Exhibits: Permanent

The final and largest landscape illustrates life in Oklahoma for the Choctaw people. Beginning in the 1830’s and continuing to the modern Choctaw Nation, this exhibit demonstrates how our tribal government maintains sovereignty and invests in the well-being of its people and their communities by honoring the past and preparing for the future.

The third landscape depicts how the Choctaw people maintained their government-to-government relationships with the United States for years through treaties and negotiations. These treaties would eventually lead to the removal of thousands of Choctaw ancestors from their homelands to Oklahoma. This landscape tells the story of the Trail of Tears through the eyes of two families making the journey at different times and on different routes, each sharing their own challenges and hardships they had to overcome.

The second landscape transports guests to the time of Shomo Takali, or Hanging Moss, a beautiful forest settlement founded by our ancestors during the time of European contact and lasting hundreds of years until the early part of the Trail of Tears. Experience the sights and sounds of the Mississippi homelands as they existed hundreds of years ago.

The first landscape illustrates the origins of the Choctaw people and shares our creation stories. Oral tradition, combined with an archaeological perspective, demonstrates how the earliest Choctaws lived.