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Symbolism of Mississippian Mounds
- University of Nebraska Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
At least three centuries separate the prehistoric Mississippian cultures from the best ethnographic descriptions of their descendants, the historic southeastern Indians. The transformation that took place across this span seems so thoroughgoing that students of Mississippian culture often hesitate to use analogies based on southeastern ethnographic and ethnohistorical materials . Although dramatic changes occurred over this interim, spotty documentary and archaeological records make it hard to determine the precise nature of these changes. But much of the result can be summed up by the term “deculturation”—a loss of cultural elements, including, it is assumed , much of the richness and detail of Mississippian mythology, beliefs, and ceremonialism. The obscurity of historical processes leading to this deculturation has lent Mississippian culture a mystique that is not shared by other very late prehistoric cultures of the New World. One of the cultural elements long assumed to have been lost during this transformation was the platform mound, a hallmark of Mississippian culture . When questioned about the origin of the mounds that dotted the region , historic southeastern Indians sometimes claimed these monuments were built by long-vanished people of whom they had no knowledge. Much was made of this, of course, by proponents of various “lost tribe” theories who imagined a superior race of mound-builders preceding that of the “red Indians.” Even once it was established as fact that the southeastern Indians ’ ancestors had indeed built the mounds—and in the not too distant past—the nature and symbolism of Mississippian platform mounds still remained largely a mystery. A few ethnologists, however, have noticed certain features in southeastern Indian ritual that seem relevant to the problem of Mississippian platform mounds. It appears, in fact, that although Indians of the historic era were no longer building large mounds, the beliefs underlying the practice survived. When viewed at the level of symbolism the problem dissolves, and Symbolism of Mississippian Mounds vernon james knight jr. symbolism of mississippian mounds the “loss” of platform mound ceremonialism can be seen as merely a change of emphasis within an unbroken ritual tradition. The primary aim of this chapter is to demonstrate briefly the extent of mound-related symbolism in historic southeastern Indian language, folklore, and ritual practice. These elements do not directly explain all the observed archaeological details concerning Mississippian platform mounds, as no one would expect them to, but they do give us a foothold in beginning to understand one element of the Mississippian belief system. We can begin with some lexical data. An eighteenth-century Muskogee-language term for the large prehistoric Mississippi-period mounds scattered throughout the Creek country of Alabama and Georgia was ekvn-like, a compound that translates literally as “earth placed” or “earth sitting.”1 Since liketv also denotes placement in the sense of “dwelling” or “residence,” a freer translation might be “earth dwelling.” Ekvnv, meaning “earth” or “world,” provides the root of the first part of the compound. This root word also appears in Muskogee terms for cave, mountain, hill, earthquake, and other features and properties of the physical world.2 A Yuchi term for mound has parallel associations. This is ¿aetshine(ha), literally “land sitting,” from a root connoting “earth” or “mountain.”3 Here, though, the reference is not to large Mississippi-period earthworks. Instead, it is apparently the term applied to the small ceremonial mounds still used in Yuchi square grounds. In both of these southeastern languages, artificial mounds are conceived metaphorically as “earth sitting.” This is more than just a descriptive phrase. The “earth” invoked here is the cosmological world concept, the earth island, an idea highly charged with symbolic associations in native southeastern belief systems. As this suggests, mound constructions may be understood in one sense as icons. It can be shown that artificial mounds among the historic southeastern Indians operated as conventional world symbols. Artificial mounds occasionally figure in Muskogee origin myths, in contexts that illuminate their symbolic significance. This body of folklore shows that traditional knowledge concerning large earthworks persisted well into the modern era.4 Mounds appear primarily in Muskogee myths associated with the towns of the Kasihta and Coweta. In one version, Kasihta warriors encounter and subsequently kill certain survivors of a vanquished enemy town. The survivors are found to be in mourning for their dead kins- [54.226.25.246] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 14:17 GMT) vernon james knight jr. men, and they are engaged in building earthen mounds. From the context, the mounds are apparently intended, at least partly, for the...