Despite the number of people who have tried to explain the concept of Native American nations to me, I’m consistently confused. How are these nations different than what’s going on in the states in which they’re located? Why do we use American money in them? Who oversees judicial matters, and what happens if something happens in a sovereign nation between two non-Native Americans?

As convoluted as the whole concept still seems to me, I’ve finally come to one important conclusion: The most important thing to realize is that the Native American nations in the United States are really, at their most basic level, communities of people with a shared culture and history.

When we drove over the border into the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma, there was nothing different about the appearance of the landscape. People wore the same clothing inside the nation as they did in Oklahoma City. There was nothing remarkable about our entrance into the Chickasaw Nation, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything remarkable to find there.

I quickly learned that the Chickasaw people are progressive, adept at adopting those things going on outside the official borders while still holding on to those ideas, concepts and traditions that set them apart from others. The Chickasaw Cultural Center, located about an hour from Oklahoma City by car, is a state-of-the-art, multi-building facility with several purposes, most notably to capture the essence of the Chickasaw culture, preserve and protect the Chicksaw history through extensive research and archives, and share Chickasaw culture with those like myself who are unfamiliar with it.

Continue Reading