THE INDIANS
continued

Decorations also varied. Incising - cutting into the piece while the clay was still wet was done in the north, to the south engraving - cutting into a baked piece - was common. Animal and human effigies were common on pieces to the north, only occasionally in the south. Further, red and white painted objects were common in the north; dry red, white or green paints were rubbed into engraved lines in the south.

Villages were now quite large, some covering 10 to 20 acres of closely placed houses. There were also pyramidal mounds built with a flat top. If more than one mound was built, there was a planned relationship to the village and to each other. There was a plaza between these mounds and the absence of trash in these plazas indicates they were kept clean. Thus, it was on these plazas that community activities, dances and religious ceremonies took place.

The function of these temple mounds was not burial as in the earlier period. They provided the focus for the religious and political life of the village, upon which were probably built houses or temples of wattle and daub (branches or cane interwoven between upright posts and covered with clay) with a roof of bark or thatch, one on each mound. Periodically, for some unknown reason, probably religious or for cleanliness, the temple was destroyed. The mound was enlarged in area and height, and a new temple was built on top. In time, they became quite high. In excavating them, you get the appearance of a layer cake, each layer a particular temple period. The artifacts found in each layer can identify the residents.

Houses now tended to be rectangular rather than the circular ones used earlier in the Adena Period. Burials were no longer in the mounds, but near the houses or in a special cemetery. In contrast to the Adena Period, almost all graves had some offering of pottery, stone tools or some other artifact.

As no evidence has been found, the absence or presence of clothing is not known. As the climate then is much like it is today, they probably wore nothing and probably used robes of animal skins in cold weather. Evidence found in the mountains indicates some knowledge of weaving, but it is quite scanty and inconclusive and may have been associated with basket weaving.

The villages north of the Arkansas River often had palisades and moats for protection. South of the river they did not. The area south of the river was also split culturally. Those east of the Ouachita River had associations with those to the north and south on both sides of the Mississippi, despite differences in the use of temper in pottery. Those west of the Ouachita River appear to be the ancestors of the historically known Caddo Indians. One community would have political jurisdiction over some smaller, outlying villages, much like the Greek city-states. A particularly powerful leader of one of these villages might extend their political domain. Villages on the fringes might change allegiance as circumstances directed, but the situation generally was stable politically.

By the middle 16th century, the Temple Mound Period had started to decline. The ancient customs and rituals became mechanical and less meaningful, and some of the important cities had been abandoned. The Creek, Choctaw and Chickasaw may be the descendants of these Temple Mound folk, although they may not realize it. Only the Natchez Indians in western Mississippi maintained their ways into the 18th century when the French and then the Spanish crushed them.

In eastern Arkansas, the main town of the Temple Mound folk was Pacaha. We will call the people in this area the Pacahas. In the early 16th century, the Pacahas were holding on, but not thriving.

Then one nice day in May, 1541, a Spanish adventurer named Hernando de Soto and some 550 soldiers arrived on the east bank of the Mississippi River.