Choctaw Legend of Fair Skinned, Cannibal Giants "Used Mammoth as a Beast of Burden"
Mississippi as a Province, Territory, and State
by J.F.H. Claiborne 1880
The Choctaws preserve a dim tradition that, after crossing the Mississippi, they met a race of men whom they called the Na-hon-lo, tall in stature and of fair complexion, who had emigrated from the sunrise. They had once been a mighty people but were then few in number, and soon disappeared after the incoming of the Choctaws. This race of men was, according to tradition, tillers of the soil and peaceable. There had likewise been a race of cannibals, who feasted on the bodies of their enemies. They too were giants and utilized the mammoth as their burden bearers. They kept them closely herded, and as they devoured everything and broke down the forest, this was the origin of prairies.
Elephant effigy pipe from a burial mound in Iowa.
