Culture 4: Crossing Bok Chitto

Bibliography: Tingle, Tim. 2006. Crossing Bok Chitto. Ill. by Jeanne Rorex Bridges. El Paso: Cinco Puntos Press. ISBN 9780938317777

Plot Summary: Bok Chitto is a river that separates the Choctaw nation and plantation owners and their slaves. If a slave made it across the river, then he or she was free and his or her owner could not come after them. One day a young Choctaw girl crosses the river in search of blackberries. While gathering her blackberries she hears hundreds of slaves calling out "We are bound for the Promised Land!" A young slave boy is called to help her find her way home. They became good friends, and the young girl returned every week to attend church with the young boy's family. Soon they find out that his mother has been sold at an auction and would be leaving the following day. With the help of the Choctaw women, the entire slave family is able to make it safely across the river to freedom.


Critical Analysis (Including Cultural Markers): This story takes place in Mississippi along the Bok Chitto River which separates the Choctaw Nation and plantation owners and their slaves. The author, Tim Tingle, is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. He tells us that this book is an Indian book “written by Indian voices and painted by an Indian artist”. It is written just as it would be told and retold from one generation to the next. It does not take the reader long to find the rhythm of the story and to “hear” it being told.

The illustrator, Jeanne Rorex Bridges, is of Cherokee ancestry. Her illustrations capture the emotions of the characters beautifully. The shape of the eyes and noses of the characters, as well as the color of skin and texture of hair easily identify the culture of the characters. The moccasins the members of the Choctaw tribe wear are another cultural marker Bridges shows in her illustrations. The slaves’ clothing is also appropriate for that the period. Bridges does an amazing job of capturing the emotions of the characters in her drawings. The words do not describe the devastation of Little Mo’s family when they find out their mother has been sold, but the illustrations show us what this has done to the family.

Other cultural markers include the spiritual ceremonies and songs of both the Choctaw tribe and the slaves, the white cotton ceremonial dresses of the Choctaws, and the two circles (the women and the men) at the wedding ceremony. It was nice to see how both Martha Tom and Little Mo appreciated and learned from the other’s songs. Martha Tom would actually translate the words she learned at the slave church into the Choctaw language.

I enjoyed reading and learning from this story. I was never aware that Indian tribes also helped to free slaves. In my naïveté I only thought of white people helping to free them. I appreciate the author's note at the end of the story, but it also makes me sad that this is necessary to know the correct history. This book definitely made me want to learn more about the Choctaw Nation and read other stories about Bok Chitto as well.

Review Excerpt(s):
From School Library Journal
Grade 2-6–Dramatic, quiet, and warming, this is a story of friendship across cultures in 1800s Mississippi. While searching for blackberries, Martha Tom, a young Choctaw, breaks her village's rules against crossing the Bok Chitto. She meets and becomes friends with the slaves on the plantation on the other side of the river, and later helps a family escape across it to freedom when they hear that the mother is to be sold. Tingle is a performing storyteller, and his text has the rhythm and grace of that oral tradition. It will be easily and effectively read aloud. The paintings are dark and solemn, and the artist has done a wonderful job of depicting all of the characters as individuals, with many of them looking out of the page right at readers. The layout is well designed for groups as the images are large and easily seen from a distance. There is a note on modern Choctaw culture, and one on the development of this particular work. This is a lovely story, beautifully illustrated, though the ending requires a somewhat large leap of the imagination.–Cris Riedel, Ellis B. Hyde Elementary School, Dansville, NY
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Gr. 2-4. In a picture book that highlights rarely discussed intersections between Native Americans in the South and African Americans in bondage, a noted Choctaw storyteller and Cherokee artist join forces with stirring results. Set "in the days before the War Between the States, in the days before the Trail of Tears," and told in the lulling rhythms of oral history, the tale opens with a Mississippi Choctaw girl who strays across the Bok Chitto River into the world of Southern plantations, where she befriends a slave boy and his family. When trouble comes, the desperate runaways flee to freedom, helped by their own fierce desire (which renders them invisible to their pursuers) and by the Choctaws' secret route across the river. In her first paintings for a picture book, Bridges conveys the humanity and resilience of both peoples in forceful acrylics, frequently centering on dignified figures standing erect before moody landscapes. Sophisticated endnotes about Choctaw history and storytelling traditions don't clarify whether Tingle's tale is original or retold, but this oversight won't affect the story's powerful impact on young readers, especially when presented alongside existing slave-escape fantasies such as Virginia Hamiltons's The People Could Fly (2004) and Julius Lester's The Old African (2005). Jennifer Mattson

Connections:
Discussion Questions and Activities:
*Why do you think Martha Tom crossed the Bok Chitto even though she had been told never to do so?
*Why did Little Mo think Martha Tom was a witch?
*Explain how a Choctaw wedding ceremony is the same as or different from one you have attended?
*Describe a "crossing ceremony".
*Why do you think the Choctaws built the stone path beneath the muddy surface of the water?
Other Books by Tim Tingle:
*Saltypie: A Choctaw Journey from Darkness Into Light. ISBN 9781933693675
*When Turtle Grew Feathers. ISBN 9780874837773
*Walking the Choctaw Road. ISBN 9780938317739
*Spirits Dark and Light. ISBN 9780874837780