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The Creek Public Square
All the Creek towns,
viz., the more populous settlements, had
laid out a square-shaped piece of ground in
or near their central part. It contained the
only public buildings of the town, the great
house and the council-house, and, as an
appurtenance, the play-ground. The square
was the focus of the public and social life
of the town; its present Creek name,
intchúka ‘láko, is taken from the "great
house" as its principal portion.
From the eighteenth
century we possess three descriptions of the
square and the ceremonies enacted in it,
which are entering into copious details;
that of W. Bartram, describing the square of
Atasi town (about 1775); that of C. Swan,
describing that of Odshi-apófa, or the
Hickory Ground (1791), and last, but not
least, the description of the square at
Kawita, by B. Hawkins (1799). All the towns
differed somewhat in the structure of the
great house and of the council-house, but in
the subsequent sketch we shall chiefly dwell
upon those points in which they all seem to
agree. Public squares still exist at the
present time in some of the pureblood towns
of the Creek nation, Indian Territory, and
the busk, in its ancient, though slightly
modified form, is annually celebrated in
them. The ground plan of the square at the
Hickory Ground is represented in
Schoolcraft's Indians V, 264.
Of other buildings
destined for public use I have found no
mention, except of granaries or corncribs,
which were under the supervision of the
miko.
The great house, tchúku
‘láko, also called "town-house," "public
square," like the square in the midst of
which it was placed, was formed by four
one-story buildings of equal size, facing
inward, and enclosing a square area of about
thirty feet on each side.1 They were
generally made to face the east, west, north
and south.
These buildings, which
had the appearance of sheds, consisted of a
wooden frame, supported on posts set in the
ground and covered with slabs. They were
made of the same material as their dwelling
houses, but differed by having the front
facing the square open, and the walls of the
back sides had an open space of two feet or
more next to the eaves, to admit a
circulation of air. Each house was divided
into three apartments, separated by low
partitions of clay, making a total of twelve
partitions. These apartments, called cabins
(tópa) had three2 seats, or rather
platforms, being broad enough to sleep upon;
the first of them was about two feet from
the ground, the second eight feet above the
first, and the third or back seat eight feet
above the second. Over the whole of these
seats was spread a covering of cane-mats, as
large as carpets. They were provided with
new coverings every year, just before the
busk; and since the old covers were not
removed, they had in the majority of the
squares eight to twelve coverings, laid one
above the other. Milfort states that each
cabin could seat from forty to sixty persons
(Memoire, p. 203).
Caleb Swan, who, in his
above description of the cabins in the
square, copied the original seen at
Odshi-apófa or Little Talassie, where he
stopped, differs in several particulars,
especially in the allotment of the cabins to
the authorities, from Hawkins, who resided
in Kawita. Swan assigns the eastern building
to the beloved men, the southern to the
warriors, the northern to the second men,
etc., while the western building served for
keeping the apparatus for cooking black
drink, war physic, and to store lumber.
According to
Hawkins, the western
building, fronting east, contained the míkos
and high-ranked people; the northern
building was the warriors; the southern that
of the beloved men, and the eastern that of
the young people and their associates. "The
cabin of the great chief faces east," says
Milfort, p. 203, "to indicate that he has to
watch the interests of his nation
continually." The three cabins of the
míkalgi or old men, facing west, are the
only ones painted white, and are always
ornamented with garlands (at Kawita). On the
post, or on a plank over each cabin, are
painted the emblems of the gens to which it
is allotted; thus the buffalo gens have the
buffalo painted on it.
From the roofs were
dangling on the inside heterogeneous emblems
of peace and trophies of war, as eagles
feathers, swans wings, wooden scalping
knives, war clubs, red-painted wands,
bunches of hoops on which to dry their
scalps, bundles of a war-physic called
snake-root (sinika in Cheroki), baskets,
etc. Rude paintings of warriors heads with
horns, horned rattlesnakes, horned
alligators, etc., were visible upon the
smooth posts and timbers supporting the
great house. In the "painted squares" of
some of the red or war-towns the posts and
smooth timber were painted red, with white
or black edges, this being considered as a
mark of high distinction. Other privileged
towns possessed a covered square, by which
term is meant a bridging over of the
entrance spaces left between the four
buildings by means of canes laid on poles.
In the centre of the
area of the "great house " a perpetual fire
was burning, fed by four logs, and kept up
by public ministrants especially appointed
for the purpose. The inside area is called
impaskófa, "dedicated ground."
The "square" was hung
over with green boughs, in sign of mourning,
when a man died in the town; no black drink
was then taken for four days. When an Indian
was; killed who belonged to a town which had
a square, black drink had to be taken on the
outside of the square, and every ceremony
was suspended until the outrage was atoned
for. To each great house belonged a black
drink cook, and from the young warriors two
or three men were appointed to attend to
those who took this liquid every morning;
they called the townspeople to this ceremony
by beating drums (C. Swan).
After the close of
their council-meeting in the council-house,
the miko, his councilors and warriors
repaired to the chiefs cabin in the "great
house." They met there every day, drank the
ássi or black drink, continued deliberations
on public and domestic affairs, attended to
complaints and redressed them; then
conversed about news while smoking, or
amused themselves at playing "roll the
bullet" in a sort of ten-pin alley. The name
of this game is ‘li-i tchallítchka. Bartram,
p. 453, states that the chief s cabin at
Atasi was of a different construction from
the three other buildings.
But besides being the
central point of the town for all meetings
of a public character, the great house was
the festive place for the annual busk and
the daily dance; it occasionally served as a
sleeping place for Indians passing through
the town on their travels. The special
locations allotted to the persons in
authority and the gentes on the cabin-sheds
are described under the heading: The annual
busk.
The council-house or
tchukófa ‘láko stood on a circular mound or
eminence, in close contiguity to the
northeast corner of the "great house." It is
variously called by travelers: hot-house,
sudatory, assembly-room, winter
council-house, mountain-house,3 or, from
its circular shape, rotunda. Its appearance
is generally described as that of a huge
cone placed on an octagonal frame about
twelve feet high, and covered with tufts of
bark. Its diameter was from twenty-five, to
thirty feet, and in the larger towns the
building could accommodate many
hundred persons.4 Its
perpendicular walls were made of thick
posts, daubed with clay on the outside.
Contiguous to the walls, one broad circular
seat, made of cane-mats, was going around
the structure on the inside, and in the
centre the fire was burning on a small
elevation of the ground. The fuel consisted
of dry cane or dry pine slabs split fine;
and, as if it were to give a concrete image
of the warming rays of the sun, these split
canes were disposed in a spiral line which
exhibited several revolutions around the
centre. No opening was provided for the
escape of the smoke or the admission of
fresh air, and the building soon became
intolerably hot; but at dance-feasts the
natives danced around the fire in the
terrible heat and dust, without the least
apparent inconvenience.5
The council-house
served, to some extent, the same purposes
as the "great house," but was more resorted
to in the inclement season than in summer.
Every night during winter the old and young
visited it for conversation or dance, and in
very cold weather the old and destitute went
there to sleep. In all seasons it was the
assembly-room of the miko and his counselors
for deliberations of a private character;
there they decided upon punishments to be
inflicted, as whip ping etc., and entrusted
the Great Warrior with the execution of the
sentences. Previous to a war-expedition the
young men visited the hothouse for four
days, prepared and drank their war-physic,
and sang their war- and charm-songs under
the leadership of conjurers.6 Milfort was
installed into the charge of "Great Warrior
of the Nation" in the Kawita council-house
by solemn orations, the smoking of the pipe, the drinking of the
ássi-decoct and other ceremonies,7 and then
conducted to the "great house."
When the natives
gathered in this structure for sweating,
either for promoting their health or as a
religious ceremony, they developed steam by
throwing water on heated stones, then danced
around the fire, and went to plunge into the
chilling waves of the river flowing past
their town.
The playground occupied
the northwestern angle of the public square,
and formed an oblong segment of it, of
rather irregular shape. It was made distinct
from the rest of the square by one or two
low embankments or terraces; in its centre
stood, on a low circular mound, a four-sided
pole or pillar, sometimes forty feet high. A
mark fastened on its top served at appointed
times as a target to shoot at with rifles or
arrows. Around the pole the floor of the
yard was beaten solid.
The playground, tă’dshu
in Creek, was called by the white traders
chunkey-yard, chunk-yard, from the principal
game played in it. This game, the chunkey-
or tchungke-game, consisted in throwing a
pole after the chunke, a rounded stone which
was set rolling upon its edge. Cf. Adair,
Hist., p. 401. 402. There was also a sort of
ball play in use among the Creeks and many
other Indian tribes, by which a ball (púku)
was aimed at an object suspended on the top
of a high pole, or, as it is played now, at
the top of two twin poles (puk-ábi), called
sometimes "maypoles." In summer time dances
were also performed in this yard, and
Bartram saw "at the corner of each farther
end a slave-post or strong stake, where the
captives that are burnt alive are bound."8
Footnotes:
- Hawkins says: Forty
by sixteen feet, eight feet pitch, the
entrance at each corner (p. 68).
- Hawkins: two seats.
- Adair, History, p.
421.
- Hawkins, Sketch, p.
71, Bartram, Travels, p. 448 sqq.
- Bartram states that
the Creek rotundas were of the same
architecture as those of the Cheroki, but of
much larger dimensions: Travels, p. 449.
- Hawkins, Sketch, p.
79.
- Milfort, Memoire, p.
211.
- Travels, p. 518.
Back to: Creek
Government
Notes About Book:
Source: Gatschet, Albert S., A Migration Legend of the Creek Indians.
Pub.
D.G. Brinton, Philadelphia, 1884.
Notes about Online Publication: This manuscript has been ocr'd and heavily
edited. Many of the Native American words have been reproduced as clearly as
online publication will allow us, but not all are exactly the way they were in
the original work. The structure of this manuscript has been changed to allow
better online presentation.
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