167 signs of ful¤llment of prophecy, 1, 20– 22, 60–61, 74, 78, 93, 104, 107–8, 128, 130, 165, 176–79, 181, 184, 186; causes, 75–78; facilitators, 74; indicators, 74; symptoms, 76–78 Silver Star Casino. See casino Slocum, John. See Indian Shaker church Smith, Mallie, xiv, 19–23, 102 Smith, Pam, xxxv snakes, 157; in myth, 89–90; prophesied about, 85–92 social decay prophesied, 8, 11, 32, 60, 83, 190, 197–98; focus on money, 107 social norms, 111–12 social organization, xxviii–xxix Sockey, Drain, 165 Solomon, Bessie, 20 Solomon, Jef¤e, xi, 28 spirituality, incorporated into prophecy, 99 sports, xxiii, xxix starvation prophesied, 76–77, 107–8 state of affairs prophecy. See types of prophecy

262 / Index Steve, Rosalee, 23 stickball, xxvi, 119–20 stories, family, xxxiii–xxxiv storyteller, xxxiv, 23 storytelling: Choctaw, 23–30; formulas in, 28, medium for prophecy, 13–14, 23, 26–27, 29–30 structure of prophecy, 31–61, 63. See also narrative structures in prophecy supernatural, 90, 112, 127, 157–58, 212; as origin of prophecy, 121, 123, 126–32, 206, 208–10; tales, 27–28, 167 superstition, 78–79 Swanton, John R., xxx–xi, 160 Sword, George (Sioux), 6 symbols: of Choctaw culture, xxviii, xxx– xxxi, 184–85, 187, 198–200; discussion of symbolism and symbolic power; prophecy as symbolic representation, 78, 78–79 technology prophesied, 62–64, 66, 75, 190–97; airplanes, 41, 52–53, 73; cars, 46, 62, 64, 75, 191–92; electricity, 45, 51, 55; electric lines 55, 73; indoor plumbing, 45–46, 51; movies, 46–47; radio, 52; railroads, 8; running water, 45, 51; satellites, 73; telephones, 32; television, 47, 50–51, 52, 73; tractor, 158; VCRs, 47, 50–51 Tecumseh, 116–18 Tedlock, Barbara, 11 Tennessee Choctaw, 16 Tenskwatawa, 3, 4, 6 text, xxxv–xxxvii, 31, 71, 110 Third Removal. See removal, prophesied Thompson, John Hunter, 66–67, 139, 140, 150–54 time: as axis of Choctaw storytelling, 26–30, 155; cyclical, 148–55; linear sequence prophecies, 72–78; linear sequence of trends, 140–43, 148; as negotiated in prophecy, 39–41, 64–65, 155, 211; temporal parallels between verbal art and prophecy, 126. See also past

tone, as axis of Choctaw storytelling, 26–30 traditional, 26; Choctaw culture, xxiv, xxviii–xxxi, 101 Trail of Tears. See removal translation: textual, xxxv; confusion in terms for prophets, 120 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek (1830), 152 truth: as axis of Choctaw verbal art, 26– 30; negotiated in Choctaw prophecy, 38–41, 55, 59, 100, 158. See also belief Tubby, Annie, 61, 82–84, 99, 123–24, 193 Tubby, Doyle, xxxiv, 157–58 Tubby, Estelline, xv, 1, 31, 82, 92–107, 133– 35, 146–47, 165, 189, 193, 206 types of prophecy: based on content, 61– 68; ful¤lled prophecy, 35–56, 62–72; ongoing prophecy, 60–61, 65, 68–70; state of affairs prophecy versus event prophecy, 61–62, 65–66, 163–64; unful¤lled prophecy, 56–60, 63–72. See also technology prophesied vagueness of prophecy, 81–82, 133, 212. See also ambiguity of prophecy variation, in Choctaw storytelling, 24–25 Vázsonyi, Andrew, 159 verbal art, generic system of Choctaw storytelling, 26–30. See also performance of prophecy, artistry of virtual world, as compared to actual world in interpretation, 78–82, 104, 107, 165 visions as origin of prophecy, 7–8, 113–14, 127–32 voice, negotiation of in prophecy, 102–3 Wallace, Anthony F. C., 5, 68, 210–11 war prophesied, 22, 60, 74, 127–29, 152, 166–67, 184–90, 195, 200, 206 Wesley, Cameron, 182–83, 184–86 whites, arrival prophesied, 8, 11 Williams, Henderson, 160–61, 193 Williams, Henry, 154, 204 Williamson, Glenda, 19, 23–24, 102, 118–19

Index / 263 Williamson, Meriva, 19 Willis, Curtis “Buck,” 207 Willis, Gladys, 23 Willis, Hulon, 24 Willis, Linda, xv, 60, 166–67, 182, 184– 86, 200 Wilson, Louise, xvi, 67, 76–77, 125, 150– 54, 161–63, 167–69, 183–84, 187, 193 witch, 119–23 wives’ tales, 168–69 Wooden Cup (Sioux), 8

World War II, 185–86 Wovoka. See Ghost Dance Wright, Alfred, 120–21 y2k, 171 Yazoo, 115 York, Emmett, 198 Youth Opportunity Program, 161–62 Zuni, prophetic tradition of, 10–11