I want to explain a little more about the Chickasaw beliefs and concepts that Smith Paul would have learned during the time he lived with them in Mississippi. I've already explained the Chickasaw clan system and the changes in society brought about by dependence on manufactured goods and the move from villages to farms. My last post was about the Chickasaws' belief in a spirit world exemplified by the legend of the owl.
In addition to the spirits of the animals, there were other creatures who lived in the forest but were not as easy to see. Perhaps the most important of these were the "Little People." The Little People would sometimes help those in trouble or play tricks on those who offended them. They interacted most often with children. Sometimes a child would be chosen to live among the little people for a while. During this time the child would be given special powers of healing. When the child grew up, he or she would become a healer or herbal doctor. Healers could not teach or impart their skills to others because their magic came from the Little People. To my knowledge there are no Chickasaw healers alive today. The last one I'm aware of died 20 or 30 years ago.
Clan or family loyalty was at the foundation of Chickasaw society. One tradition which illustrates this is the "Green Corn Festival." This tradition may not have been widely practiced at the time Smith Paul came to live with the Chickasaws, but he would surely have known of it. The Green Corn Festival was an annual meeting of each clan or village. Since clans were basically extended families you could think of the Green Corn Festival as a kind of family reunion. There was feasting, dancing and games. The chief or patriarch of the family would speak, or rather his "speaker" would speak for him (chiefs communicated with their tribes through their speakers), generally encouraging his people to be more generous and hospitable. Those who had done good during the year were praised and those who had transgressed were shamed. After the festival all wrongs were forgiven and each person was allowed to start the year afresh.
These ideas of the community as a family, and family responsibility for its members was something ingrained in Chickasaw thinking. As a logical extension of this concept, the family was responsible for educating children. A child's aunts and uncles were traditionally responsible for the child's early education - aunts for the girls and uncles for the boys - and as the children grew older, the tribes' elders took part. In the same way a family was responsible for its members' actions. For instance, if a person guilty of a crime didn't appear for his punishment, a family member took his place. If a person was guilty of acts harmful to the tribe it was up to his family to punish him.
The Chickasaws' customs and concepts were developed over the centuries and they were well suited to a people living in small groups depending on each other for survival. The spirits that fortified them in hard times and punished them if they did wrong supported them emotionally. Their custom of organizing society into family groups strengthened their loyalty to their village or clan. The harshest punishment for the Chickasaws was ostracism. According to one source it was a "punishment more to be dreaded by all Indians than a hundred deaths."
Another Chickasaw concept that was ideally suited to a society of small clan units was the belief that property should be held in common, and excess shared. The Indians just took this idea for granted, so early in the history of Indian-white interactions, Indians would sometimes go into a shop and pick up things without paying for them, considering them excess. It was also a customary sign of respect when meeting with someone of a different tribe to offer gifts, and to continue exchanging gifts if each party wanted to maintain peace. Some white traders and government officials ignored this custom in their early dealings with the Indians and suffered the consequences.
To the Indians a person's value consisted of what he could contribute to the tribe, not what he possessed, so they weren't concerned with amassing wealth or conversely in running up debt. Thomas Jefferson used this concept to the government's advantage, by building a network of government run trading posts and encouraging the Indians to go into debt. This way the government could force the Indians to cede their land to the government in order to pay off the debt.
That's where the mixed blood and intermarried white portion of the Chickasaw tribe differed from the full bloods. According to Chickasaw custom, the land in their domain belonged to the tribe. An individual could use as much as he needed, but upon his death, ownership reverted to the tribe. This concept was firmly held by the full blood portion of the tribe, but many of the mixed bloods and intermarried whites aspired to amass wealth just like the white settlers. In fact, according to Smith Paul's daughter Sippia (short for Mississippi), "My father was interested in farming, it was always his desire to (go) into the farming business on a large scale." This must have been part of the reason why Smith Paul married into the tribe, and also why he came west with them.
Smith Paul had been west as far as California with wagon trains twice before the Chickasaw Removal in 1837. He knew then, contrary to the prevalent belief at the time, that the vast area between the Mississippi River and California was not a wasteland. He had travelled through the land where the government planned to send the Chickasaws, and he knew that it contained fertile valleys that could become productive farm land. When the Chickasaws finally decided to accept removal, Smith Paul went home to South Carolina for one last time and said goodbye to his family. While most Chickasaws were despondent at being forced to leave their homelands in Mississippi, where the spirits of their ancestors rested, Smith Paul went eagerly, full of hope for the future.
This dichotomy between the fullblood Chickasaws and the mixed blood and white intermarried citizens continued. It's not that the mixed blood Chickasaws didn't understand their fullblood brothers. They sympathized with them and they fought to protect them from being cheated by white traders and by the U. S. government, but throughout the years they became wealthier, while the fullbloods became poorer. A clash was inevitable.
Smith Paul's son Sam, my great grandfather, tried in vain to persuade his fullblood brothers to accept the concept of individual ownership of land. He said, "I do not believe we will ever prosper until there is a change in our government - a complete change (including) changing the tenure of our land from a system of community to one of severality." The fullbloods were adament in preserving their ancient system however, and eventually the conflict led to violence, and to Sam Paul's death.
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