My Life in the Chickasaw Clan

 MY LIFE IN THE CHICKASAW CLAN


  Hi, my name is Crawhawk. I'm 10. My father is the leader of the hunt. My tribe is Chickasaw. We live in the Mississippi area. We use tomahawks and bows and our men who fish use spears and nets. My friends names are Gatorbear, Leopardstripe, Condor, Lionbite, and Eagleye.We play all the time. Our favorite thing to do is practice our aim with bows and tomahawks. I am best with the tomahawk. Today my father took us out to hunt. We killed two deer, three squirrels, and one Buffalo. It took us two trips to get all the food back.
 
   We had to water the crops today and pray to Ababinali, our Creator. Today my friends and I talked about what would happen when we were in the hunt. My friend Leopardstripe said that he would catch the most animals of all of us. I said "We'll see about that!". We had such a big dinner I got sleepy and I almost fell asleep during it, but it was good. In the morning we had deer for breakfast--brumbrumbrumbrumbrum everybody looked out side. It was a surge of buffalo heading toward us. All the men got their bows and tomahawks. I think that it would go on forever.

 Suddenly I looked up and a wave of arrows shot into the air. I looked at the buffalo. Some of them were hit and some were killed. Other buffaloes tripped on the dead and got trampled. It went on a long time but I thought to myself "If we can hold the buffaloes back from trampling the tribe,  we won't have to hunt for a while, but if we can't, we will die".  "Eventually it will be over" I thought. Soon it was and we were on the good side of it. 

The next morning I had a weird feeling that something bad would happen. I looked at the spot where the buffalo were killed. Some of the buffalo were still there. I decided that I would help move the buffalo so I went out with my tomahawk to cut off  small parts of the buffalo and drag it back to camp. I saw my dad moving buffalo to camp so I went over and helped him. Soon all the Buffalo were gone.  

Suddenly I heard a scream across camp and then  I saw another tribe charging toward ours. I saw a boy and he looked right at me. He started running at me.  I pulled out a tomahawk and threw it! It grazed him in the leg and I turned to run. Suddenly I felt a pain in my thigh. It was a spear! An arrow hit my lower leg! I fell crying. He walked up to me and pulled out a spear and I pulled out my second tomahawk and we quarreled. I saw a fishing spear. I rolled over and got it! I thrust my spear at him. He did the same and we started to fist fight. Then it started raining. Two men came over and broke us up. We made a deal that we would share the food and that was the end of the war.   

After that, some roundhouses were burnt down so we had to rebuild them. Some people shared their houses with the ones who had lost theirs. We didn't lose a lot of men because we start warrior training as little kids and we are known as super warriors. I think that we lost about 10 men. Now we started training really hard in case of they attack again.

That night we buried the men and women who died under the houses, sitting up facing West with their faces painted red. We also prayed to Ababinili so that we can have a better future. We had a sad but good dinner. Some people because they had losses in their family but the buffalo was also really good too.

The next morning I got up and asked my dad if we could take a walk to see if my leg was OK. He said "Sure." We walked for a bit. Suddenly we saw a bear. My dad said that we should slowly and carefully go back a bit and go around it. So we walked for a bit back and then we went far around. We also saw a flock of birds and a couple of squirrels and some wild strawberry plants. My dad and I picked some strawberries and ate them. My dad and I decided we should go back. My leg felt a bit better but not a lot. When we got back, breakfast was ready.   It was roasted buffalo.

In the evening, we took my bandage off to see how bad the wound was. It still looked pretty bad but it didn't feel as bad as it looked. The Aliktoe put special plants that has healing medicine in them on my wounds. Then he chanted while he wrapped my leg. After the Aliktoe finished putting my bandage on he said to come see him the next day. He said "You will be healed by the time of the Big Toli game." I felt relieved that I would be able to play in the game. The game was going to be played against the tribe that attacked us to settle the argument over the food. I did everything that the Aliktoe said to do and I eventually got better. I was glad that I was going to be able to play in the Toli game.

Finally the day of the big Toli game came. I was one of the boys chosen to play. The game started at sunrise. The towa was thrown up and the other team grabbed the towa. The first man passed to the guy to the right of him. He tried to pass to another guy but one of our men intercepted it and he started running down the field. Mostly everyone ran down the field. Our guy passed to one of our guys in the center who caught it and started running but then got tackled. The towa fell out of his stick and the other team got it. The other team threw it across the field to one of his players who caught it and ran. It took a while for one of our men to get the guy down. Then I got the towa and I started to run down the field. I saw players from the other team running  at me so I slowed down and passed the towa to another player. I was tired because the game had been going on for a while and the field was really long. After about an hour my team scored a point. The towa was brought back to the center and thrown up in the air. Our team got it but our guy got tackled. The towa went back and forth across the field. The score remained the same until the other team scored a point. It was one to one. The end of the game was coming close as it was beginning to get dark. Everyone was tired. Suddenly all of our men charged up the field. I got the towa, I passed it to another player, who passed it back to me. I caught it with my stick and I launched the towa in the air. It went in the goal and we scored! It was really unlikely that the other team could score. The sun went down ending the game. We won!
The leaders met and announced that the Chickasaw had won settling the argument about the food. We went home and had a long night's sleep. We were happy that we won but also really tired.

The next morning we all had a big feast to celebrate our victory against the Yuchi tribe. I sat next to my friends and we talked about how it felt when I caught the towa and was about to score. After the great feast, my dad took me to get a tattoo of the pattern of the towa on my arm. I felt really good and proud that I scored the point. I never expected that I would score because I am just 10 and the other players are older than me. I feel like I will do many great things in the future.