Unnamed Granddaughter of Issetibbeha|Mohataha

Character Key Number: 
127
Display Name: 
Unnamed Granddaughter of Issetibbeha|Mohataha
Sort Name: 
Unnamed Granddaughter of Issetibbeha|Mohataha
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?: 
Yes
Biography: 

This is one of the several Faulkner characters whose inconsistencies cannot be reconciled. In the short story "A Name for the City," it is this unnamed granddaughter of Issetibbeha who marries a white man, Doctor Habersham's son; together the couple "emigrated to Oklahoma" in "the thirties" (i.e. the 1830s) along with the rest of the Chickasaws (202). In the prose introduction to Act I in Requiem for a Nun, the Chickasaw woman who marries Doctor Habersham's son and "emigrates" with him to Oklahoma in the 1830's is identified as "one of Issetibbeha's grand-daughters" (7). In the prose introduction to Act 3, however, the "bride" of Doctor Habersham's son is "Mohataha's grand-daughter" and the daughter of Ikkemotubbe (170). Issetibbeha and Mohataha are siblings, but there is no suggestion of incest, and therefore no explanation for the inconsistency except as a lapse of Faulkner's memory. The additional genealogical detail in the second reference to her - that Ikkemotubbe is her father - strengthens the idea of her as Mohataha's granddaughter.