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Midwest, Southeast, and Natchez
Woodland
Term "Woodland" applies to cultures in the eastern U.S.
Some cultures highly developed
Clear evidence of class structure, and huge earthen mounds.
Archaic Period Art
During the Archaic period in the east, first "elaborated objects" were burial goods.
Example: bannerstones, weights used with atlatls, finely made and never used, apparently symbolic offerings.
Adena Culture
Dates: 500 B.C. to A.D. 200
Adena communities located in Ohio Valley.
Mounds: cone shaped, up to 66 feet high.
Earthen mounds covered log buildings with burials – elite persons + servants.
Ideology and Burials
Acute sense of sanctity of place. Elite people built homes and temples in same places, atop mounds.
Strong ancestor veneration; proximity to the ancestors for sense of power from earlier generations.
Most frequent burial goods: birds, serpents.
Adena subsistence
Crops: squash, gourds
Gathered sunflowers, hickory nuts, acorns.
No maize at Adena sites.
Sites located along rivers; used fish and aquatic birds as resources, too.
Hopewell Culture
Time: 300 B.C. to 600 A.D.
Same region as Adena, but one big difference: maize was a major crop.
Tools: bison and deer shoulder blades for hoes.
Hunting: deer, turkey, turtles, mussels.
Plants: hickory nuts, acorns, walnuts, grapes, berries, plums
Hopewell and Waterways
All Hopewell sites located along rivers.
Widespread trade networks dominant in economy.
Trade goods from Appalachians (mica), Lake Superior (copper), Rocky Mountains (obsidian), and Atlantic ocean (shell).
Hopewell Burial Mounds
Hopewell sites had burial mounds similar to Adena’s, but larger and more elaborate.
Tombs included spouses and servants, and many artifacts, often exotic and finely made.
Effigy Mounds
Hopewell Also built mounds in shapes of animals.
Great Serpent Mounds is best example
Not a burial mound, but obviously of symbolic significance.
End of Hopewell
Activity at Hopewell sites diminished after A.D. 350, and had been abandoned by A.D. 600.
Reasons uncertain – possibly resource depletion, climate change.
Concepts and ideology continued as people migrated to other areas.
Mississippian Cultures
Time: A.D. 750 to conquest
Region: included much of eastern U.S.
Mississippians most elaborate of the moundbuilding cultures. Mounds similar to other moundbuilders, with multiple layers of burials.
Largest community: Cahokia, now East St. Louis.
Mississippian Subsistence
Grew maize, beans, and squash.
River resources important also: fish, turtles.
Also hunted small game, deer, and turkey.
Religion and Ceremony
Mississippians venerated the Sun and fire, with origin story about arrival of beings from the Sun who led humans to better life.
Ceremonies similar to those of Natchez in historic period, especially Green Corn, or New Fire ceremony.
Natchez: Historic period Mississippian Culture
Most Mississippian sites abandoned by time of European contact.
Exception: Natchez (Theloel), still thriving when Europeans arrived.
Region: lower Mississippi River, now Louisiana and Mississippi.
Origin Story
Natchez led by the Great Sun, descended from man and woman from the Sun.
Rules of conduct.
Temples built for Great Sun to communicate with Great Spirit, keep eternal fire.
Architecture
Grand Village had 2 large mounds, one for Great Sun’s home, other for temple.
Both mounds about 8 feet high.
Personal Appearance
Cradleboards used for infants; forehead and back of head flattened.
Tattoos, especially for elite people and warriors. Serpents, sun figures, battle scenes.
Ear piercing, plugs.
Subsistence
Cultivate foods: maize, beans, pumpkins.
Gathered walnuts, chestnuts, acorns.
Hunting, fishing.
Domesticated dogs.
Transportation: rafts and canoes.
Sociopolitical System
Class structure:
Suns
Nobles
Honor rank people
Stinkards
Great Sun and Great War Chief.
War decision by council
Ritual purification
Torture of captives.
Religious System
Priesthood; Full-time specialists.
Great Spirit and lesser spirits.
Temple: center of religious life.
Eternal fire, kept by 8 elders.
Monthly feast ceremonies, centered on food (e.g. March = deer feast).
Green Corn Ceremony
Most important ceremony: Green Corn, in 7th month.
Celebrates first harvest of maize.
Purging, cleansing, relighting fires.
Symbolic renewal for a new year.
Marriage and Gender
Gender differentiation of labor marked.
Most marriages monogamous, but plural marriages recognized, especially among nobility.
Sororal polygyny usual form.
Neolocal residence.
Europeans and Natchez
Expedition of Hernando de Soto – 1539 through 1543.
De Soto arrived at Natchez in 1542, and driven away.
French explorer Sieur de la Salle, 1682.
French and the Natchez
1698: missionary efforts begun.
1718: Antoine Le Page du Pratz, who recorded Natchez life.
1725: death of Tattooed Serpent – elaborate funeral with sacrifice.
Demise of the Natchez
1728: Great Sun died, leaving young and inexperienced Great Sun in charge.
Weakened by conflict and bad decisions.
1731: Great Sun and 400 Natchez people, mostly women and children, surrendered at Sicily Island. Most sold into slavery in West Indies.
Other Natchez people escaped, joined other tribes.
