Oklahoma has much about which to boast: our American Indian tribes, our children, our multicultural history, our authors and artists.
Advertisement
Tim Tingle is a writer of Choctaw heritage. His book, "Walking the Choctaw Road," was last year's Oklahoma Reads Oklahoma selection. Jeanne Rorex Bridges lives in southeastern Oklahoma among her fellow Cherokees. Her paintings of American Indian images are widely known. The two have collaborated on a children's picture book, "Crossing Bok Chitto: A Choctaw Tale of Friendship & Freedom" (Cinco Puntos Press, $17.95).
Tingle sets his story in Mississippi, where the Choctaws lived before they came to Oklahoma. A girl named Martha Tom lives on one side of the Bok Chitto River. On the other side live white plantation owners and their black slaves. The local custom and law says if a slave can escape and cross the river, he is free; the slave owner cannot follow.
Martha Tom knows a secret way to cross the water. One day she meets a boy whose family are slaves. In friendship, she sings the gospel songs his people sing; he learns the drum chants that sound out from her village. When tragedy threatens his family, he leads them to safety across the river. The Choctaws invoke their spirituality to help their neighbors.
It is a tale from tribal folklore of different peoples with much in common. Bridges illustrates it with the Indian women who frequent many of her paintings. They are solid and strong; their faces are plain and mysterious.
It is a beautiful book, a memorable tale and another achievement of which to boast.
-- Ann DeFrange
