The Choctaw People & Nation: Culture, History, Arts & Music - Trail Of Tears

well we're way away [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] culture has been defined as man's expert somatic means about outpatient that means basically it's the he is tools the techniques the people used to live the specific Choctaw grandma culture has its roots in the Choctaw homeland over the last thirteen thousand years or so culture is something that's adaptive it changes it grows and develops through time just like anything that's a lot so Choctaw culture has done this through the centuries it's been developed it's been passed down from generation to generation some of the elder people have taken great pains to hold on to a Choctaw traditional culture in Choctaw traditional knowledge despite the obstacles that are out there and today to have young people who are interested in learning about these things there comes an energy and an excitement and that's something that's very hard way that it's been passed through centuries it's still happening today [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] yeah [Music] down upon a bed [Music] I heard mom the Russia's day we we [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we're needed some of the Choctaw world traditions the bow and arrow is a gift that was given to us by God himself before Choctaw is used the bow we use something called the atlatl it's a kind of spear thrower those were in use up until about 780 or so in the Choctaw homeland after that almost everybody started to use the bow and arrow [Music] the door so I turn to the garden of love sweet flowers for [Music] [Applause] and I it was filled with rage and tombstones where flowers should be [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] with Brian as my joys and desires [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the preservation of traditional art traditional knowledge it's what makes talk about people you need it's ultimately what gives us our identity if Choctaw people were to lose that if we were to lose our language if you were to lose our traditional arts or songs or dances we would have essentially melted into the American culture it would be just like everybody else there would be nothing to make us unique and in a certain sense the Choctaw people would have died out so by holding on to these things were maintaining our identity for helping Choctaw people as a group as a specific ethnicity to survive [Music] according to this story there was a Choctaw hunter who went looking for deer and late in the evening he found a doe and shot it with his bow and arrow in the night this doe came back to life and he woke up and he was really surprised to see the snow stand-in there alive and then she spoke to him and that surprised him even more she told him to the follower so he got up and he followed her to this cave in the ground and he went down underneath there and there were all the deer inside this cave who the kicking of the deer the leader of the deer told the other animals to take hooves and hide and antlers and put him on him so they did that he kind of struggled but they got it on him and then he himself looked like a deer and he came out the next day and he was running around with the herd of deer the hunters family after several days of him not coming back became concerned and went out to look for him and they went out and they found his camp with his bow sitting there and they knew that something must have happened and at this time a herd of deer ran up and one of them wasn't afraid it came right up to them and the hunters mother looked into the eyes of this animal and saw the eyes of her son and so she kind of freaked out and she insisted that this was their son and the people grabbed it and she said that they needed to take the the hooves and the antlers and hide off of it which they did but this killed her son and so they went home and they mourn them and so to me that this story really plays up the relationship of the connection between Choctaws and deer [Music] [Music] [Music] hooyo not to be ashy maroush Nana chaja obedient Iwata to look at a photo book Chavo image mahadji joe acaba yeah ahoy yama a benedito in karnataka Amitabh Bachchan got a Macedo Sigma chip cozy 18 Tanaka who you should take pitifully adopt manager her eponymous tangi who looked it I am at a shadow a Hui oh gosh chachi happy mistook me up Spanish came through Choctaw country in a 1541 and they were led by Hernando DeSoto and he had four chroniclers that kept accounts of the different battles that were fought there was a Spanish man who was charging a native man and the Spaniard was on horseback and he was going to ride the naval guy down and try to kill him but the native guy shot an arrow at the horse and he hit the horse in the front and almost came out the back into the horse meaning that almost went through about the work eat a horse flush which is amazing Co everybody Co Holly de chimie Chuck ma I'm Cherokee and Choctaw my mom was Cherokee and my grandpa was talked on and we're from Harlan County Kentucky and a lot of our family are still in Oklahoma our extended families there were also on my dad's side who's african-american and Lumbee there's 300 of us in North Carolina so you knock on the doors probably one of my cousins so I'll tell you a little story about how he came to the project that we've been traveling with I used to do sing a lot of rhythm and blues and soul music and then the elders back home family members and people of our community started passing passing on and so when you start losing these amazing people in your family who can help you keep your culture help you keep your language share our stories and you see that leaving I wanted to kind of honor them you know and honor this which lend that we came from anyway I'm gonna start out this is just little old me today and I'm gonna do like a mixture of some songs and also seeing some do some call-and-response so we're gonna try to make this like a little congregation because up in Appalachia where I'm from we do a lot of you know call and response and congregation singing so would you guys like to learn a little bit of psy leggy well you ready wait if I if I holler will you holler back all right Oh y'all are ready today all right well this first one I'm going to honor the women this is a woman's honoring song so you guys just sit tight and we know we know it [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] what does it mean to me oh it's very important it's a part of my tradition you know it's about passing something off something that belonged to your ancestors years and years before the river came flute the very word Oklahoma is tucked oh and here in this land where our ancestors settled water has always been a treasured resource sustained by healthy water river cane is the lifeblood of the art water plays a big role in making the traditional flute you've got to have plenty of water for the switch came to grow and if you don't have enough water they'll pretty much die and then once they die then you've got a tradition that's gone as in every Choctaw art form each meticulous step in the flute making process is a challenge the result an earth forged instrument capable of making beautiful music [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] raaaah [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] Oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I learned this from my mother the art of basketry is alive and well and like pottery it's connected to our land and water what makes our baskets authentic is the cane that grows by our streams replenishing river cane along our waterways will help preserve our heritage and restore wildlife habitats I come here to collect the same materials Weaver's in my family have used for five generations the river cane strands are meticulously woven into a finished basket interest in Choctaw basketry is growing as more and more Choctaws learn this inspiring art form it's very dear to me because it comes from my family my grandmother and my mother and so forth since it's part of Choctaw history and tradition I would hope that they would want to preserve it so that it can continue for many more generations the cultural awakening of the Choctaw Nation is nurturing a new generation of young basketry artists and now I'm so proud both of my boys are carrying on our tradition [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] we will take broken sections of pottery that have been fired lay them on the hot ground we'll take the pottery we wanna fire lay it on top of those broken pieces of pottery then we'll start to build the fire around the pot so we build the fire bigger then we slowly spoon most that heats them up slowly and evenly eventually the pots will get hot enough that they'll start to glow a red color just like glowing red metal that lets us know that they're up over a thousand degrees and then they're functionally fired at that point after that we just let the fire die down let it burn out all night and then we come back the next day and take the pots out the pottery that we make through our classes and that our students make it is fully functional I'm the eating bowls you can eat out of them just like a store-bought container the cooking pots are kind of like cast iron and you season them with oil and then you just set them right on the coals of a fire like you would a Dutch oven the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma is working to revitalize Choctaw traditional pottery so far we've taught 118 class sessions and we've taught them about 18 locations and we've had more than 500 students that the response has been pretty phenomenal [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Jaguar Bird

Views: 26,821

Rating: 4.778656 out of 5

Keywords: yt:quality=hgih, 960 X 540p, large, movie, .mov, indigenous, choctaw, people, nation, rainbow, tribe, code, talkers, artists, crafts, sports, stick, ball, culture, healing, cooking, pottery, of, the, seventh, fire, next, seven, generations, reconciliation, truth, usa, history, knowledge, facts, trail, tears, oklahoma, ok, tennessee, alabama

Id: r8Hmed909SQ

Length: 53min 8sec (3188 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 21 2019