Mississippian Culture Heroes, Ritual Regalia, and Sacred Bundles

(Hardback)

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In Mississippian Culture Heroes, Ritual Regalia, and Sacred Bundles, archaeologists analyze evidence of the religious beliefs and ritual practices of Mississippian people through the lens of indigenous ontologies and material culture. Employing archaeological, ethnographic, and ethnohistoric evidence, the contributors explore the recent emphasis on iconography as an important component for interpreting eastern North Americas ancient past. The research in this volume emphasizes the animistic nature of animals and objects, erasing the false divide between people and other-than-human beings. Drawing on an array of empirical approaches, the contributors demonstrate the importance of understanding beliefs and ritual and the significance of investigating how people in the past practiced religion and ritual by crafting, circulating, using, and ultimately decommissioning material items and spaces, including ceramic effigies, rock art, sacred bundles, shell gorgets, stone figurines, and symbolic weaponry.

Reviews

Mississippian Culture Heroes, Ritual Regalia, and Sacred Bundles is an essential read for archaeologists researching and thinking about Mississippian symbols. It addresses important and timely issues, such as the use and depiction of ceremonial bundles and ritual regalia, as well as the significance of culture heroes and other-than-human persons in Mississippian belief systems and cosmologies. Certain chapters also focus on under-discussed mound centers, such as the Castalian Springs, Link Farm, and Lake Jackson sites, in ways that alter our understanding of these Mississippian communities. Additionally, its chapters engage in pertinent discussions about how Mississippian symbols were intertwined with ceremonial practices and memory in ways that are sure to influence future archaeological analyses.

Author Bio

David H. Dye is professor of archaeology in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Memphis.