Nanih Waiya (alternately spelled Nunih Waya) is an ancient platform mound in southern Winston County, Mississippi, constructed by indigenous people during the Middle Woodland period, about 300 to 600 CE. Since the 17th century, the Choctaw and Chickasaw have venerated Nanih Waiya mound and a nearby cave as their sacred origin location.
The earthwork mound of Nanih Waiya is about tall, wide, and long. Evidence suggests it was originally a larger platform mound, which has eroded into the present shape. At one time, it was bounded on three sides by a circular earthwork enclosure about ten feet tall, which encompassed one square mile. The Choctaw lost control of this property during the 1830s and period of their removal to Indian Territory.
After being privately owned, the state acquired it to preserve the ancient site and operated it as a park. In 2006, the Mississippi Legislature's State Bill 2803 officially returned control of the site to the Luke Family, and T. W. Luke deeded it to the State on the condition that it be maintained as a park.
In 2008, the Luke family deeded control of the site to the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, a federally recognized tribe. Nanih Waiya has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1973 for its significance.
Archaeological evidence
The earliest archaeological evidence of occupation at Nanih Waiya is dated to about 300 to 600 CE during the Middle Woodland, when it was probably built. This makes Nanih Waiya contemporaneous with the Hopewell culture, as well as ancient sites such as the Pinson Mounds in Tennessee and Ingomar Mound in Mississippi. The dating was based on surface artifacts, as no archeological excavation of the mound has ever been undertaken. Its occupation apparently continued at least to 700 CE, in the Late Woodland period.
Archaeologists have not documented any use by the succeeding Mississippian culture, but they suggest that Nanih Waiya has been used for religious purposes throughout its history. The nineteenth-century naturalist and physician Gideon Lincecum recorded a surviving Choctaw oral tradition of their arrival in the area and the construction of the mound.
According to oral history, the Choctaw people had wandered in the wilderness for 42 Green Corn Festivals, through which they carried the bones of their dead, who outnumbered the living. They finally found a leaning hill, where the magical staff indicated they should stay. It was then bountiful land. The tribal council proposed they build a mound of earth to respectfully inter the bones of their ancestors, which they agreed to do. First, they erected a frame of branches. Then these were covered over, and layers of earth were deposited during their domestic tasks. At last, the mound reached great size. When they finished, they celebrated their forty-third Green Corn Festival since wandering in the wilderness. They said that once the main mound had been completed, smaller conical earthen mounds were built and used for single burials.
The mound has been a site of pilgrimage for the Choctaw since the seventeenth century, but they have not held any major festivals there. Their religion was private, and involved rituals related to death and burial, and to communication with spirits. Despite the traditional account, some anthropologists noted that unlike other tribes, the Choctaw do not appear to have practiced the Green Corn ceremony. In the 1850s, observers noted smaller mounds near Nanih Waiya, but these have since been plowed away and were never dated. They may have been constructed by the later Mississippian-culture peoples, who developed a widespread network after the Woodland period. As there is no archaeological data, historical records, nor Choctaw stories of these small mounds, nothing may ever be known about them.
Cave
One mile east, across the county line into Neshoba County of the platform mound, is a natural hill near Nanih Waiya Creek, surrounded by woods. Within this hill, sometimes called Nanih Waiya Cave Mound, is Nanih Waiya cave, considered by many Choctaw to be the site of their emergence onto the surface of the earth. The cave may have had four entrances at one point. In 1973, two cave explorers surveyed the cave and were able to travel 137 feet down. Thirty-five feet from the entrance was water, which deepened as the cavers progressed.
Since the early 21st century, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians have regained control of these sites, acquiring the land by purchase. Under Miko Beasley Denson, the tribe purchased the site in 2008 and began holding annual Nanih Waiya Day celebrations each August with Choctaw foods and dances.