Visualizing the Sacred: Cosmic Visions, Regionalism, and the Art of the Mississippian World (Linda Schele Series in Maya and Pre-Columbian Studies)

by George E. Lankford

the Osage cosmos, which was a symmetrical, layered universe, held together by a great red oak tree, its axis mundi. The underlying principle of their cosmos was balance among all the forces of the universe (called wa-kan)