n.
North American Indian people living mainly in Oklahoma, U.S. Their language, Chickasaw, is a Muskogean language closely related to that of the Choctaw .
The Chickasaw, who once inhabited Kentucky, Tennessee, northern Mississippi, and Alabama, were a seminomadic people whose dwellings were loosely scattered along rivers rather than clustered in villages. They traced descent through the maternal line. The supreme deity was associated with the sky, sun, and fire. They frequently raided and intermarried with other tribes, and they were known to white traders as "mixed-bloods" or "breeds." In the 1830s they were forcibly removed to Indian Territory (Oklahoma). In the 2000 U.S. census some 20,000 individuals claimed sole Chickasaw descent.