King Cemetery, in Haskell County, is shown after improvements made by the Choctaw Nation Historic Preservation Department.
Respect, preservation go hand-in-hand during cemetery clean-up
By Zach Maxwell
Choctaw Nation
(Editor’s note: Out of respect for the beliefs of some Choctaws concerning the deceased, the names of the deceased have been removed from this article and photos of individual graves were not used.)
Haskell County, Okla. - Like many cultures, Choctaws maintain a sacred connection with their departed ancestors.
According to legend, ancient Choctaws carried baskets full of bones of their ancestors. This gave way to mound building, where these bones were kept, and the “bone-pickers.”
As Europeans intermingled with the Choctaws, these customs changed over time. In recent years, hybridized burial practices included small shelters built over graves. Some of these can still be found in isolated spots around the Choctaw Nation.
Nowadays, our collective cultures have grown together, making Choctaw Country funeral customs virtually indistinguishable.
But Choctaws still feel that special connection to the departed, which is a major purpose behind a cemetery restoration program operated by Choctaw Nation Historic Preservation.
Gary Batton, Chief of the Choctaw Nation, recently approved an expansion of this program to include more crews. More than 180 cemeteries have been cleared of brush and fenced—but dozens more are waiting their turn.
“These are an important part of our history,” Batton said. “It’s about preservation of our culture and that history. Hopefully, people will start coming back and showing that respect for our loved ones who have gone away.”
Skyler Robinson has been Cemetery Restoration Coordinator for nearly a decade. His office has looked over courthouse records and received calls from tribal members near and far about Choctaw cemeteries.
Many are on private land, much of it kept in ranching, making the small cemetery plots subject to damage from livestock.
“When we find them, you don’t even know it’s there,” Robinson said. “They are overgrown with trees and vines, or the livestock have knocked the headstones down.”
It’s a natural process: At Carney Cemetery near McAlester, the grave of a woman who died in 1915 at age 80 sits aside a cluster of cedars just inches from her tombstone, knocking it off kilter.
Robinson’s crews don’t see much intentional damage, aside from the occasional tell-tale mound of dirt caused by long-ago grave robbers. Nature takes more of a toll in the rugged back-country of the Choctaw Nation.
This is where many Choctaws lived and died before larger cemeteries were organized around towns and churches. Families have scattered, leaving small plots of a few dozen graves without anyone to tend to them. Robinson said some burials are singular while other locations, such as Armstrong Academy, contain five acres of graves.
For example, the Johnico Cemetery in LeFlore County sits in the middle of ranch land and may contain around two dozen graves, many of them Original Enrollees. The Choctaw Nation crew was able to work with the landowner to obtain access, clear trees and brush and erect a modest fence around the site.
In many locations, most graves are marked with a slab of local sandstone. When those stones erode or are buried by time and vegetation, it will end all physical traces of that person’s existence and memorialization.
Like many of the small family cemeteries, there are veterans interred at Carney and Johnico. Among them are two relatives buried side-by-side: An Army corporal and Purple Heart recipient from World War II, and another Army veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
These are among the new generations of Choctaws who served not only fellow tribal members but the whole country in helping fight tyranny overseas.
But there are also the infants who died of flu epidemics, or the elders who carved home places out of the untilled soil after the Trail of Tears. Their stories all contribute to the unique legacy of the Choctaws.
“We need to identify these locations, so it will be a long-living history for these families,” Batton said. He described this effort to care for the departed as “a very emotional and spiritual feeling.”
Chief Batton’s goal is to perpetuate these ancestral legacies by preserving the final resting places of so many forgotten Choctaws. It will serve as a prime example for the current generation as well.