Visualizing the Sacred: Cosmic Visions, Regionalism, and the Art of the Mississippian World

Chapter Six. The Great Serpent in the Lower Mississippi Valley by F. Kent Reilly III

lower mississippi valley 118 chapter 6 The Great Serpent in the Lower Mississippi Valley F. Kent Reilly III In the Late Mississippian period (ad 1400–1541) certain specialized pottery vessels produced in the Lower Mississippi Valley (lmv) were either sculpted or incised with an interesting array of zoomorphic figures. Such zoomorphic imagery is entirely lacking in the abstract designs on Ramey Incised pottery produced at Cahokia during an earlier period. Prominent among these zoomorphic images is a series of winged serpents, although the serpent imagery is not limited to winged creatures. These winged serpents from the lmv are undoubtedly related in some way to the winged serpent imagery found on the somewhat earlier (ad 1300–1450) Moundville Engraved, var. Hemphill pottery (Steponaitis and Knight 2004); certainly, even an initial examination offers evidence that these engraved vessels from Moundville are at least stylistically related to winged serpent images from the lmv (Childs and McNutt 2002). A more detailed study, however, reveals many stylistic differences between the genres. Visually, their basic design consists of U-shaped snakelike bodies, equipped with rattlesnake “buttons” on their tails. Although the heads of these winged serpents show some variety, most have snarling visages and sharp fangs. Their heads are usually topped with antlers, with some notable exceptions. The wings of this supernatural creature consist of a wingbar with clothlike feathers attached, again with variation in their construction . These differences in winged serpent renditions are further heightened by the fact that the lmv supernaturals are often shown with groupings of secondary images while Moundville’s winged serpent imagery is accompanied by no other symbols or motifs. Without question, the winged serpents from both Moundville and the lmv represent the same Great Serpent that seems ubiquitous in the Native American ideological systems of eastern North America (Lankford 2004, 2007d; Smith 1995). The focus of this chapter is to demonstrate that—while the great serpent 119 the Moundville winged serpents inhabit the sky realm exclusively—the lmv winged serpents can be identified by their respective specific secondary symbols as inhabiting the watery Beneath World just as often as they travel in the celestial realm of the Above World. Cosmology and the Great Serpent Archaeological, ethnographic, and art-historical studies clearly reveal that the Native Americans of the Eastern Woodlands viewed themselves as inhabiting a multileveled cosmos. Although the number of cosmic levels varied somewhat from group to group, the most common view was that the cosmos consisted of at least three levels: the Above World, the Beneath World, and the Earthly Plane (Lankford 2004, 2007d; Reilly 2004). An axis connected these three realms, often in the form of a prominent feature on the landscape such as a sacred mountain or tree. This axis could also exist as a ritual fire or sacred pole. The cosmos itself was animated and inhabited by groups of beings in each level. Thus many Native Americans viewed their world as a “peopled cosmos,” even if some of its inhabitants were “other than human persons” (Smith 1995:43–63). Some groups (such as the Muskhogeans) saw the sky realm as a stony bowl that rose and fell at the horizon. Others (including the Osage, Omaha, and Anishnaabeg/Ojibwa) interpreted the setting sun and the approach of night as the Beneath World rotating up into the night sky (see Chapter 2). George Lankford has convincingly proposed that the location of the Great Serpent within the night sky corresponds to the constellation Scorpio (Lankford 2004, 2007d). Functioning within this nocturnal celestial location , the Great Serpent serves as guardian of the “Path of Souls” or Milky Way (Lankford 2007a). Along this “Road of Light” the souls of the dead journey to the Great Serpent’s “Realm of the Dead.” The Great Serpent not only dwelt in the Beneath World as the master of beneath and underwater creatures but reigned as Lord of the Realm of the Dead. This powerful supernatural presence was envisioned as a netherworld being who could assume the form of a Great Panther. With its elongated tail, this Great Panther could roil the waters of lakes, rivers, and ponds into whirlpools and thus caused many deaths among humankind. Nevertheless, this fearsome creature’s power could help an individual courageous enough to seek and channel it. lower mississippi valley 120 The Archaeology of Symbols As Mary Nooter Roberts and Allen F. Roberts have discussed in their study of Luba art and iconography (Roberts and...