From Under the Earth
The original record in French from Histoire de la Louisiane (1758) and a reprint in English from Source Material for the Social and Ceremonial Life of the Choctaws (1931) are included below:
From Histoire de la Louisiane (1758): “Suivant la tradition des Naturels, cette Nation a passé si rapidement dans les autres terres, and est arrive si fubitement, que quand je leur demandois d’où venoient les les Chat-kas, il me répondoient qu’ils étoient sortis de dessous terre, pour exprimer avec quelle surprise on les avoit vû paroître tout d’ub coup. Leur grand nombre impofoit du respect aux Nations prés defquelles ils passoient; leur caractere peu martial ne leur inspiroit point la fureur des conquêtes; de cete sorte ils font arrives dans une terre inhabitée que personne ne leur a disputéel ils ont vécu sans trouble avec leurs voisins, & ceux-ci n’ont ofé s’instruire files autres étoient braves; c’est sans doute ce qui les a fait croître & augmenter au nombre qu’ils font aujourd’hui” (Du Pratz 216-217).
From Source Material for the Social and Ceremonial Life of the Choctaws (1931): The Choctaw “passed so rapidly from one land to another and arrived so suddenly in the country which it occupies that, when I asked them from whence the Chat-kas came, to express the suddenness of their appearance they replied that they had come out from under the earth. Their great numbers imposed respect on the nations near which they passed, but their wholly unmartial character did not inspire them with any lust of conquest, so that they entered an uninhabited country the possession of which no one disputed with them. They have not molested their neighbors, and the latter did not dare to test their bravery; this is doubtless why they have grown, and augmented to their present numbers” (Swanton 5).
In A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida (1776), Bernard Romans said, “[The Choctaw] are the only nation from whom I could learn any idea of a traditional account of a first origin; and that is their coming out of a hole in the ground, which they shew between their nation and the Chickasaws; they tell us also that their neighbors were surprised at seeing a people rise at once out of the earth” (71).
Nanih Waiya
The following narrative is from “The Choctaw Creation Legend” (1901):
“A very long time ago the first creation of men was in Nanih Waiya; and there they were made and there they came forth. The Muscogees first came out of Nanih Waiya; and they then sunned themselves on Nanih Waiya’s earthen rampart, and when they got dry they went to the east. On this side of the Touibighee, there they rested and as they were smoking tobacco they dropped some fire.
The Cherokees next came out of Nanih Waiya. And they sunned themselves on the earthen rampart, and when they got dry they went and followed the trail of the elder tribe. And at the place where the Muscogees had stopped and rested, and where they had smoked tobacco, there was fire and the woods were burnt, and the Cherokees could not find the Muscogees’ trail, so they got lost and turned aside and went towards the north and there towards the north they settled and made a people.
And the Chickasaws third came out of Nanih Waiya. And then they sunned themselves on the earthen rampart, and when they got dry they went and followed the Cherokees’ trail; and when they got to where the Cherokees had got lost, they turned aside and went on and followed the Cherokees’ trail. And when they got to where the Cherokees had settled and made a people, they settled and made a people close to the Cherokees.
And the Choctaws fourth and last came out of Nanih Waiya. And they then sunned themselves on the earthen rampart and when they got dry, they did not go anywhere but settled down in this very land and it is the Choctaws’ home.” (Halbert 269-270)