Page 535 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

a sharpened knowledge of the articles of the Soto
expedition. A handy guide to the contribution of
archaeology to the identification of the route is
Jerald T. Milanich and Susan Milbrath, eds., First
Encounters: Spanish Explorations in the Caribbean
and the United States, 1492-1570 (Gainesville,
1989).
6. Close attention to documents provides details. See
Charles Hudson, The Juan Pardo Expeditions (Wash-
ington, 1990); and John H. Hann, Apalachee, The
Land Between the Rivers (Gainesville, 1988).
7. Lewis H. Larson, Aboriginal Subsistence Technology
on the Southeastern Coastal Plain during the Late
Prehistoric Period (Gainesville, 1980).
8. David H. Dye and Cheryl Anne Cox, eds., Towns
and Temples Along the Mississippi (Tuscaloosa,
1990).
9 Garcilaso de la Vega 1951,13-14.
10. Garcilaso de la Vega 1951, 316-322.
11. Ancient Art of the American Woodland Indians
fig. 7. Piasa Monster. Drawing of side and front view of an image engraved on a pottery vessel
[exh. cat. Detroit Institute of Arts] (Detroit, 1985),
pis. 95, 96, 139, 140, 141.
12. John R. Swanton, Indian Tribes of the Lower Missis-
sippi Valley (Washington, 1911), 172.
13. James Adair, The History of the American Indians
(London, 1775), 22-23.
is primarily in this context that we have to were predominately aligned with the upper 14. Guy Prentice, "An Analysis of the Symbolism
interpret this fearful monster. world together with the sun and heavenly Expressed by the Birger Figurine," American Antiq-
Much of this animal imagery can be inter- sources of nurture. Serpents belonged to oppos- uity 51 (1986), 239-266.
preted as an evocation of the creature's power. ing, dangerous forces of the lower world. At the 15. Swanton 1911. A particularly rich body of informa-
the
tion is available about the practices of the
elite in
Parts of animals are widely employed to these period of contact with the Europeans, the chiefly society reported by John M. Goggin and
ends, as in the figure of speech known as synec- human form was used to represent overwhelm- William C. Sturtevant, "The Calusa: A Stratified,
doche, in which the part stands for the whole. 26 ingly the gods, the ancestral dead, and possibly Nonagricultural Society (with Notes on Sibling
The distinctive forked marking around the the living representative of this line of ances- Marriage)" in Explorations in Cultural Anthropol-
falcon eye was regularly used to stand for the tors. Otherwise Mississippian art, which has ogy, ed. Ward H. Goodenough (New York, 1964),
192.
bird. The crossed poles of the chiefly litter were contributed some remarkable images of human 16. Garcilaso de la Vega 1951, 15, 343.
used to stand for the chief's office itself. life, made use of the underworld monsters in its 17. Examples of pottery images and shell masks can be
In all, the overwhelming theme of southeast- increasing preoccupation with the successful found in David H. Dye and Camille Wharey, "Exhi-
ern imagery at the time of Columbus can be pursuit of war and survival through defense. bition Catalog" in Patricia Galloway, ed., The South-
eastern
thought of as centering around men in their Analysis Ceremonial Complex: Artifacts and
(Lincoln, 1989), 321-378.
capacity to manage the powerful and often 18. Charles Hudson, The Southeastern Indians (Knox-
magical properties of both the upper and lower ville, 1976).
worlds. Men were depicted as either gods or 19. Hudson 1976, 129.
captive foes. Animals were used for their sym- 20. These and other behavioral associations can be found
bolic value as representations of the most potent N O T E S in Hudson 1976, 146, 257; Webb 1989, 282; and
Orga-
Vernon James Knight, Jr., "The Institutional
forces of the upper and lower worlds. Humans -L. Garcilaso de la Vega, The Florida of the Inca. Trans- nization of Mississippian Religion," American
were more than ritual mediators with the lated by John and Jeannette Varner (Austin, 1951)., Antiquity 51 (1986), 675-687.
El Inca was a pseudonym.
xxxviii.
powers of these two worlds. For certain pur- 2. The aftermath is well covered by David Hurst 21. Knight 1986, 675-687.
poses humans were divided into social groups Thomas, ed., Columbian Consequences, Volume 2, 22. Hudson 1976.
that represented these worlds. Society was Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on the 23. Prentice 1986, 239-266. Brown, Pre-Columbian
Phillip Phillips and James A.
24.
organized by cosmic principles. Spanish Borderlands East (Washington, 1990). See Shell Engravings from the Craig Mound at Spiro,
Wood, Gregory A.
Waselkov, and M.
In this the land of the Old South, a country also Peter Hatley, eds., Powhatan's Mantle: Indians in Oklahoma, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and
Thomas
so conducive to successful agriculture in a the Colonial Southeast (Lincoln, 1989). Ethnology, Harvard University, part i (Cambridge,
preindustrial world of America, a high culture 3. Malcolm C. Webb, "Functional and Historical Paral- Mass., 1978), 140-143.
arose around the year 1000 that produced a rich lelisms between Mesoamerican and Mississippian 25. The combination also plays on the snake's anoma-
art that is only now becoming recognized. Upon Cultures" in Patricia Galloway, ed., The Southeast- lous features: born from an egg but hated by birds;
crawling on land, and
adept at swimming in water,
this base a large population of interrelated com- ern Ceremonial Complex: Artifacts and Analysis hanging from trees (Hudson 1976,144-145).
(Lincoln, 1989), 279-293.
munities arose that used this artistic expression 4. Carl Ortwin Sauer, Sixteenth-Century North 26. Robert L. Hall, "The Cultural Background of Missis-
as a means of placing humankind in proper America (Berkeley, 1971). sippian Symbolism," in Patricia Galloway, ed., The
order with potent cosmic forces. Both human 5. The baseline work that covers this route is that of Southeastern Ceremonial Complex: Artifacts and
(Lincoln, 1989),
239-278, and "Cahokia
and animal forms were used interchangeably the DeSoto Commission: John R. Swanton, Final Analysis and Interaction Models of Cahokia Missis-
Identity
United States
De Soto
Expedition
with certain preferences being typical of par- Report of the (1939, republished Washington, 1985, sippian," in Cahokia and the Hinterlands: Middle
Commission
ticular periods. One enduring principle was the with a new introduction). Since that publication, Mississippian Cultures of the Midwest, ed. Thomas
identification of certain animals as representa- archaeology has made great advances in identifying E. Emerson and R. Barry Lewis (Urbana, 1991), 3-
tives of either the upper or lower worlds. Birds the towns and villages of the period with the help of 34-
534 CIRCA 1492