Who were the Mississippian People?
The history of the Appalachian Mountains begins long before the era of mining, colonization, and even modern tribal nations. Around 800 CE, the Mississippian peoples’ history began within the mountains and valleys we now know as the Appalachians. They were a well-developed people, with governing chiefdoms, trade, and towns spattering the mountain range. They were talented horticulturalists, and much of their gardening strategies are still practiced today.
Being mainly horticulturalists and farmers, they grew the majority of their food in small gardens and homesteads. They used axes, shovels, picks, and other handmade tools to tend to their crops. They cultivated many different plants, including corn, squash, beans, sunflowers, goosefoot, and sump weed. They added to their diets with wild plants and small game animals, such as fruits, nuts, herbs, and deer, which provided protein and medicine to the townspeople. Taking advantage of the flowing mountain rivers and lakes, they collected fish, shellfish, and turtles. They used every part of the animals they killed, using shells for architecture, art, and baskets (turtle shells), and let nothing go to waste to manage sustainability.
The Mississippian people spent most of their time outside; their buildings were only used for storage and protection from cold or inclement weather. Despite this, their homes were sturdy and well-made. Many of them were round, to assist air circulation which made heating and cooling the home much easier than their rectangular counterparts. The frames of the homes were made from thick cane poles, with walls made of saplings woven throughout the frame. The outside of the home was coated in a thick layer of baked clay or daub to keep the home insulated and waterproof. The roofs were thatched with a hole in the middle to allow smoke to exit the building. The firepit was located inside the home for heating purposes, and took up the majority of the space with a large heart meant for sleeping on in the colder months.
Much of the Mississippian lifestyle adapted to the surrounding landscape. Nature is sacred, and must be respected and protected. This is a value that has been passed down from the Mississippian people to the modern tribal nations that are still here today. However, adapting was not the entire way of life for the sophisticated Mississippians; they utilized a strict social structure which was fundamental to their culture. The population of each town was categorized under two classes:
elites and commoners. This class system was based solely on spiritual beliefs and ideology, rather than wealth and social power.
The elites were a small percentage of the society held in a higher regard than others. This is because the chiefdom had deemed that they showed evidence of a higher spiritual connection, able to communicate with animals, the spirit world, and their ancestors. For example, the chief of the Natchez people and his immediate family were believed to be direct descendants of Father Sun, one of the most important gods of the Natchez people. People who held a higher spiritual connection held a higher social status. With this higher social status came certain privileges not available to commoners, such as special food, clothing, and exemption from hard labor. The elites were also educated on and placed in charge of spiritual rituals and ceremonies.
The commoners, on the other hand, held an average spiritual connection. They were the working class, tending to the gardens, building homes and public structures and working as craftsmen and warriors for their nation.
Most Mississippian villages were small, consisting of a few hundred people at most. The villages were built along rivers like the Yoolah River, because the water washed the soil with nutrients to be used in gardening. The villages typically had a large public plaza for ceremonies and social gatherings. The homes would be built around the plaza, with small courtyards scattered between them to serve several families. Each village also had a defensive structure called a palisade built around it, with a trench dug on the outer side to discourage any unwelcome visitors or animals from breaching the village perimeter.
Perhaps the most iconic aspect of Mississippian culture is the practice of mound building. Many of these mounds can still be seen today, most famously the Etowah mounds of Bartow County, Georgia. These mounds were made from locally quarried soil, and often reached over 100 feet tall. A single mound would be built in stages, and could take a full century to complete. Mounds were built to be rectangular or oval in shape, with a flattened top. This is because most mounds were used by chiefs as a platform for their homes and a place to bury their ancestors. The mounds were also used as stages for ceremonies and social activities.
The Mississippian peoples’ knack for craftsmanship didn't stop with the epic mounds. Anthropologists have uncovered thousands of beautiful, intricately made art pieces, proudly stating the culture of the Mississippians was influenced heavily
by art. Using beads made from marine shells, stonework, pottery, and even metalwork; the Mississippians created intricate cups, pendants, blades, pipes, effigy celts, and gorgets, which were decorative collar pieces. Many creations of the Mississippians were ritualistic pieces, to be buried with ancestors or used in ceremony.
The Mississippian people’s culture, though still surviving today, was nearly wiped out during European colonization. Foreign disease, malicious European trade practices, and native enslavement caused these beautiful villages and cultures to break up and divide in their dwindling numbers. Luckily, a piece of them still lives on today in the culture of their direct descendants in the Creek, Cherokee, and Seminole Nations.