Pre-European Influence

The winter house or stove house was in the shape of a 6 and housed the family during cold weather. The shape allowed for entry only by single file, and it was dark inside so it could easily be defended from intruders. The plastered walls were whitewashed within and without, either with decayed oyster shells, coarse chalk or white marly clay; one or another was abundant in the area even when the settlement was far distant from the sea shores.

Each Chickasaw of consequence owned a group of dwellings, including the summer house, corn house and fowl house. The women had a communal menstrual house they used for the "unclean times" and for a time after giving birth to a child.

The materials used in constructing the houses included logs, grass thatch, notched roof rafters, clay and withered grass daub, white oak splints, cane or hickory and honeylocust posts, cypress clap-boards and bark.

On the inside, mattress frames were constructed from long cane splinters. The bedding consisted of skins of wild beasts, such as buffalo, panthers, bears, elks and deer, which they dressed with the hair on, which made them soft as velvet.

Platform mounds were built in the towns as foundations for the chiefs house and other public structures in late prehistoric times throughout the southeast.