The Great Flood When the first missionaries came to the Choctaws in 1818  they recorded this ancient story as it was told by the Choctaw people. In ancient times after men had lived a long period upon the earth they became very corrupt and wicked, and deluged the earth with so much blood and carnage that Achafa Chito (the Great Spirit) finally decided to utterly destroy them. First, he sent warnings in storms, trembling of the earth and other signs, but after the storms and tremors ceased, the people again resumed their wicked ways. He, therefore, sent a prophet among them. Oklatabashih (People's Mourner) also known as Oklatibishi, "he who holds himself apart from people." and his family, who alone did that which was good. He went from tribe to tribe and from village to village proclaiming the fearful tidings that the race was soon to be destroyed. They heard him, laughed and then returned to their incessant gambling, murder and lusting after the carnal knowledge of the flesh.  He told Oklatabashih to build a large boat into which he should go with his family and also to take into the boat a male and female of all the animals living upon the earth. Oklatabashihs sadness was marked by Achafa Chito, and he called the spirit of Oklatibishi into the mid-world between death and the great land and instructed him, saying: "You will fell the eight largest sassafras trees to be found upon your mountain, trim them and from them you shall make a great raft. Upon this raft, you will construct a house. You will stock your house with enough corn, nuts and dried meat to feed you and those you take with you for three times as many days as you have fingers and toes. With you, you will take three doves, two gray doves and one white dove. You must have this task completed before Hashi (the sun) shows his face on a count of ten times the number of fingers upon your hand. (100 days) On that morning, you must have your doves in cages, your stores and yourself in your house aboard your raft," Achafa Chito told Oklatibishi   As soon as his spirit had re-entered his body, Oklatibishi began his labors, choosing and felling the eight largest Sassafras trees on the mountain, trimming them and lashing them together to create a great raft as instructed by the Great One. One day, as Oklatibishi labored, he was chanced upon by a group of hunters, who laughed at him, and inquired what he was doing. When Oklatibishi told them, they called him a crazy old man and laughed because he was building such a large raft so for from the river, saying "How will you ever get it to the water?" But, when they saw that Oklatibishi was ignoring them and continuing to go about his labors, they went away laughing merrily at the strange antics of the "crazy man up on the mountain." But even as Oklatibishi labored and the long summer days shortened into autumn, a change was slowly coming upon the land. The skies grew cloudy, so that the people saw neither the sun by day nor the moon and stars by night. it slowly became difficult for the people to tell night from day.   He did as he was commanded by the Great Spirit and began to get the animals. But as he went out in the forest to bring in the birds, he was unable to catch a pair of biskinik (sapsuckers), fitukhak (yellow hammers), and bakbak (large red-headed woodpeckers); these birds were so quick in hopping around from one side to the other of the trees upon which they clung with their sharp and strong claws, that Oklatabashih found it was impossible for him to catch them, and therefore he gave up the chase, and returned to the boat; the door closed, the rain began to fall increasing in volume for many days and nights, until thousands of people and animals perished. Then it suddenly ceased and utter darkness covered the face of the earth for a long time, while the people and animals that still survived grouped here and there in the fearful gloom.Finally, all light seemed to have been withdrawn from the earth, so that one could not tell the night from the day and a coldness seemed to settle upon the earth. The people had to carry torches to light their way losing track of day or night. Fearfully, they went to their magic men, their healers, their spirit talkers and their conjurers, but the "spiritual" leaders could not help them, become despondent, and some even began to chant their death songs. Mankind, wearied and perplexed but not repenting their misdeeds or reforming as directed by the great prophet, slept in the darkness only to awaken to more darkness. The food that had been stored away against the coming of the winter become moldy and unfit to be eaten, and the wild animals of the forest gathered around the fires bewildered, even entering the towns and villages, seeming to have lost all fear of men.   Suddenly far in the distant north was seen a long streak of light. They believed that, amid the raging elements and the impenetrable darkness that covered the earth, the sun had lost its way and was rising in the north. All the surviving people rushed toward the seemingly rising sun, though utterly bewildered, not knowing or caring what they did. They saw, in utter despair, that it was but the mocking light that foretold how near the Oka falama (The Returning Waters) was at hand, rolling like mountains on mountains piled and engulfing everything in its resistless course. All earth was at once overwhelmed in the mighty return of waters, except the great boat which, by the guidance of the Great Spirit, rode safely upon the rolling and dashing waves that covered the earth.  From his house on his raft, Oklatibishi heard the wailing and the roar of the returning waters, but remembering the words of Achafa Chito he had to content himself with peeping out of the doorway of his house. At one point, Oklatibishi was able to discern the hunters who had goaded him and laughed at him but days before trying to clamber up the side of the mountain to reach the raft. But the angry waters swept them away, and soon Oklatibishi's raft floated upon a sea of angry waters that continued to rise, and rise, and rise and rise. For several days, Oklatibishi could still observe the bodies of many people floating upon the face of the waters, but after several days they disappeared and the waters became so deep that he could not make out the tops of the tallest trees or see fish swimming in the waters. During many moons the boat floated safely o'er the vast sea of water.   One morning when he come out of his house onto the raft, Oklatibishi espied a huge, black bird, which flew toward his raft, circled several times and answered with a sullen croaking screech when Oklatibishi asked if land were near. The black bird flew away, and did not appear again so that Oklatibishi came to know that even upon the earth cleaned by the returning waters, evil would still exist. Finally Oklatabashih sent a dove to see if any dry land could be found. She soon returned with her beak full of grass, which she had gathered from a desert island. Oklatabashih, to reward her for her discovery, mingled a little salt in her food. Soon after this the waters subsided and the dry land appeared: then the inmates of the great boat went forth to repeople another earth. But the dove, having acquired a taste for salt during her stay in the boat continued its use by finding it at the salt-licks that then abounded in many places, to which the cattle and deer also frequently resorted. Every day after eating, she visited a salt-lick to eat a little salt to aid her digestion, which in the course of time became habitual and thus was transmitted to her offspring. In the course of years, she became a grand-mother, and took great delight in feeding and caring for her grandchildren. One day, however, after having eaten some grass seed, she unfortunately forgot to eat a little salt as usual. For this neglect, the Great Spirit punished her and her descendants by forbidding them forever the use of salt. When she returned home that evening, her grandchildren, as usual, began to coo for their supply of salt, but their grandmother having been forbidden to give them any more, they cooed in vain. From that day to this, in memory of this lost privilege, the doves everywhere on the return of spring, still continue their cooing for salt, which they will never again be permitted to eat. Such is the ancient tradition to the Choctaws of the origin of the cooing of doves.   But the fate of the three birds who eluded capture by Oklatabashih, their tradition states: They flew high in the air at the approach of Oka falama, and as the waters rose higher and higher, they also flew higher above the surging waves. Finally, the waters rose in near proximity to the sky, upon which they lit as their last hope (perching upside down upon the sky). Soon, to their great joy and comfort, the waters ceased to rise, and commenced to recede. But while sitting on the sky, their tails, projecting downward, were continually being drenched by the dashing spray of the surging waters below, and thus the end of their tail feathers became forked and notched, and this peculiar shape of the tails of the biskinik, fitukhak and bakbak has been transmitted to their latest posterity. But the sagacity and skill manifested by these birds in eluding the grasp of Oklatabashih, so greatly delighted the Great Spirit that he appointed them to be forever guardian birds of the red men. Therefore these birds, and especially the biskinik, often made their appearance in their villages on the eve of a ball play; and whichever one of the three came, it twittered in happy tones its feelings of joy in anticipation of the near approach of the Choctaws' favorite game. But in time of war, one of these birds always appeared in the camp of a war party, to give them warning of approaching danger, by its constant chirping and hurried flitting from place to place around their camp. In many ways did these birds prove their love for and friendship to the red man, and he ever cherished them as the loved birds of his race, the remembered gift of the Great Spirit in the fateful days of the mighty Oka Falama,