Chisha' Tálla'a' and the Chickasaw Preserve

The Chickasaw Chisha' Talla'a' Preserve is a place near Tupelo, Mississippi, where parts of our ancient ancestors' lives can be explored, interpreted, commemorated, and felt.In recent years Governor Anoatubby has led our tribal nation into a renaissance which continues to unfold. A part of our mission of enhancing the overall quality of life of the Chickasaw people includes the preservation, protection, and interpretation of early Chickasaw village sites in the traditional homeland of the tribe. Reconnecting with our Chickasaw Southeastern native heritage is an increasing opportunity. The general American public can also benefit from learning about the role of Chickasaw history and culture in the development and growth of the United States of America. Archaeological sites document tribal villages and towns, battlefields, burial sites, and even the homes and hunting camps of Chickasaw ancestors. Each site tells a story, and the Chisha' Talla'a' Preserve provides a place for the Chickasaw Nation to tell our story. Suburban sprawl, artifact hunting, and soil erosion continue to take a toll on Chickasaw archaeological cultural sites in the homelands, but the Chickasaw Preserve facilitates a unique effort to conserve and interpret the area's natural and cultural history for generations to come. With the assistance of the Archaeological Conservancy, the Chickasaw Preserve's quiet, wooded glade and ridge location provides a place for people to reconnect educationally, emotionally, and spiritually with Chickasaw ancestry.The traditional Chickasaw homeland extended over northern Mississippi, northwestern Alabama, western Tennessee, and into southwestern Kentucky, but the core area of permanent settlements clustered around present-day Tupelo, Mississippi, for most of the years between 1675 and 1800. Four major settlement areas stretched over the prairie ridges and bluffs of the Blackland Prairie physiographic province. These were known as Chokkilissa', Chokka' Falaa', Chisha' Talla'a' (modern-day Coonewah Ridge), and Ayanaka'. Several thousand Chickasaws lived in family house groups scattered in numerous villages or towns among these broader settlement areas (Atkinson 2004; Cegielski and Lieb 2011; Cook, Palmer, and Riley 1980; Dyson 2014). As one of many dispersed village sites that dotted about ten miles of the Coonewah Ridge, the Chickasaw Preserve's property was once a part of the town of Chisha' Talla'a', or Post Oak Grove. With a commanding view of the Coonewah Creek floodplain below, Chisha' Talla'a' was once home to many Chickasaws who lived vigorous and rewarding lives, but ultimately died and were buried at this sacred site.While the preserve is currently covered mostly in cedar and other trees, it looked very different when Chickasaws lived here. Fire was the primary landscape management tool Chickasaws used to clear brush and tall, dead grass. The ancient Chickasaws preferred a prairie setting on the highest ground adjacent to the Blackland Prairie region's sluggish and swampy stream bottoms. A rich mix of ecotone natural resources as well as enhanced defensive oversight of the landscape was the reward for choosing and maintaining settings such as is found at the preserve. Wood gathering for fuel as well as construction of houses, palisades, and other structures soon depleted nearby trees. Outdoor shade was provided by brush arbors. The flood plain at the bottom of the bluff was a nearly impassable wetland with cypress and tupelo gum brakes, other trees, the useful cane, and beaver dam areas.Areas of fertile soil on the uplands were cultivated to the Three Sisters-corn, beans, and squash-which were supplemented by harvest of wild local plants such as chestnuts, hickory, walnuts, acorns, plums, strawberries, persimmons, maypops, pawpaws, and wild pea vines, such as the now federally protected Price's Potato Bean (Apios priceana), which still grows wild at the Chickasaw Preserve. Corn played a special role, and many dishes were made of it, such as pashofa, a hominy stew; tahfullah, a cold, soured corn dish; and banaha, a corn meal-and-bean tamale. …