Nanih Waiya

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Nanih Waiya (alternately spelled Nunih Waya) is a mound in Winston County, Mississippi, probably related to the Mississippian culture. Nanih Waiya is also the sacred origin location in Choctaw traditional beliefs. Nanih Waiya is today about 25 feet tall, 140 feet wide, and 220 feet long. Evidence suggests that it was originally a platform mound which has eroded into the present shape.

Contents 1 Archaeological Evidence 1.1 Choctaw Beliefs 1.2 Nanih Waiya: Lost and Regained 2 References 3 External links

[edit] Archaeological Evidence

The first archaeological evidence of occupation at Nanih Waiya is dated to 0-300 AD, making Nanih Waiya contemporaneous with the Hopewell culture, although it is a distinct culture. Occupation apparently continued at least through 700 AD, the late Woodland period. Although no definite Mississippian culture use of the site has been documented, archaeologists generally have suggested that Nanih Waiya was used for religious purposes throughout its history. The surviving Choctaw stories of the actual construction of the mound (recorded by Gordon Lincecum) are some of the only known accounts of the actual construction of a Mississippian culture mound.

The mound was a site of pilgrimage and homage throughout the known historic record. Small nearby mounds, still recognized in the 1850s but now apparently plowed away, were never dated. As there is neither archaeological data, historical records, or Choctaw tales of the role of these small mounds, nothing more may ever be known about them.

[edit] Choctaw Beliefs

Nanih Waiya is believed by some Choctaw to be the "Mother Mound" (Inholitopa iski) where the first Choctaw was created. Others believe Nanih Waiya is the location where the Choctaw tribe ceased their wanderings and settled after their origin further to the west. As told by some Choctaw storytellers, it was either Nanih Waiya or a cave nearby from which the Choctaw people emerged. According to some versions, the mound (or nearby cave) is also the origin of the Chickasaw, Creek people, and possibly even the Cherokee.

George Catlin's Smithsonian Report in 1885 included a story of the Choctaw following a prophet from an origin in the west:

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.

Nanih Waiya, which means "leaning hill," "stooping hill," or "place of creation" in Choctaw, was the final migratory destination.

[edit] Nanih Waiya: Lost and Regained

The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, drawn up September 15-27, 1830, ceded Nanih Waiya officially to the United States, along with millions of acres of the Choctaw territory. In the 1840s, the Choctaw Claims Commission of the United States investigated violations of the treaty by U.S. citizens. J.F.H. Claiborne later wrote about the investigations, "Many of the Choctaws examined... regard this mound as the mother, or birth-place of the tribe, and more than one claimant declared that he would not quit the country as long as [Nanih Waiya] remained." (quoted in Ken Carleton's article)

Nanih Waiya was a Mississippi state park until the Mississippi Legislature State Bill 2803 officially returned control of the site to "The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians" in 2006, following a restructuring move in 2004 by the state government.

[edit] References

• Catlin, George. Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for the year 1885, Part II, Report of the U.S. National Museum under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution for the year 1885.. Government Printing Office, 1886, Annual Report, 40 pt2 : 1-264 and 1-939
• Knight, Vernon James, Jr. 1989 Symbolism of Mississippian Mounds. In Powhatan’s Mantle: Indians in the Colonial Southeast, edited by Peter H. Wood, Gregory A. Waselkov, and M. Thomas Hatley. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE.
• Lincecum, Gideon. 1904 Choctaw Traditions About Their Settlement in Mississippi and the Origin of Their Mounds. Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society 8:521-542.
• Senate Bill 2803. Mississippi Legislature, 2006 Regular Session. To: Public Property, By: Senator(s) Williamson. AN ACT TO RETURN THE NANIH WAIYA STATE PARK AND MOUND TO THE MISSISSIPPI BAND OF CHOCTAW INDIANS; TO AMEND SECTIONS 29-1-1 AND 55-3-47, MISSISSIPPI CODE OF 1972, TO CONFORM; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES.

[edit] External links

• http://www.cr.nps.gov/archeology/cg/vol1_num1/mother.htm This story by Ken Carleton, Tribal Archaeologist of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, gives good detail on the early 21st century Choctaw perspective on Nanih Waiya.
• http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/documents/2006/html/SB/2800-2899/SB2803IN.htm This is the text of the State Bill 2803 returning Nanih Waiya to the Choctaw.