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America before Columbus: a Mississippian view of the cosmos
The gorget, a finely carved neck ornament from the Mississippian period, reveals rich cultural history. Found in Tennessee, it symbolizes the complex societies that thrived in North America before European colonization. The gorget's design connects to stories of life, death, and regeneration, reflecting the agricultural cycle. Cities like Cahokia, with advanced corn-growing technology and unique art styles, were bustling hubs of these societies. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
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- they mention that they believe the disc would have been worn as a necklace and would have been worn with the face looking up, but then it is shown on display facing sideways. why wouldn't they of placed the way they believe to have been worn?(11 votes)
- When in use, for the sake of the user, it makes more sense oriented in a particular direction. When on display, for the sake of the viewer, a different orientation makes more sense.(8 votes)
- I was just wondering if anyone else noticed that the figure has two left hands. Is there a story behind this? Some myth relating to a figure with two left hands?(6 votes)
- From the author:Nice observation. The next time I talk with David Penney, I will be sure to ask him.(4 votes)
- At6:47it shows a gorget made with circular loops and four birds. Does anyone know why the birds on the top and bottom are designed differently than those on the sides?(4 votes)
- I think it was trying to show 2 different birds. That could mean that has more power or greater value.(2 votes)
- at5:22it says that it would have been worn on its side. Why turn it so that the figure is right side up if it was supposed to be sideways?(4 votes)
- These artifacts are definitely interesting but nobody knows for sure what they were meant to represent. Interpretation is more art than science.(3 votes)
- I wonder what sorts of carving tools were available during this time for such intricate work.(2 votes)
- Likely they were pointed stones, harder than the materials which were being carved.(2 votes)
- This seems to be their science.Their attempt to explain the world. Is their science airtight? Do things contradict each other or is there an underlying logic like we have?(1 vote)
- This is not science, it is the mythology of an ancient people. To try to fit it into Western Modern Science is to denigrate a culture's beliefs. These things are here for us to learn and appreciate as cultural artifacts, like Bible stories, Greek myths and Fairy tales.(4 votes)
- How did they carve something So detailed(1 vote)
- The artist who carved this piece worked carefully and very slowly. We don't know how many pieces she discarded or destroyed on the way to producing the one we see here.(4 votes)
- So at1:28why did they say "mississippian period"?(1 vote)
- You are sharp to have noticed. Geologists refer to a "mississippian period" that happened about 350 million years ago and left some marvelous rocks and petroleum deposits. But in this lesson, a "mississippian period" refers to native american anthropology, much more recent.(4 votes)
- why does that marking on his face a simble of a parekin falkon(1 vote)
- I just want to remind you that your spelling of symbol is simble.(1 vote)
Video transcript
(piano music) - [Female Presenter] We're
in the National Museum of the American Indian, looking at a gorget,
this is a neck ornament, it's only a few inches high,
but it's very finely carved. - [Male Presenter] Made out of shell, so the material probably
came from the Gulf of Mexico, but the object was found
in the middle of Tennessee, in a large town site
called Castalian Springs, that was active about 1200 to 1300, right in the middle of what we call the Mississippian period. - [Female Presenter] And it
was found in a burial mound. - [Male Presenter] It
was excavated in 1891 by an amateur named William Myer. We know from his notes
that the burial mound had over 100 burials in it, but this burial was one of the earliest, right
at the base of the mound, and it was unusually
elaborate, there was not only this gorget, but there were others, one placed on his or her
throat, the others gathered in a little bundle
between his or her feet, he or she had shell
beads, and pearl beads, and other ornaments as
well, so it's a very important individual that very likely was important to the founding of the site. - [Female Presenter] So let's define the Mississippian period. - [Male Presenter] It's a
number of different ways of organizing society,
that maximized the ability to grow corn beads and
squash but particularly corn in bottom land areas so
that's why the big towns are often located on rivers,
and then in ideology, a way of thinking about
the world which includes some mythology, stories,
culture heroes, and how this ties to the political authority. - [Female Presenter] So during
the Mississippian Period we see the growth of
towns, often characterized by mounds, by fortifications, and by plazas in front of the mounds. - [Male Presenter] One of
the characteristic aspects of Mississippian
architecture is what we call the platform mound, which
is a big earthen structure with a flat top, and what
you don't see today is that there was a wooden structure
on top, often a residence for an important person, or a temple. The original Mississippian
town was the city of Cahokia. - [Female Presenter]
This was the biggest city in North America, with
upwards of 30,000 people. - [Male Presenter] Small
towns, and larger towns, spread out from Cahokia,
taking the ideology, taking the corn growing
technology, taking the art style, and spreading it out across a
lot of east and north America. The interesting thing
about it is that evidently it's multi-ethnic, so it's
not simply a single people or culture expanding, but the ideas, and the object associated with
those ideas, expanding across the country and being
adopted by local traditions. Cahokia dispersed about 1350
or so, but the present day Osage, Ponca, Quapaw,
Kansa are very likely the descendants of Cahokia people. - [Female Presenter] So
when we think about what the Europeans saw when they came here, we can sometimes fall into thinking about it as a wilderness, but in fact, there were major cities
here, like Cahokia. - [Male Presenter] We're
accustomed to thinking of North America as a wilderness
but I remind people often of De Soto's journey
across the south-east, where he encountered one
big Mississippian town after another till he got
to the Mississippi Valley, and there are four to five towns up and down the Mississippi. - [Female Presenter] So
let's talk about this gorget and it's beautiful
carving, we see a figure who appears to be running, or in motion, his right knee is bent, his
left leg is bent behind him, and his right arm holds a head, and the left arm holds a weapon, a mace. - [Male Presenter] There
are many of these gorgets, they are exchanged between
the different towns among leaders, and to own one was a testimony to your
status as a leader. There are elements of some Osage stories that kind of fit the
design that we see here. Look carefully, you'll see
the figure has this odd fork shape round his eyes, that
is a reference to a marking on a bird, a Peregrine Falcon. We know from other gorgets like this, where there are figures that
have more bird attributes, they may have wings, they may have talons, so this figure has a human form but he also has a bird form. - [Female Presenter] And so
we believe that this figure that we see in Mississippian iconography is linked to a culture
hero named Morning Star. - [Male Presenter] Well
we call him Morning Star, and Morning Star of course
is the planet Venus. In the morning it rises in
the sky just before the sun, and as the sun sets, it
descends right after the sun. So the story, that corresponds to this, that we think fits pretty
well, is that the Morning Star, a falcon, and his twin brother
traveled to the underworld to retrieve the remains
of their deceased father, who had been captured, and
so he's holding the remains of his father as he rises into the sky, and this is a story that has
to do with birth and death, - And regeneration.
- And regeneration, which is tied to agriculture of course, because you plant your seeds, and you hope things
grow from them, and so, this cycle of regeneration,
the cycle of life and death, is tied to the human world, is tied to the agricultural
world, and it's symbolized in mythology in images you see like this. - [Female Presenter] The
circular shape of this gorget emphasized by the circles
incised around the edges I think this makes that
point too, about cycles of life and death and regeneration. - [Male Presenter] I think
so, images of this bird man, Morning Star figure I found in
cave art, rock art locations all throughout this area of the mid-west, and in other media as
well, sometimes in copper. - [Female Presenter]
The figure is head up, but we can see on the
right two small circles, and so we know that the figure
that we see on the gorget would have looked up at the wearer. - [Male Presenter] Pulling the
head of the deceased father if that's in fact who he
is, up into the sky world. - [Female Presenter]
In Mississippian ideas of the supernatural,
we have a world above, and a world below, with
the earthly in the center. - [Male Presenter] A customary
way of thinking about this is the native world is
that the earth is a disc, and it faces the sky during
the day, but as it turns, it faces the night sky, the underworld, that rises up above our terrestrial world. - [Female Presenter] He's heavily adorned, he wears a necklace made of beads, he's got beads around his legs,
this elaborate loin cloth, and a really fabulous headdress too. - [Male Presenter] And ear spools, they're very likely made of local mica, he's holding that wonderful
mace, made of stone in one hand. The headdress has this odd
configuration which may also relate to this Morning Star story, where bows and arrows
play a prominent part, but there is a Mississippian style of bow, they put tufts of feathers on either end, which are represented
as like little balls, so that is another
symbol that's associated with this story and with
the bird man figure. - [Female Presenter]
We're so fortunate to have this gorget to remind us
of these complex cultures that lived in North
America before contact, before European colonization. - [Male Presenter] And the
rich legacy of art making, and these kind of objects circulated among different people of
leadership and authority, they are incredibly complex
in their iconography, to convey these complicated
ideas so it's a rich visual legacy, which we
probably haven't paid as much attention to as we should. (piano music)