I am not a civilized Choctaw but a wild Choctaw who stays in touch with his ethnicity by being naked like the ancient Choctaw men and boys, and women and girls, did in the warmer climates of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana before the prudish British, French, and then Americans came and booted us from our favorite skinny dipping holes on the Pearl River and other places.

We made the long march on the trail of tears many of us naked and destitute, the coercice nakedness forced on the subjugated by the colonialist in lieu of the voluntary nakedness of daily life which free Choctaw men and women chose.

In Indian Territory (Oklahoma), the half-breeds and inter-married whites tended to adopt the conventions of "Christian Society." Those that were full-bloods adjusted their clothing to temperature. The former is symbolized in the translation of the word "Oklahoma" by Reverend Allan Wright who was taught in the Christian schools as "Land of the Red Man." But okla humma does not mean that from the original Choctaw. It means red-earth colored people. And so it is with the nude Choctaw body tanned by the sun, a red-earth colored person bronzed like a clay pot. The full-bloods in Indian Territory carried on the spirit of okla humma.

The Choctaw also loved their stickball games and the men would play near completely naked.

During the summers, boys and girls, white and aboriginal, would skinny dip in the streams and rivers of Indian Territory.

This is part of what Choctaw means to me. If the modern day Choctaw can truly be called "civilized" they must reclaim their heritage to be nude according to temperature and climate and by so doing their ancient heritage eclipses the modern social nudist movement.

In Choctaw, I am a haknip haksup tiwi, an open skin body - I am a nude Choctaw.