The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians are the descendants of Choctaw who stayed in their homeland through the Removal that followed the 1830 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. The people call themselves Chahta. The tribe, the only federally recognized one in Mississippi, counts more than 11,000 members and holds some 35,000 acres, and its communities cluster around Philadelphia. The Chahta Immi Cultural Center, in the Choctaw Town Center at Pearl River, is the tribe's own place for telling that story, so it makes a good first stop in this region.
The museum inside opened in 1981. It shows arrowheads, baskets and other objects, with craft demonstrations and a shop where tribal artisans sell their work. Basketry is the art to look for: weavers cut swamp cane, split it into strips, dye them and work them into patterns such as the diamond, which is said to represent the eastern diamondback rattlesnake. The women's dresses, trimmed with hand-sewn appliqué and drawn from a nineteenth-century design, belong to the same living tradition, as does the stickball played at the Choctaw Fair, held at Pearl River since 1949. A tribal language program works with children and families.
Plan the visit around what the tribe invites. Its visitor page lists the cultural center, the Choctaw Veterans Memorial built in 2010, Lake Pushmataha and the Nanih Waiya mound, where the cave stays closed. Tours of tribal lands are by advance request through the Office of Public Information. The tribe's archives share the building but serve research requests, not tours. A call ahead saves a trip.
The closest stops worth working into your route