Monday Museum Mystery: Who is the Native American Tribe?

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Monday Museum Mysteries are back! In this biweekly feature, we unlock the vault and share hidden treasures from our collection. Try your hardest to answer the questions asked, and when you think you know, check out the bottom of the post for the correct answer! This semester, Monday Museum Mysteries is teaming up with the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies, so each post will focus in some way on women and their impact on the world! 

This week on Monday Museum Mysteries, we are celebrating Native Americans! November is American Indian Heritage Month. There are many different tribes in the United States, and in Mississippi, there are 21 different tribes and groups. One tribe makes beautiful baskets to use and sell. Do you know who they are?

 The baskets are usually weaved out of cane. They were usually woven by women, but men and boys often helped collect the cane for the baskets. The baskets used to be the natural cane color, but these Native Americans developed a way to dye the cane yellow and red, using plant roots. Black and brown bark was also used in some of the baskets. About 100 years ago, our mystery American Indians began to use commercial dyes and had access to many more colors. Who do you think these people are?

 The cane stalks that were gathered came from the banks of rivers and streams. In what is now Noxubbe County in East Mississippi. There is a river there that is called "Oski ai almo" or "cane there gathered." Cane and other plants were very important to our mystery tribe.

Women, in this tribe, were incredibly important and respected. They were in charge of gardening and farming and cooking. This tribe also traced its ancestry through the woman's side of the family. 



The Native American women created works of art that were not only beautiful, but also useful! These baskets were used to carry food, sticks, and sometimes even babies. Today, the baskets are usually woven to sell, but they are still very important and treasured objects!

This tribe is now so large there are members all over the Southern United States, all the way into Oklahoma! Who do you think these people are? 

After you have thought long and hard about who our mystery people are, then scroll down to the end of the post to reveal the answer!





The answer to this mystery is the Choctaw tribe! In Mississippi, there are over 10,000 members of the Choctaw tribe. They weave these beautiful baskets to help spread their culture and keep tradition alive. 

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