Chickasaw Heritage Center

09/02/2026

Chickasaw citizens and brothers Brandon "Jay" Roberts and Brad "Ace" Greenwood practice beadworking, an art they describe as "storytelling with your hands." They frequently use a bird and the color green in their work in symbolize their ancestral clan and family name. Beaded pieces are often used in traditional dances, powwows and other ceremonial events. Brad's children are learning the craft as well; his 14-year-old even thanked him for showing him how to work with beads, noting that he plans to teach his children the craft one day, too. Want to learn more? Click the link below!

Chickasaw citizens and brothers Brandon "Jay" Roberts and Brad "Ace" Greenwood practice beadworking.

08/26/2026

Chickasaw citizen Jesse Lindsey is a fifth-generation artisan of stickball sticks. The game, he says, was used in territorial times to decide disputes, rather than going to battle. Jesse creates the sticks the exact same way his ancestors have for hundreds of years, and he says he feels connected to them when practicing his craft. Want to learn more? Click the link below!

Chickasaw citizen Jesse Lindsey is a fifth-generation artisan of stickball sticks.

08/21/2026

08/19/2026

Chickasaw potter Dixie Brewer demonstrates the ancient art of handcrafting pinch pots, which have been used for hundreds of years. Most of the pots were utilitarian and temporary, since they weren’t glazed. All pots and baskets were destroyed at the end of each year, and new ones were created the following year. Anything that survived was strictly for ceremonial use. Want to learn more? Click the link below!

Chickasaw potter Dixie Brewer demonstrates the ancient art of handcrafting pinch pots, which have been used for hundreds of years.

08/12/2026

Since time immemorial, Chickasaws have been crafting, wearing and trading different types of beads. Some were created to show a person's place within the clan system while others had ceremonial or ornamental purposes.

Some of the oldest beads found in the Chickasaw homelands date back to the Middle Archaic period 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. Many of these stone effigy beads are adorned with animal carvings that likely correspond to various clans within the Chickasaw social organization. By studying these beads, researchers have found evidence of tools and skills that they previously did not know existed in the Middle Archaic period.

Glass trade beads were first introduced to Chickasaw ancestors in 1540-1541 with the Hernando de Soto expedition. "They're culturally significant, they're historically significant and they're still significant to our society today," says Director of Anthropology LaDonna Brown. Beginning in the 16th century, Chickasaws created and traded a variety of beads, including big blues, rattlesnake beads and cornaline d'aleppo.

"These beads are a tangible link to our ancestors' lives centuries ago and we have a responsibility to preserve them, protect them, learn from them and share that knowledge with Chickasaws today," says Director of Chickasaw Archeology Brad R. Lieb, Ph.D. Want to learn more? Click the link below!

Archeologist Brad R. Lieb, Ph.D. and anthropologist LaDonna Brown discuss the history and importance of beads in Chickasaw society.

08/05/2026

The Chickasaw people maintain a deep connection to Kullihoma, a preserved cultural treasure.

From the first Chickasaw Nation-owned buildings and ceremonial grounds to home-cooked meals and childhood games, Kullihoma's history is a story of persistence and a strong, tight-knit community. "We all helped one another," says Sue Fish, a descendent of one of the families who lived near Kullihoma. "We didn't always have a lot of fancy food, but it always tasted good to me because it was with family and anyone that might be coming by for suppertime," she says.

When Chickasaws first began settling in and around Kullihoma, they brought with them their ceremonial, dance-based religion. These first families maintained traditional ceremonial grounds where they participated in large social dances. In the late 1930s, the grounds began to be used primarily by individual families to practice their culture. However, the 1990s brought the revival of community social dances and a return to organized stickball play, among other cultural practices. "This area had maintained its significance," says Joshua D. Hinson, Ph.D. "In particular for the families that had removed here and had maintained their traditional religion."

A council house, winter and summer houses, brush arbors and a corn crib can all be found at Kullihoma today. "Those things were a direct result of this interest among our citizens of returning to these traditions that in many cases they had never experienced before," says Joshua.

Today, Kullihoma has grown from 146 acres to nearly 2,000 acres of significant cultural land. Joshua says, "The reason that this site is still an active site is because Chickasaw people love it and care for it and want it to remain what they intend it to be." Kullihoma is a center for fellowship and a place where artistic and cultural expression thrive. Above all, Kullihoma is a testament to visionary leadership and the resilience of the unconquered and unconquerable Chickasaw Nation. Want to learn more? Click the link below!

For generations, Chickasaws have been connected to a sacred piece of ground where lasting memories continue to be made.

07/29/2026

From art to weaponry to water purification, river cane is one of the most versatile and important plants found in Chickasaw culture. In this episode of Thrive: Traditions, demonstrators Donna Iti Tupa and Lori White Buffalo share how Chickasaws in both the past and present harvest and prepare river cane for its various uses.

Donna and Lori traveled to the homelands to harvest river cane from the same stands their ancestors took care of, finding their way by boat and along hiking paths. "It's just incredible that we're still able to find stands that our ancestors used to keep these traditions alive," Lori says. Taking loppers to the base of the plant, Donna and Lori gathered hundreds of river cane stalks to bring back to Oklahoma.

Once the river cane is harvested, the next step is cleaning, removing excess leaves and smoothing out the nodes left behind. "During our process it was difficult to try to be patient enough to not force the river cane to do what you wanted it to do," Lori explains. "You had to just ultimately let the river cane peel the way that it wanted to and try to work with it that way."

Donna and Lori hope the next generation of Chickasaw artisans will learn to create baskets and mats out of river cane they harvest themselves. "Now that I am a mother myself, I want to not only inspire this next generation, I want to spark that interest to want to learn more about their culture, their heritage," says Lori. Want to learn more? Click the link below!

Cultural demonstrators Dona and Lori harvest, split and peel river cane to create baskets and mats out of traditional materials.