Cahokia and the Archaeology of Power

7. The Cahokian Symbolic World

7 The Cahokian Symbolic World As Gramsci has shown, persuasion is as critical a factor as force in the construction of hegemonic control. This persuasion may take the form of a dominant ideology that shapes and naturalizes a society's vision of the cultural and natural worlds surrounding it. In the hands of the elite, this ideological vision seeks to ensure the reproduction of the social and political order. Earle (1987, 1991) proposes that this reproduction is accomplished through the symbolic representations of sacred landscapes, individual and warrior power, and the community-centered re-creation ofceremonial presentations ofpowers to the elite by cosmic forces. It is apparent then that to understand the control and domination of their society by the Cahokian elite, we need to elucidate their ideological base. I begin that process of understanding Cahokian ideology by examining the ritual behavior and symbolic system implicit in the material assemblages of Cahokia Middle Mississippian sites, especially focusing on symbolically rich temple sites. Two types of symbolic materials have provided great insights into Mississippian religion and ideology--stone figurines and sacred vessels. Based on the common themes derived from these sources, it is evident that, during Cahokia's era ofsupremacy, much ofits religious ideology was linked to fertility and UnderWorld motifs. Underlying all such themes, however, was the presence of a world view dominated by a dualistic, quadripartitioned universe that revealed itselfin a number ofmediums. It is within this context that, in the following chapter, I explore the material expressions of this symbolic system in the countryside and its utilization by the elite to dominate and rule the rural populace. Over the decades, research on Cahokia has shown that these prehistoric peoples had few links with the Algonquian Indian peoples the first Europeans encountered in the area (cf. Emerson and Brown 1992). Cahokian cul- ture, with its complex political and social organization, religious beliefs, and horticultural basis, is more appropriately seen as part of the same cultural milieu as the late prehistoric and historic chiefdoms encountered by early Europeans in the southeastern United States.This similarity indicates that in attempting to understand the symbolism and structuration of the ancient inhabitants of Cahokia we are not limited to the recovered archaeological data; a rich world of documentation from early Eastern Woodland native inhabitants promises to enrich and expand our understanding ofthe Cahokian symbolic repertoire. An essential bulwark of my arguments and interpretations in this work is acceptance of the validity of the ethnohistoric and ethnographic evidence from EasternWoodlands native groups as a source of insight into Mississippian iconography and religion. I am confident that it is a valid approach and one supported by a long history of successful implementation by archaeologists in the eastern United States.AsVernon]. Knight, Jr., states: Within an historical perspective, the theme of previous investigations of these issues by Swanton [numerous works],Waring [1968;Waring and Holder 1945], and Howard [1968] was a demonstration of the importance of the diachronic link from Mississippian archaeology to the ethnohistorical record of the Southeastern Indians.These investigators found positive links between historically recorded ritual, icons, and myths on the one hand, and Mississippian ritual features and icons on the other. They concluded, from different perspectives and attending to different data, that historical Southeastern aboriginal religion was in essence a debased form of a uniform religious complex which reached its peak in Mississippian times, and that historical manifestations could therefore be used to make inferences about the ancestral forms known to arch~eology. (Knight 1981: 127) More recent scholars have elaborated and refined the earlier approaches to provide a greater depth and breadth of interpretation of Mississippian iconography and ritual. In this regard I would cite as examples the research of Robert L. Hall (e.g., 1976, 1977, 1979, 1985, and especially 1989 and 1991), Knight (1981,1986, 1989a, 1989b), Prentice (1986a), Brown (1976a, 1985), Kelly (1984; Kelly et al. 1990), Phillips and Brown (1978), Fortier (1991c), Emerson (1982,1983,1989, 1995), and Pauketat and Emerson (1991). These more detailed studies have not only served to validate the relationship between the archaeological and ethnohistoric records but have also shown the widespread nature of many of the involved iconographic, ritual, and belief systems. In dealing with an uneven and diverse ethnohistoric record, the problem lies in identifYing the core-shared iconographic structure as distinguished 194 Cahokia and the Archaeology of Power from individual group variation.This problem can be amplified by...