“A Valid Signature”

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the “X-mark” by which Chickasaw matriarch Mohataha signs over the legal title of her land in Mississippi to the white settlers of Faulkner’s Jefferson. This essay investigates the political agency of her signature, specifically the potential for native sovereignty in a situation of forced Removal. Mohataha’s mark signifies both the downward vector of a displaced culture and an upward stroke towards new horizons in Chickasaw history. Literally a legal sign, the “x” functions symbolically as a gendered figure linking Mohataha to the other female characters in the novel whose chiasmic plot structure centers on a coercive legal culture and women’s potential for resistance and rebellion.