The Chickasaw Nation has returned to the Golden Triangle area. Last June the Chickasaw Nation brought together several universities along with the Chickasaw Explorers to search for their ancestral village of Chicaza, which became Hernando de Soto’s 1540-1541 winter camp. This summer they are focusing on sites in Oktibbeha County and a site in Lowndes County.

The Chickasaw Explorers is a two-week program made up of college students, including some non-traditional or older students. In addition to archaeology and Chickasaw history, they are studying the ecological history of the Blackland Prairie. Being a multi-generational group has paid a huge dividend. It has opened a new window on viewing the old village sites and brought to light a living remnant of Chickasaw heritage.

Most of the week I spent with Dr. Charles Cobb of the Florida Museum of Natural History and his crew at a site in Lowndes County. One day, though, I went to an Oktibbeha County site where Dr. Brad Lieb and the Chickasaw Explorers were working. There Brad informed me of a fascinating discovery. It was, however, not an archaeological find. It was a plant.

Vickie DeMarrais and Virgil Franks of Oklahoma had both taken off two weeks to join the Chickasaw archaeology team, and both were familiar with traditional Chickasaw and Seminole traditional medicine. They had spotted plants at a 16th century proto-Chickasaw village site in Oktibbeha County, that were mentioned in traditional herbal medicine lore.

The biggest surprise was a coralbean shrub. A couple of these plants with bright red blossoms were at the edge of the woods adjacent to the old village site. Brad showed me the plant which he described as an “ancient Saquechuma-Chickasha medicine plant.” The plant is not native to northeast Mississippi and those at the site appear to be relic descendants of plants from when a large indigenous American Indian community resided there hundreds of years ago.

Though the plant’s red seeds are highly toxic to humans, the Indians had been able to process the plant in a such way as to make it a safe and effective medicine. The red beans found in the plants seed pods were also used in making necklaces.

Another plant that is not native to this area but is sometimes found at old village sites is the Yaupon Holly which was used in making “the black drink”. It was boiled into a thick black liquid used in a ritual purification of the body concluding with extensive vomiting. In a far less concentrated form it makes a not-so-bad tea.

When asking Vickie about traditional medical uses of local plants she told me that she had been related by marriage to a noted old time “Seminole African-Indian doctor”, Sam Osborne, who had lived in Oklahoma. She called a relative to get additional information on local pants that he had often used in the preparation of traditional medicine. As some of these plants are highly toxic and their exact preparation and application is not known they should not be consumed, taken or applied in any way. A list of plants used by Dr. Osborne, which were described as native plants, was provided by a descendant in Oklahoma and included:

“White Shumate (sumac) – swimming in head (or) dizziness

Rap Jack – heart burn

In Columbus history, Gideon Lincecum in the mid-1820s spent six weeks studying herbal medicine with a Choctaw doctor. Lincecum found the herbal medicine practiced by the Indians to be far more effective than the treatment provided by Anglo-American doctors in Columbus.

It was amazing to find that some of the plants imported into this area over 400 years ago by the Chickasaws can still be found around the old village sites.

Rufus Ward is a local historian. Email your questions about local history to him at [email protected].

Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].

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