By Carrie Bradshaw-Buckley, Media Relations Specialist
Chickasaw Nation Media Relations Office
Chickasaw Renaissance
Chickasaw Lives
Chickasaw Removal
Proud to be Chickasaw
A tribal historian, a renowned Oklahoma artist and an award-winning research team will be signing copies of their newly-released publications at the Chickasaw Nation Arts and Culture Awards 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 30 at Murray State College's ballroom in Tishomingo.
New titles published by the Chickasaw Press include: "Proud to be Chickasaw" by Chickasaw artist Mike Larsen, his wife Martha and Jeannie Barbour; "Chickasaw Removal" by Amanda L Paige, Fuller L. Bumpers and Daniel F. Littlefield Jr. and "Chickasaw Lives, Volume Three: Sketches of Past and Present" by Richard Green.
"Proud to be Chickasaw" follows Mike and Martha Larsen's 2008's acclaimed "They Know Who They Are" in bringing readers a series of portraits paired with stories by Chickasaw elders.
Chickasaw Press director Jeannie Barbour joined the Larsens in researching, interviewing and sketching twenty-three notable elders to produce a rich, lasting volume of art and reminiscences that portray how an unconquerable spirit lives among the Chickasaws people.
"Chickasaw Removal" highlights the tribe's experience bringing unprecedented detail to a defining era for Native Americans.
The book highlights the distinctive character of the tribe, the mounting political and social pressures faced by the Chickasaws until they were forced to leave their ancestral homeland and the hardships of the "Trail of Tears".
Paige, Bumpers and Littlefield also investigate frauds that plundered the tribe's wealth, miscalculations made by the U.S. government in its haste to seize the Chickasaws' land and challenges facing the tribe after their arrival in Indian Territory.
The authors worked for almost a decade, consulting volumes of research about the Removal era and Chickasaw history. Their work received the Holisso Award for Best Unpublished Manuscript at the 2009 Chickasaw Nation Arts and Culture Awards.
"Chickasaw Lives, Volume Three: Sketches of Past and Present" was written by tribal historian Richard Green. The third installment of the "Chickasaw Lives" includes both contemporary stories about tribal members and accounts from Chickasaw history.
In six sections, Green reveals 19th-century documents, visits former tribal village sites in Mississippi, tells stories of acclaimed Chickasaws and details how Chickasaws are rescuing their language from near-extinction.
He also follows 18th-century English trader James Adair and recounts how in 1731, the Chickasaws took in Natchez refugees even despite the warnings of mighty France.
These and all Chickasaw Press publications will be featured at the Chickasaw Press display Oct. 2 at the Chickasaw Annual Meeting and Festival on the old Capitol grounds in Tishomingo.
Chickasaw writer Philip Carroll Morgan will also be on hand Sept. 30 and Oct. 2 to sign copies of "Chickasaw Renaissance".
"Chickasaw Renaissance" is the companion piece to the award winning "Chickasaw Unconquered and Unconquerable" published in 2006. It features photographs of living Chickasaw culture and personalities as well as the photos drawn from deep within archival vaults to create a combination of visual rhetoric and substantial historical scholarship that takes readers through Chickasaw history.
Part of the Chickasaw Nation Division of History and Culture, the Chickasaw Press publishes non-fiction books on tribal history, traditions and culture.
All publications are available at the Chickasaw Cultural Center in Sulphur, Okla. and through the Chickasaw Press at www.chickasawpress.com.
