MYTHOLOGY: TWO MORE CHOCTAW DEITIES

As a followup to my earlier list of The Top 12 Deities in Choctaw Mythology here’s a look at two additional figures from that same pantheon.

IMMA – The Choctaw goddess of war. Unlike most war deities Imma did not participate in actual combat herself, but was the idealized woman to whom Choctaw warriors dedicated all their battlefield heroics. She was the most beautiful goddess in the Choctaw pantheon and, like her husband, the hunting god Hatakachafa, Imma was originally a mortal raised to godhood in the afterlife by the supreme deity Nanishta. He did this after Imma died from grief after Hatakachafa was given up for dead during his year-long struggle to return home to her. When Imma’s true love at last returned home astride his giant white wolf and learned she was dead he too died of grief. The two were reunited in the afterlife as husband and wife. 

OKLATABAHSHIH – The patron god of canoe builders. In addition to building the first canoes for the Choctaw people Oklatabahshi invented all the tools necessary to build them. In addition to the usefulness of canoes in everyday life these inventions of Oklatabahshih also helped preserve the lives of countless Choctaw and Chickasaw people during the flood that permanently separated the two into separate but kindred tribes. After contact with Europeans Oklatabahshih was often distorted into a Noah figure and the Flood of Separation was instead referred to as the Great Flood from other myths. 

FOR MY ORIGINAL ARTICLE ON THE TOP 12 CHOCTAW DEITIES CLICK HERE: CHOCTAW INDIAN MYTHS – https://glitternight.com/2012/06/03/the-top-twelve-deities-in-choctaw-mythology/