THE MISSISSIPPIANS
Macon Plateau's Georgia Contemporaries
Later Mississippian Developments
BACKGROUND:
Most literature describing the Macon Plateau divides Central Georgia's Mississippian culture into three periods: Early (A.D. 900-1100, marked by the invasion of "pure" Mississippian cultures and adoption of new culture models by indigenous Woodland people), Mature (A.D. 1200-1350, characterized by the spread and climax of the so-called "Southern Cult"), and Late, or Protohistoric (A.D. 1350-1650, just before and after the first European contacts).
The following is partially based on John A. Walthall's general description of Mississippian social/material culture in Prehistoric Indians of the Southeast (University of Alabama Press):
MISSISSIPPIAN CULTURE:
Emergence of Mississippian culture is marked by the appearance of distinctive forms of pottery, commonly shell-tempered, and by the construction, on or around a central plaza, of large earthen platforms that served as substructures for temples, elite residences, and council buildings. Other important Mississippian traits include use of the bow; arrows tipped with small, triangular stone points; intensive floodplain horticulture based on maize, beans and squash; religious ceremonialism connected with agricultural production and centered around a fire-sun diety; long-distance trade; increased territoriality and warefare (though no clear-cut indications of strife are present on the Macon Plateau); and the advent of highly organized chiefdoms.
Mississippian "chiefdoms," or provinces, society complex political structures consisting of several towns. Each village had a chief, but these may have been subservient to a more powerful Priest-Chief in another town. Each family and clan had a rank or position within the society, possibly determined by how closely related they were to the chief. The Chief and his family were entitled to exotic goods which emphasized their importance or status and may have been buried with them when they died.
Chiefdoms were distinguished from tribal societies by the presence of centers or capitals. The chief and members of his lineage lived in such settlements, along with priests, craftsmen and political assistants. Temples, granaries, the chief's residence and houses of nobles and servants were present. Smaller outlying villages and farmsteads supported and protected the ceremonial center. The location of these chiefdoms on ecotones near fertile floodplains made a broad range of cultivated and natural foods available.
Larger Mississippian ceremonial centers featured earthen mounds, which served as raised platforms for structures built of timber, clay, and thatch. Some of these were ceremonial or political, other were domiciliary. In the Southeast, which has a long tradition of mound burials, some platform mounds were constructed specifically for that purpose and may have had charnel buildings on their summits, though most inhumations were in cemetaries.
Public buildings and chiefly residences placed on Mississippian mound summits were generally larger, more ornate versions of ordinary domestic dwellings. Houses were rectangular to square in shape, commonly between 10 and 30 feet in length. During the initial stage of house construction, wall posts were set and usually wedged into narrow trenches or placed into deep individual post holes. Canes (wattle) were then threaded between, or tied to, the wall posts and and plastered with clay (daub) inside and out. Roofs constructed of wattled rafters topped with thatch or bark were set at a steep angle to allow good runoff during heavy rains. Houses normally contained only a single room, although partitions of cane mats may have been used to divide the chamber. A fireplace was usually centrally located in the room to provide warmth in the winter and protection from insects in the summer. Most of the cooking was probably done outside, either in the open or under a kitchen shed.
As was probably true during the earlier Woodland Period Adena and Hopewell cultural spheres, trade was of two major types: (1) long-distance trade of products made from materials of limited distribution such as copper, galena, marine shell, certain types of stone and, evidently, some pottery forms; and (2) localized redistribution of foodstuffs and craft goods. Many of the rarer trade objects served as indicators of rank and status. Elite burials (male and female) at Mississippian sites were usually accompanied by elaborate good, while graves of commoners were often bare.
The Mississippians have been called Master Farmers. They grew and stored corn, beans, squash, pumpkins, sunflowers, and tobacco. They cultivated their agricultural fields with tools of wood, bone, and stone. The harvests were collected in baskets. Animals such as raccoon, turkey, rabbit, beaver, squirrel, turtles, and deer were hunted. Skins were tanned to make clothing and no part of the animal was wasted. Deer may have been hunted in several ways. A lone hunter could camouflage himself with the hide of a deer in order to approach the animals. Fires might have been set in the woods to drive the deer into open areas. The final kill was made with bows and arrows
Metals such as copper were cold hammered and worked into various forms of ornamental or ceremonial objects. Smelting was unknown. Clay, fired into pottery, was the only structurally altered raw material. Even so, Mississippian craftsmen achieved remarkable results in knapping, grinding, carving, and weaving natural materials, often expanding on designs and techniques pioneered by earlier cultures.
Women constructed pots by coiling and modeling local clays. These vessels were used for storing food and drink. This early Mississippian pottery was made in many sizes and shapes suited to a variety of everyday and ceremonial uses. Decoration was in the form of effigies (images or representations of people or animals).Designs were woven into baskets and fabric. Stone, wood, bone, shell and other materials were probably utilized, though unfortunately, organic material does not survive well in the moist, acidic soil of the Southeast. Based on evidence from other archaeological sites and upon historic accounts of the Indians, people decorated themselves with shell gorgets, beads, tattooing, paint, elaborate hairdos, feathers and many types of ear ornaments.
Warfare, or the threat of it, may have been a feature of daily life in the Southeast, at least during later Mississippian times. While violent conflict was probably common among earlier cultures, it is in the Mississippian stage that a major change occurred in the nature of aboriginal warfare. Fortified settlements appeared for the first time. Because territories containing both agricultural lands and diverse environmental zones were limited, they were at a premium. Expanding neighboring populations inhabiting essentially circumscribed areas could enlarge their holdings only by invading and seizing surrounding territories. Lesser polities sometimes paid tribute to dominate neighboring chiefdoms.
Mississippian defensive works were long thought to have included one or more of the following features: (1) wooden stockades with bastions constructed of closely set vertical posts; (2) dry moats; and (3) earthen embankments. While many of these may have been defensive in nature, some archeologists now suggest that many of these "fortifications" may actually have served to deliniate the town's ceremonial precinct.
Another integral part of Mississippian life was ritual and ceremony. The highest expression of Mississippian ceremonialism has been called the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, or Southern Cult, which spread widely sometime after A.D. 1000. Associated with this complex was a series of art forms on several media that were widely traded and ultimately became mortuary offerings. Frequently used motifs included the forked or weeping eye, bilobed arrow, cross, swastika, hand and eye, sun circle, skull, crossbones and heart.
A favorite game was "chunkey" which was played with a disc-shaped stone and a striped pole or wooden spear. After rolling the stone, a player tried to toss his spear close to where he thought the stone would stop rolling. Stickball, very similar to the modern game of lacrosse, was also played. Wooden "racquets" were used by the players from two opposing teams to throw a small leather ball down a large playing field. Points were scored when the ball was thrown between two vertical posts at each end of the field. Stickball was usually played between two rival towns and sometimes was a method of settling arguments.
The decline of the major Mississippian chiefdoms appears to have occurred during the latter part of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Many of the large "Mature Mississippian" centers, such as Moundville and Etowah, were replaced by smaller chiefdoms of the Lamar culture (or Lamar-like cultures such as Dallas in Tennessee, Irene on the Georgia-South Carolina coast, and Fort Walton/Pensacola on the Florida Gulf Coast). These changes seem to have been underway before contact with European explorers and colonizers.
European disease and social disruption due to contact with a totally foreign culture were the final blows to the Late Mississippian chiefdoms. Few written descriptions exist to clarify their way-of-life. By the time history recorded native Southeastern culture in detail, it had degenerated into tribal societies already greatly Europeanized.
Text by Sylvia Flowers
Later Mississippian Developments
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