Chickasaw Spirituality

The Chickasaw people value a lot of things like language, the preservation of family information is fundamentally important in understanding their culture, and, like oral tradition, it must be passed on to future generations of Chickasaws.
The Chickasaw do not have a tradition of a time when they were without belief in a supreme being, whom they called Aba Binili (Sitting or Dwelling Above) also called Inki Abu (Father Above) under Christian influence.
There were ancient beliefs in a multitude of celestial powers. There were four “Beloved Things” above: The clouds, the sun, the clear sky and “He that lives in the clear sky.”
It was believed that Aba Binili lived above the clouds and on earth with “unpolluted” people. He is the sole creator of warmth, light and of all animal and vegetable life. Chickasaw elders conveyed traditional knowledge to younger generations to keep traditions and tribal stories alive, thereby instilling in younger generations cultural identity and tribal cohesiveness. The stories of our elders had significance in describing tribal history, not in terms of chronological dates, but more in terms of how events and locations impacted nature and our people.