Trail of Broken Promises. Caleb Pirtle III

They play with much skill. They run against one another very swiftly and shove one another like the men, being equally naked except for the parts which modesty dictates they shall cover. They merely redden their cheeks, using vermilion on their hair instead of powder.

      H. B. Cushman, the missionary, would later write:

      An ancient Choctaw ball play would be an exhibition far more interesting, strange, wild and romantic, in all its features, than anything ever exhibited in a circus . . . excelling it in every particular of daring feats and wild recklessness s. . . The activity, fleetness, strength and endurance of the Mississippi Choctaw warrior and hunter, were more fully exemplified than anywhere else; for there he brought into the most severe action every power of soul and body. In those ancient ball plays, I have known villages to lose all their earthly possessions upon the issue of a single play.

      Chapter 8: Cures From the Mother Earth

      WHEN THE SEASONS brought the sickness, old men of the tribes concocted the cures from the mother earth, and the Indians placed their lives in the gnarled, wrinkled hands of those old men.

      They had no other choice.

      The Choctaws took the leaves of the jimson weed, doused them in cold water, and made a band to hold around the head to break a high fever.

      They cut the stalks of cockleburs and boiled them in milk, then applied them as poultice to a snakebite.

      They cured headaches with chiggerweed tea and they treated bad kidneys with sassafras tea.

      Choctaws chewed the bark of a buttonbush for a toothache, and sometimes they stuck the part of the prickly ash into a cavity to stop the pain.

      Rattlesnake grease fought the rigors of rheumatism.

      And their medicine men made a salve of honey, butter, and the juice of pole bean leaves to treat skin cancer.

      Seminoles used brown glass from a broken bottle to ease pain. The medicine man made four punctures, then took a powdered herb, mixed it with saliva, and rubbed it gently on the four holes.

      And sometimes, he simply placed a devil’s shoestring inside a buffalo horn and held that over the wound to draw out the pain.

      For earaches, the medicine man chanted a few chosen incantations and blew smoke into the ailing ear.

      The Creeks cured asthma by burning a hornet’s nest and inhaling the smoke.

      They used broom weed tea as a remedy against pneumonia, mullein tea as a cough syrup, ice weed to treat kidney trouble, and a poultice made from the inner bark of a cottonwood tree to heal a severe skin rash.

      And nothing was as effective for diarrhea as blackberry roots or the roots from wild rose bushes.

      For a burn, the Creeks would boil a fat hen, then produce a salve by mixing the chicken grease with friend box elder.

      Chapter 9: Brooms and Black Feathers

      IN THE EARLY days, back before the white ships sailed the great oceans, superstitions guided the footsteps, influenced the day-to-day living of the Muskogean tribes.

      They were warnings.

      They were promises.

      They were gospel.

      The Indians believed that a person who measured himself would die; that if he dreamed of birth, it was an omen for death. A white cat, a black crow, a black feather, or a purple sweet potato blossom in the garden all gave notice of an approaching death in the family.

      The Choctaws said that the screech of a horned owl meant sudden death or murder, that the scream of a screech owl predicted the death of a child under the age of seven. When a bird flew into the house, when an owl hooted outside the window, when a dog or wolf howled just beyond the house, bad luck was on its way and coming fast.

      Hunters never cut off their bread before a deer hunt. Fishermen never stepped over their pole. Both were considered unlucky.

      When someone died, live coals of cedar would be placed in a bucket then carried three times around the house to prevent the return of the ghost, to eliminate grief and morbid memories. Touching a freshly dug grave could bring the affliction of arthritis or rheumatism.

      Indians never placed a broom under a bed. They knew that the next person who lay down upon the bed would surely wind up in jail.

      The Creeks never pointed a finger at the rainbow for fear it would make the finger crooked. If they saw a falling star, they would spit four times to keep from going blind. When lightning struck a tree, they ran and quickly dug in the ground beneath the tree. If they found the lightning ball, it would make them strong and invulnerable.

      Pregnant women were told never to sit on a window sill, stop in a doorway, or lie cross-wise on a bed – such actions caused a difficult delivery. The Choctaws refused to let a pregnant woman drive a wagon across a running stream; they did not want the spirit of her unborn child left on the other side of the water.

      The tribes also knew how to care for their children. To make them fast and nimble, they said, scratch their feet with the toes of a quail. Feed them the tongue of a mockingbird, and they would grow up with the talent of a mimic. Give them rainwater trapped in an old bell, and they would become fine singers.