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 imagery discussed here is not restricted to the Prairie-Forest border and the Upper Mississippi Valley. The essentials of the belief system and cosmology are widely shared throughout the East. However, the principles embodied in the earth-sky dualism have created a specific version of this system that is linked visually to the Braden style. Examples of this style are particularly strong in representing the Sacred Hawk (as Morning Star) and the Earthmother cycles, both of which are strongly related to plant, animal, and human generation.

Middle Mississippi Valley petroglyphs (rock carvings) and pictographs (rock paintings), with their copious amount and variety of symbolic motifs, provide an unparalleled inventory of Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC)/Mississippian Ideological Interaction Sphere (MIIS)

This corpus of motifs radiates out from the Middle Mississippi River Valley into the Lower Missouri and its tributaries, in the Eastern Woodlands and Southeast.

Klaus Wellmann’s sweeping overview of North American rock-art names three concentrations in the Eastern Woodlands. Wellmann states that one “zone extends from Missouri into the Tennessee River valley as far east as Georgia and western North Carolina”

The Missouri rock-art region referred to in this discussion (with more than 150 sites, including a copious amount of diagnostic motifs) contains iconography that extends minimally to the west (Spiro), east (Cahokia), south (Moundville), and southeast (Etowah).

along with a number of the “traditional” symbols commonly viewed as arising from the SECC (Waring 1968c; Howard 1968; Phillips 1940; Phillips and Brown 1978, 1984), in some localities we find these traditional motifs portrayed along with other, possibly more regionally specific motifs.

The absence or presence of key SECC symbols likewise provides insight into the regionalism factor and may serve as a key to a selection of American Indian oral traditions and belief systems, along with the movement and dispersal of populations.

we can see at least some of the motifs continuing to serve as icons for later American Indian groups, attesting to the longevity of associated oral traditions and beliefs.

Scholars often refer to the Classic Braden style Rogan Plates (Fig. 4.1a and b) from Mound C at the great ceremonial center in Etowah, Georgia, as defining (diagnostic) artifacts.

Both Rogan figures represent a “Birdman” supernatural or better a triumphant “Hawk Being.” Brown and Kelly (2000:471) refer to the “Birdman” theme, stemming from the Rogan Plates, “as the ‘mother’ source for the SECC as an archaeological construct.”

This “Hawk Being” is absent in the cultural material at Moundville, Alabama.

Examining the iconography at five major mound centers, we see what can be interpreted as an artistic and ideological sphere with major ceremonial centers/points north (Cahokia), south (Moundville), east (Etowah and Castalian Springs), and west (Spiro).

Missouri’s “Big Five” petroglyph group (Washington State Park A and B, Maddin Creek, Three Hills Creek, and Wallen Creek) contains a profusion of SECC and related icons that can be compared to the iconography found in materials at the major (and minor) mound sites.

the mace, bilobed arrow, foot, hand, ogee, hafted celt or monolithic axe, cross-in-circle or sun circle, spinning cross, and spinning cross-in-circle or in two concentric circles.

All five sites are roughly 50–70 miles southwest of Cahokia Mounds. They were much closer to the St. Louis Mound Group on the St. Louis Riverfront (Big Mound and its associated mounds).

if we look at the context in which any rockart (from single motifs to complex panels) was placed, we can begin to understand the probable ritual locations and sacred landscapes that were important for this activity and track the use of icons at specific locations as well as over many regions.

Contexts for rock-art in the Eastern Woodlands include placement on freestanding boulders in open fields, on bluff-tops, or along riverbanks (periodically leaving the rock-art submerged).

Rock-art also occurs on bluff facades, on low-lying rock outcrops in cedar glades, in caves, at cave entrances, and in rock shel...

The presence of these recognized SECC/Mississippian motifs is useful in the relative dating of rock-art in the Eastern Woodlands, where chances are slim to zero for the employment of anything similar to cation-ration dating of the rock patina.

“many of the techniques, artistic concepts, and ritualistic associations which underlie this ‘Southeastern Ceremonial Complex’ were already well developed in Hopewellian and Adena times, i.e., before a.d. 700”

studying the distribution and co-occurrences of motifs and styles—meshed with the known iconographic data from the SECC/MIIS—affords a means to trace the movement of this imagery and the early people and ideologies they represent.

The portraiture of Morning Star/Hawk and members of his family occurs on a sandstone wall in the dark zone of a Missouri cave. Hawk, with his father’s head/upper torso in his right hand and a bow and arrow in his left hand (Fig. 4.2f; see Diaz-Granados and Duncan 2000:Pl. 17), is believed to be among the oldest images in this cave.

Hawk’s ear ornament—a white, long-nosed shell maskette.

pre–AD...

This Hawk/Star figure can be compared to the “Resting Warrior” pipe from Spiro, Oklahoma, and to the Rogan Plates from Etowah, Georgia, through various elements. In addition, the figure’s facial and torso stripes, long-nosed maskette ear ornament, multiple eyes on the chest, forehead plaque, and arrows in the plaque all have their counterpart explanations in the ethnographic literature.

we can safely make the statement that long-nosed maskettes were both important and widespread in the Eastern Woodlands. Then consider that many stories and oral traditions gathered in the ethnographies refer to twins, brothers, heroic duos, and the “long-nosed” brother. These stories and allusions to long-nosed characters continue into historic times. We can only proceed on the supposition that a connection exists and that the iconography, so widespread, was not random drawing but an intentional mnemonic device to recall (retell) these stories or perform their related rituals.

flurry of painting and activity occurred at this site, probably between AD 950 and AD 1050. This information hints at the possibility that the genesis of the SECC/MIIS may even precede the construction of Cahokia. Late Woodland images from Illinois (see Brown 1989) and Picture Cave on the Lower Missouri River support the hypothesis that the symbolism is quite ancient. It could be that the oral traditions and rituals that most likely accompanied at least some of the pictograph production helped serve to formulate a “congress” of Late Woodland people whose cooperative efforts resulted in the development of the western Mississippian centers at the confluence of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio Rivers—that is, the St. Louis Mounds, East St. Louis Mounds, and Cahokia Mounds and the major sites in Mississippi and New Madrid Counties, Missouri.

These can serve as singular motifs or in conjunction with other SECC (or suspected regional SECC) symbols.

1. Bird, Birdman, Falconid Eye-Surround 2. Serpent 3. Quadrupeds 4. Anthropomorphic: Hand/Arm, Foot, Pit and Groove, Vulva forms 5. Concentric Circles, Dot-in-Circle

6. Cross-in-Circle, Spinning Cross-in-Circle 7. Mace 8. Bilobed Arrow 9. Ogee 10. Underwater Serpent/Spirit

the most frequently portrayed motif in Missouri rock-art and is depicted in a var...

The “Birdman” portrayed on the Cahokia Birdman tablet (Fig. 4.2a), the Spiro shell cups, such as the Craig B–style engraved-whelk shell cup (Fig. 4.2b), the Peter Bess Fort Hawk plaque from Scott County, Missouri (Fig. 4.2c), the Wulfing Plates from Dunklin County in southeastern Missouri (Fig. 4.2d), and the Rogan Plates from Etowah, Georgia (Fig. 4.1a and b), all appear to represent the same celestial being or similar character in the oral traditions.

The falconid eye-surround is considered a signifier of a cosmic level: Upper World portrayed by two extensions and Lower World by three

This “dot-in-circle” eye or “fish eye” is common to both the long-nosed maskette and the Underwater Spirit at Picture Cave. The long-nosed maskette represents the “wild brother” who was raised by a water spirit in the Children of the Sun or Twins Cycle. The “dot-in-circle” eye denotes “wildness” and the ability to “resurrect,” as told in the oral traditions. It is also water related.

The earliest-dated SECC motifs (falconid eye-surrounds, maces, hawk feather–design or scaled garments, singular upright feather, hat similar to the classic Braden turbans, and dot-in-circle eyes) are all present at Picture Cave and date to a weighted average of AD 1025,

Serpent.

appears alone and in conjunction with other motifs and is abundant in the art of the SECC/MIIS. It is one of the most prolific motifs in Missouri rock-art.

Quadrupeds.

relatively common in Missouri rock-art and in at least some instances may portray a supernatural figure rather than an actual deer or wapiti.

regional variant of ...

deer antlers are used to depict headdresses or signifiers of particular characters, asterisms, or cosmic levels on shell gorget figures and underwater spirits.

In some cases deer may represent an aspect of the Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies and, according to modern Dhegihan oral traditions, the sinister character “Deer Woman”

Anthropomorphs.

anthropomorphs are seen in active postures, as though they are playing a game.

stick and circle/ball or ch...

in conjunction with a large avian accompanied by a stick and one or more circular depressions

This could allude to a giant bird, “Storms-as-He-Walks,” who plays a stickball game with “Morning Star” (Hawk or Red Horn/Blue Horn).

occasional connection to the stickball and chunkey game

Hand/Arm.

prominent icon on gorgets and pottery from Moundville and on gorgets from Spiro,