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Nanih Waiya
Nanih Waiya (alternately spelled Nunih Waya; Choctaw for 'slanting mound') is an ancient platform mound in southern Winston County, Mississippi, constructed by indigenous people during the Middle Woodland period, about 300 to 600 CE. Since the 17th century, the Choctaw and Chickasaw have venerated Nanih Waiya mound and a nearby cave as their sacred origin location. The earthwork mound of Nanih Waiya is about tall, wide, and long. Evidence suggests it was originally a larger platform mound, which has eroded into the present shape. At one time, it was bounded on three sides by a circular earthwork enclosure about ten feet tall, which encompassed one square mile. The Choctaw lost control of this property during the 1830s and period of their removal to Indian Territory. After being privately owned, the state acquired it to preserve the ancient site and operated it as a park. In 2006, the Mississippi Legislature's State Bill 2803 officially returned control of the site to the ...
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Winston County, Mississippi
Winston County is a county located in the U.S. state of Mississippi. In the 2020 census, the population was 17,714. Its county seat is Louisville. The county is named for Louis Winston (1784–1824), a colonel in the militia, a prominent lawyer, and a judge of the Mississippi Supreme Court. The county is the site of '' Nanih Waiya'', an ancient mound built in the Woodland period, about 1 CE-300 CE. Since the 17th century, it has been venerated by the Choctaw people who later occupied the area.Ken Carleton, "Nanih Waiya: Mother Mound of the Choctaw"
''The Delta Endangered'', Spring 1996, Vol.1 (1), NPS Archeology Program, accessed November 16, 2009
As of 2008, the mound is owned by the

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Mississippian Culture
The Mississippian culture was a collection of Native American societies that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 to 1600 CE, varying regionally. It was known for building large, earthen platform mounds, and often other shaped mounds as well. It was composed of a series of urban settlements and satellite villages linked together by loose trading networks. The largest city was Cahokia, believed to be a major religious center, located in what is present-day southern Illinois. The Mississippian way of life began to develop in the Mississippi River Valley (for which it is named). Cultures in the tributary Tennessee River Valley may have also begun to develop Mississippian characteristics at this point. Almost all dated Mississippian sites predate 1539–1540 (when Hernando de Soto explored the area), with notable exceptions being Natchez communities. These maintained Mississippian cultural practices into the 1 ...
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Great Spirit
The Great Spirit is an omnipresent supreme life force, generally conceptualized as a supreme being or god, in the traditional religious beliefs of many, but not all, indigenous cultures in Canada and the United States. Interpretations of it vary between cultures. In the Lakota tradition, the Great Spirit is known as '' Wakan Tanka''.Ostler, Jeffry. ''The Plains Sioux and U.S. Colonialism from Lewis and Clark to Wounded Knee''. Cambridge University Press, July 5, 2004. , pg 26. According to Lakota activist Russell Means, a more semantically accurate translation of ''Wakan Tanka'' is the Great Mystery.Means, Robert. ''Where White Men Fear to Tread: The Autobiography of Russell Means''. Macmillan, 1995. pg 241. Often, Lakota language prayers begin with the phrase "Tunkasila", which translates to "grandfather, Great Spirit." In the Haudenosaunee tradition, the Great Spirit is known as "the Creator". Haudenosaunee men's lacrosse team captain Lyle Thompson, characterized it as " ...
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George Catlin
George Catlin ( ; July 26, 1796 – December 23, 1872) was an American lawyer, painter, author, and traveler, who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans in the American frontier. Traveling to the Western United States, American West five times during the 1830s, Catlin wrote about and painted portraits that depicted the life of the Plains Indians. His early work included engravings, drawn from nature, of sites along the route of the Erie Canal in New York State. Several of his renderings were published in one of the first printed books to use lithography, Cadwallader D. Colden's ''Memoir, Prepared at the Request of a Committee of the Common Council of the City of New York, and Presented to the Mayor of the City, at the Celebration of the Completion of the New York Canals'', published in 1825, with early images of the Buffalo, New York, City of Buffalo. Early life and education Catlin was born in 1796 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Whi ...
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Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes spanning the Canada–United States border. The five lakes are Lake Superior, Superior, Lake Michigan, Michigan, Lake Huron, Huron, Lake Erie, Erie, and Lake Ontario, Ontario (though hydrologically, Lake Michigan–Huron, Michigan and Huron are a single body of water, joined at the Straits of Mackinac). The Great Lakes Waterway enables modern travel and shipping by water among the lakes. The lakes connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River, and to the Mississippi River basin through the Illinois Waterway. The Great Lakes are the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total area and the second-largest by total volume. They contain 21% of the world's surface fresh water by volume. The total surface is , and the total volume (measured at the low water datum) is , slightly less than the volume of Lake Baikal (, 22–23% of the world's surface f ...
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Iroquoian Languages
The Iroquoian languages () are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking. As of 2020, almost all surviving Iroquoian languages are severely or critically endangered, with some languages having only a few elderly speakers remaining. The two languages with the most speakers, Mohawk (Kenien'kéha) in New York and Canada, and Cherokee in Oklahoma and North Carolina, are spoken by less than 10% of the populations of their nations. Family division *Iroquoian **Northern Iroquoian ***(Lake Iroquoian) ****Iroquois Proper (Five Nations) ***** Seneca (severely endangered) ***** Cayuga (severely endangered) ***** Onondaga (severely endangered) *****Susquehannock or Conestoga *****Mohawk–Oneida ****** Oneida (severely endangered) ****** Mohawk ****Huronian ***** Huron-Wyandot ***** Petun (Tobacco) ***Tuscarora–Nottoway **** Tuscarora **** Meherri ...
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Cherokee
The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern North Carolina, southeastern Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, edges of western South Carolina, northern Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia and northeastern Alabama with hunting grounds in Kentucky, together consisting of around 40,000 square miles. The Cherokee language is part of the Iroquoian languages, Iroquoian language group. In the 19th century, James Mooney, an early American Ethnography, ethnographer, recorded one oral tradition that told of the Tribe (Native American), tribe having migrated south in ancient times from the Great Lakes region, where other Iroquoian Peoples, Iroquoian peoples have been based. However, anthropologist Thomas R. Whyte, writing in 2007, dated the split among the peoples as occurring earlier. He believes that ...
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Creek People
The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek or just Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language; English: ), are a group of related Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern WoodlandsTranscribed documents
Sequoyah Research Center and the American Native Press Archives
in the . Their historical homelands are in what now comprises southern , much of , western

Beasley Denson
Beasley Denson served as Miko or Tribal Chief of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians from 2007 to 2011. He is the third person to be elected as Tribal Chief since the tribe adopted its modern constitution. Beasley Denson defeated 28-year incumbent Phillip Martin by 211 votes, receiving 1,697 votes compared to Martin's 1,486. Early life and education Beasley Denson was born in the Conehatta Community as the son of the late David Denson and Bema Steve York. He has two sisters, Angela and Rita, and a brother, Douglas Sam Denson. They grew up in the Standing Pine Community of Choctaw, Mississippi. He is a fluent Choctaw speaker. Denson graduated from Choctaw Central High School and earned an associate degree from Hinds Community College and Mississippi State University. He married Lena John of Red Water and Pearl River. They have two sons, Michael David and Darren Keith, one daughter, Lane; a son-in-law Oga; and six grandchildren. Early career Denson went to work for the Choc ...
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Neshoba County, Mississippi
Neshoba County is a county located in the central part of the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2020 census, the population was 29,087. Its county seat is Philadelphia. The county is known for the Neshoba County Fair and harness horse races. It is home of the Williams Brothers Store, which has been in operation since the early 1900s. In June 1964, civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were chased down, tortured, and murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan. They were buried in an earthen dam on private property off Highway 21; Goodman was still alive. Initially treated as a missing persons case, their disappearance provoked national outrage and contributed significantly to the July enactment of the Civil Rights Act by President Johnson. The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians (MBCI), a federally recognized tribe, is based here and has developed one of the largest casino complexes in the state on their reservation, the Pearl River R ...
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Green Corn Festival
The Green Corn Ceremony (Busk) is an annual ceremony practiced among various Native American peoples associated with the beginning of the yearly corn harvest. Busk is a term given to the ceremony by white traders, the word being a corruption of the Creek word ''puskita (pusketv)'' for "a fast". These ceremonies have been documented ethnographically throughout the North American Eastern Woodlands and Southeastern tribes. Historically, it involved a first fruits rite in which the community would sacrifice the first of the green corn to ensure the rest of the crop would be successful. These Green Corn festivals were practiced widely throughout southern North America by many tribes evidenced in the Mississippian people and throughout the Mississippian Ideological Interaction Sphere. Green Corn festivals are still held today by many different Southeastern Woodland tribes. The Green Corn Ceremony typically occurs in late June or July, determined locally by the developing of the corn ...
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Choctaw People
The Choctaw ( ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States, originally based in what is now Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choctaw people are enrolled in three federally recognized tribes: the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, Jena Band of Choctaw Indians in Louisiana. Choctaw descendants are also members of other tribes. Etymology The Choctaw autonym is Chahta. "Choctaw" is an anglicized spelling. According to anthropologist John R. Swanton, the Choctaw derived their name from an early leader of the Choctaw people. Language The Choctaw language belongs to the Muskogean language family. The Choctaw language was well known among the American frontiersmen of the early 19th century. In 1870, a Christian Missionary and fluent Choctaw speaker Cyrus Byington published a Choctaw Dictionary ''Grammar of the Choctaw Language.'' Revise ...
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