The Seed and the Story for February 8, 2012: Origins of the Chickalah Name.
The Seed and the Story is a bi-weekly column exploring folklife, sustainability, oral history, human rights,and community in Yell County, Arkansas. The column is published in the Post Dispatch and is syndicated in the Courier. Please remember to support your local paper and independent media!
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Update: I originally listed the Highway as Highway 28 instead of Highway 27. A reader from Chickalah corrected me. Thanks so much! This is what I get for working in a hurry due to computer problems. But computer problems are fixed now. Thanks so much!
I’m very excited about the continued response from these recent columns on Chickalah. Please excuse my delay in responding to emails. Last week my computer, which has long since seen better days, crashed one last and final time. Thanks to the generosity of some very dear friends, I’ll soon have a new (to me) computer with several nice upgrades!
In the past few weeks I’ve discussed the somewhat recent history of Chickalah (click here to read the first installment and here to read the second), but this week’s column will go back quite a bit further and explore what little we know about the community’s unique name. I don’t about you, but as soon as I was old enough to read, those white letters on the green background of the sign on Highway 27 always intrigued me. It’s a Native American name, but where did exactly did it come from? And why don’t we pronounce it phonetically, I’ve always wondered. How did it sound on the lips of the early settlers? I don’t have any answers for these last two questions, but, of course, the word is full of places whose names ring quite differently from the lips of the residents than the sign might suggest. One of my personal favorites is the Newton County community of Mount Judea, which is pronounced by locals as Mount Judy.
There are more mysteries to Chickalah’s Native American history than there are answers, and the sources we do have are, at best, fragmented and incomplete. Tribe members have long since left the area, forced out of this region, and most of the rest of the United States, by a host of factors, including what amounts to genocidal acts perpetuated by the U.S government to eradicate their presence in the area. We do know, however, that the community’s name is a variation of Chikileh, the name of a Cherokee chief, who, according to researcher Samuel Dickenson, was “noted for his oratory.”
He lived in the area in the early 1800s and supposedly gave a provocative speech, passionately calling for peace between the Cherokee and Osage, who also lived in the area. His speech convinced others to put away their differences and the fighting ceased. According to the Cherokee-English Dictionary Chikileh’s own name comes from the phrase Tsgwa-legwala, which means “whippoorwill.” Other sources say his name derives from a word that means “chickadee.”
Today the region bears his name, but the man himself is largely an enigma. Where did he live exactly and when did Chief Chikileh leave? During the Trail of Tears perhaps, which began soon after his speech calling for peace? Did he live to be an old man? Did he die in route? Or is he buried somewhere in the area, as some old timers once believed? Did he have a family, and if so, what happened to them?
I wonder if he had any idea that the village would forever carry his name and that people hundreds of years later would be curious about his story. And for that matter, who are his ancestors today? I don’t have any answers to these questions, but that’s not to say they’re not out there, perhaps available in the archives of the Cherokee Nation. If I find out more I’ll let you know. It’s endlessly fascinating, and sobering, how the land both clings to stories and loses them, and how we wonder about the people who came before, even their names a mystery.
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Greetings again. You really need to visit with my parents. “Chickalah” was not the chief, he was the medicine man and my Father can tell you all about him…..479-495-7256 Richard or Mary Belcher. Mom can also tell you about the Chickalah Academy. Thanks.
Thanks, Betty! According to multiple books about Arkansas history he is listed as a chief, but I’ve always been curious about this because he’s not listed on the Cherokee roles. Would love to hear more about this and will call them! Hopefully can come out for a visit sometime in the near future! Thanks again!
Somehow this is intertwined with the name Chickalee from the 1906 applications to the Cherokee Nation rejected. I trace one of my ancestors to the name of Rice. That Rice’s mother had also an offspring named James Alfred East.
James East stated that Rice is a cherokee lineage from the root named Chickalee.
The mother’s surname in 1818 had been Brown. (Wilson County, TN)
James East’s father was John East and he lived around Big Lake, (S.E.) Arkansas and was at least once marked as ‘ind’ in the race field of US census. His lineage root was said by James East to be Wathacapi.
Missionary Cephas Washburn is the source of the account of the peace address made by ChihKilLeh. If you take Tsa-la-gi voweling of the name you might get Chee(h)-Kee(l)Lah but because of the extra constanants, I believe that the intended effect was a phonetic sounding of Chee-KeeL-Lay noises. < a working similar to phonetics of Tsi-Ki(L)-Le. Chickalee is the sound the Chickadee mountain bird would make. -Sometimes seen as having a likeness among mythical spirits.
It is said that a sort of Cherokee senator unto his people's government was an orphan put upon the roles by his uncle or grandfather Chickalee. That person was John 'Rotten' Ross.
There will be arguments over these things for years to come but at least I have said that which others might take further into the known by research.
One source of interest to a retelling of Chih-Kil-Leh's Cherokee-Osage peace speech will be "Bramble Bush, The Quarterly Newsletter of the Historic Genealogical Society of Marion County, Arkansas" volume 4, Number 3 for July 1999 – Yellville, Arkansas 72687.