Named for the Indian tribe who occupied much of southern Mississippi before they were "removed" in the 1830s, Natchez was founded by the French at the western end of the Natchez Trace, the Indian trail between the Mississippi River and the region of Nashville, Tennessee. About the time of this story it was the first capital of America's Mississippi Territory and an economically an important river port - as reflected in the narrative by the fact that it is the home port of Captain Studenmare's steamboat.
The steamboat has to move slowly, and often gets aground, on its travels up and down the shallow waters of the river. The "People" watch it arriving "among the trees" (366), and walk beside it along the bank as it leaves.
The five-day race over the 130 miles between the Chickasaw Plantation and the Cave follows a route that is well-known to Ikkemotubbe but left pretty vague for the story's readers. The land seems uninhabited, and to be broken up into woods and "open" country that the narrator labels as "prairies" (375). It is well-watered by "creeks," "springs" and "streams" (375).
"The Cave" where the competition between Ikkemotubbe and David Hogganbeck ends is described as "a black hole in [a] hill," "a hundred and thirty miles" from the Plantation, "over in the country of old David Colbert" (374). Because of the courage required to enter it, "the Cave" serves the Chickasaws as a place for "the boys" to go "to become men" (374).
The "race-course" on the Chickasaw plantation indicates how important horse racing is to the tribe - at least in Faulkner's representation of them (372). When the Indian boy "runs once around the race-track" (372), we learn that it is laid out as a circle or oval, like the kind of tracks built by white southern horse breeders and plantation owners. In the story it also serves as the site of an eating contest.
About the place where he lives, which he calls "my father's house," the narrator only says that it sits "between Ikkemotubbe's house and the steamboat" (369).
According to Ikkemotubbe, "My house is not very much house" (369). When David Hogganbeck "walks home" with him, we learn that it is "across the Plantation" from the landing (368), and also that it contains a "bed" big enough for the two men to share (369). ('Later,' if we are measuring time by Ikkemotubbe's life, and 'earlier,' if we locate "A Courtship" in the chronological context of Faulkner's career, Ikkemotubbe will have "very much house" as the chief of the tribe in fictions like "Red Leaves.")
Submitted by crieger@semo.edu on Fri, 2016-01-08 15:59
This enslaved man - one of the two men for whom Sam "Had-Two-Fathers" is named - was already married to the woman whom Crawfish-ford covets when they arrived at the Indian plantation from New Orleans (345). He tries in several different ways to prevent Crawfish-ford from claiming his wife, and finally gets Doom to help him in that quest. When nine months later his wife gives birth to his child, he proudly asks "What do you think about this for color?" (359).
The "quiet place in the woods" where Ikkemotubbe and David Hogganbeck discuss in private how to resolve their rivalry could be anywhere around the Plantation (370). The text seems to distinguish it from both the place where the young men drink and the place where the rivals "lay down in the woods to sleep" (372). But even that is not definitely stated.
Submitted by crieger@semo.edu on Fri, 2016-01-08 15:51
Doom and the Chocktaws own a sizable number of black slaves. Four of them are briefly traded - along with the six slaves he has recently won on the steamboat from New Orleans - to two unnamed white men for the grounded riverboat which Doom then has moved by slaves to his plantation.
