Warfare in Mississippian Chiefdoms SEAC Presentation 2001

Warfare in Mississippian Chiefdoms Wayne Van Horne, Ph.D. Kennesaw State University Paper Presented at the 58th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Archaeological Conference at a Special Symposium in Honor of Charles Hudson Chattanooga, Tennessee November 15, 2001 When I was a student in Charles Hudson’s Southeastern Indians course in the early 1980’s he used an interesting strategy to direct his students towards productive research papers. He had them list their hobbies and activities on an index card so that he could ascertain their personal interests, and based on this information he directed them toward associated research questions. Upon finding out that I was involved in training in Japanese martial arts he asked me to investigate Southeastern Indian warfare. In retrospect his comments at the time tell us a lot about the state of knowledge of Mississippian warfare in the early 1980’s. He told me that it was becoming obvious that warfare had played a significant role in Mississippian period societies, but that no one really understood what that role was. He told me that iconography depicted severed heads, arms, hands and bones in association with images of warclubs. He also said that images of falcons or anomalous falcon men were often found in association with warclubs. “Look into the ethnohistorical and archaeological data and see what you can find out,” he told me. That initial research paper turned into my dissertation, and inspired and directed by Charles Hudson I attempted to answer some primary questions about Mississippian warfare. Much of what I subsequently discovered is common knowledge to us now. Indeed, that I found it a nearly impossible task to summarize what we now know about warfare and combat in one paper shows how much we have learned about it in the last decade. My examination of ethnohistorical, archaeological and comparative data has provided the following answers to some of our basic questions about Mississippian warfare. Two forms of warfare occurred during the Mississippian Period. One was full-scale warfare, which involved large, organized groups of men engaged in pitched battles. Full-scale warfare is infrequent in chiefdom level societies because it requires a food surplus capable of supporting the sustained military activity of a large group of men. Mississippian chiefdoms were therefore able to engage in full-scale warfare only on a very limited basis. The ethnohistorical record indicates that they assembled small armies of up to a few hundred men only for short duration military campaigns that appear to have been typically carried out at times of the year when a peak food surplus existed and men weren’t needed for agricultural work or hunting. See Van Horne 1993 for a more detailed examination of the evidence in this paper. Unlike state level societies with more abundant food surpluses, chiefdoms were not capable of large-scale conquests and retention of captured territory in geographically distant areas. Paramount chiefdoms expanded along contiguous and easily traveled river valleys because they did not have the resource base to mount prolonged campaigns to conquer and maintain control of enemy chiefdoms located in geographically distant river valleys. These limitations to full scale warfare meant that it was only used for specific purposes such as forming or extending paramount chiefdoms during periods of political expansion, as was documented among the 17th century Virginia Powhatans; for quelling rebellions by vassal chiefdoms, as was seen by Tristan de Luna’s soldiers when the chiefdom of Coosa attacked the rebellious tributary chiefdom of Napochies Hudson 1988.; or for defending against attacks that were initiated for these reasons. The objective of full-scale warfare, therefore, was political conquest and maintenance of power over geographically adjacent chiefdoms. One of the best descriptions of full scale warfare in the Southeast was provided by Captain John Smith, who was an eye-witness to a pitched battle between the Powhatan chiefdom and that of the Monacans in which each fielded a small force of approximately 100 men. Smith describes the Powhatan and Monacan armies as facing each other in orderly formation nearly at the limit of the range of their bows, with ranks uniformly staggered so that men in the first two lines could shoot their bows. They were commanded by officers stationed at each flank and at the rear of their formation. After they had spent their arrows they engaged in hand-to-hand combat with organized tactics as a coordinated unit. A warrior who managed to grab an enemy would drag him back through his own ranks, beating him to death with his warclub, while men from the next rank would move forward and close ranks against the enemy. The organization and skill of the army of warriors indicates that the battle was not a disorganized melee. Smith 1986 I:166-167. The De Soto Varner and Varner 1951; Bourne 1904. expedition, Tristan de Luna, Hudson 1988. and the Laudonierre Le Moyne 1968; Lorant 1946. expedition also recorded similar battles. It was probably the threat of this form of attack that led to the building of defensive palisades around population centers. Smith’s account provides a typical description of Mississippian period combat. In large battles bows were discharged at the enemy formation until arrows were exhausted. The armies then engaged in hand- to hand combat with warclubs. Instead of being crude, bludgeoning tools, warclubs were sophisticated weapons. The most commonly used types in warfare were the wooden sword and the hafted celt, or tomahawk. They both derive force by extending the length of the user’s arm, which provides increased velocity of the terminal end when the weapon is swung. Studies demonstrate that when these types of warclubs are swung the terminal end can easily exceed 60 miles per hour. Van Horne and Sweigart 2000, unpublished experimental data. They are also designed to have increased weight at the terminal end to increase the force of a blow, in the same way that the heavy head of a hammer helps drive a nail. The force of the weapon’s impact is also concentrated on the thin edge of a wooden blade or stone celt, which transmits the force of the blow into an extremely tiny surface area. The wooden swords were therefore not only suited for break bones and skulls but could effectively inflict deep and severe lacerations on flesh and could even sever limbs. More importantly, the warclubs in use were light and could be wielded dexterously, allowing warriors to be agile and allowing them to use sophisticated martial stances, movements and techniques. Indeed, Garcilaso, Lawson and Marquette recorded detailed accounts of warriors displaying their expertise in using wooden swords through what were apparently ritualized dances. Varner and Varner 1951:278; Lawson 1967:44; Marquette 1852:37. In each case these were long displays in which stances, techniques and mock combat between partners were shown to visitors with the obvious intent of demonstrating the high level of training and prowess of the host society’s fighting men. Far from being viewed as crude or primitive displays, the European observers consistently likened the warriors’ abilities to those of European fencing masters. These accounts also conjure images of iconographic depictions of “Falcon Dancers”, which to a trained martial artist’s eye obviously depict stances and combat techniques. Evidence of warclub inflicted fractures on burials also provides evidence of the sophisticated nature of combat. Fractures demonstrate that a variety of techniques were used in combat, including not only blows to the head but also slashes to the body and ribs and attempts to block blows that resulted in fractured arm bones, and no doubt the fractured warclub handles depicted in iconography. Accounts from the De Soto narratives also describe warriors using other effective martial techniques in combat against the Spaniards including punches, kicks and throws. Varner and Varner 1951. The second, and more common, form of warfare was raiding. Although Mississippian chiefdoms couldn’t militarily subjugate other chiefdoms in distant river valleys, warriors did cross the uninhabited buffer zones between them to engage in chronic raiding. In chiefdom level societies raids are conducted by small, organized groups of warriors whose objective is to obtain some form of reward or plunder. A Mississippian warrior’s objective was to gain prestige by killing an enemy and successfully returning home with a trophy of the kill to prove his prowess and enhance his status as a warrior. Chronic reciprocal raiding between chiefdoms was fueled by the cultural belief that the killing of a kinsman must be avenged. There is also evidence that the taking of captives as slaves was in part a motivation. The English explorer William Strachey noted these reasons for warfare by the Indians of Virginia in 1612 when he wrote: “They seldom make warrs for lands or goods, but for women and children, and principally for revenge, so vindicative and jealous [are] they to be made derision of, and to be insulted upon by an enemy”. Milner et al 1991:594; Swanton 1946:687. Raiding was probably important in Mississippian chiefdoms for other reasons. Raids kept warriors trained, battle hardened and militarily prepared to defend their society. There is evidence that they preyed on weaker neighboring tribes and chiefdoms in an attempt to keep them militarily weak. Lahren and Berryman 1984, 1982; see Varner and Varner (1951) about raids by Cofitachequi on neighboring Ocute. Raids may also have helped to direct the aspirations of ambitious warriors away from internal political competition with the chief and kept the energies of warriors from conquered and subordinated societies focused on external warfare and away from revolts. Greg Keyes 1993: Personal communication. Also, this may have been the case among the Powhatan of Virginia. John Smith reported that Chief Powhatan was plagued with uprisings by chiefdoms he had conquered. He may have been waging continual battles of expansion as much to keep his warriors occupied as to extend his personal empire. See Rountree 1989;. This form of warfare is probably responsible for the development of uninhabited buffer zones between large and powerful chiefdoms, since communities or hamlets located within easy walking distance of an enemy chiefdom would be too easily subject to raids. There is also substantial evidence that chronic raiding derived from a cross-culturally universal aspect of chiefdoms, the existence of military elites. Societies with military elites have a social ranking system based on acquiring prestige through individual combat. In societies that have military elites as established institutions warfare is necessary to provide men with opportunities for social advancement. The existence of military elites therefore perpetuates warfare. In Mississippian chiefdoms the cultural pattern of chronic, reciprocal raiding satisfied the need for an avenue of social advancement for men. Military elites are an institutionalized social class of warriors that originate in chiefdoms as an achieved status and typically become a caste in state level societies. According to research by Jones, military elites: …begin their ascent when… [the leader of chiefdom]… makes a claim of legitimate control over a large territory which in fact…[he]… cannot control at the then existing level of political organization. Under such conditions, in the absence of a national army and lacking a monopoly of force, the leader must co-exist with a number of warrior-nobles, similar in status and prestige to the leader, who occupy and defend for their own purposes a number of small pieces of what is generally considered a unified territory based on common themes of blood, language, or religion." Jones 1990:33. Just such a situation existed in Mississippian chiefdoms when paramount chiefs took control and had to rely on and co-exist with chiefs of vassal towns and prestigious warriors. Evidence from burials also supports the idea that military elites existed, for instance at Chucalissa, where male skeletons from high status burials have a much greater incidence of fractures related to warclub trauma during combat than do low status male burials. This appears to indicate that warriors enjoyed a higher status in that society. Lahren and Berryman 1984, 1982. Evidence of all the characteristics universally associated with military elites exists for Mississippian societies. A brief examination of these provides us with valuable insights into Mississippian culture and social organization. Comparative research shows that military elites typically have specialized training in methods of combat and techniques of warfare. There is a significant amount of historical documentation that indicates Mississippian warriors displayed a skilled use of weapons and empty hand fighting techniques that could only have been obtained through formal training and practice in martial arts. This includes not only sophisticated “sword-fighting” with their wooden swords but also kicking, striking and throwing techniques similar to contemporary karate and judo. The ball game, which was modeled on the typical pattern of fighting in battles with warclubs, also provided practice for warfare. Jones 1990:27; Hann 1988:328-353. Military elites possess weapons that are specifically restricted to their use that become a symbol of the rank and role of a warrior. Jones 1990:12 These are always hand-to-hand combat weapons that allow warriors to prove their valor and martial prowess in a one-on-one confrontation with an enemy warrior. Jones 1990:9. The warclub, especially wooden swords and hafted celt axes, occupied this position in Mississippian societies. Jones 1990:14; Allan and Van Horne 1989; Harrington 1920. The warclub was used by the Thunder deity in myths, was imbued with cosmological symbolism, was carried as a symbol of rank, was ritually used in ceremonies and was included in high status male burials. Elites also typically have exclusive use of body armor and helmets. Jones 1990:12. Armor apparently existed in Mississippian chiefdoms and depictions of breast and back plates exist on some engravings from copper plates, shell gorgets and pipes. Fundaburk 1957:Pl. 100. An early settler of Virginia also spoke of warriors wearing wooden breastplates in 1584. Barlowe 1930:238. Based on the ethnohistorical record armor appears not to have been used throughout most of the Southeast by the 16th century. This may be due to the development of the powerful form of simple bow in use in the Southeast, which was capable of perforating Spanish chain mail and rendered wooden armor ineffective. David E. Jones, personal communication, 2001. Since wooden armor was ineffective, a warrior devoid of it could more nimbly duck and dodge arrows, as was typically described by the Spanish, and was more agile in hand-to-and combat. Helmets, or protective headgear, were simply made of animals' heads or turbans. Jones 1990:13. Cougar mantles worn with the animal’s head covering a warrior's head are depicted in the De Bry engravings Lorant 1946. and according to Garcilaso were worn by the Cofaqui war chief Patofa. Varner and Varner 1951:278. More obvious helmets or turbans are depicted on etched copper plates and the stone pipe from the Etowah site in Georgia. Fundaburk 1957:Pl. 100. The historic period turbans that Southeastern Indians wore might very well have been the more recent expression of their ancestral warrior’s attire. Exclusive costumes and insignias of rank are also typically restricted to military elites. Jones 1990:23, 26. Cougar skin mantles, stuffed raptors worn in the hair, raptor feathers, copper plates, and tattoos were all restricted to warriors who had demonstrated prowess in battle and achieved rank. Swanton 1946. The communal drinking of ritual beverages exclusive to the elite is also cross-culturally universal and was present in the usage of black drink. Ilex vomitoria. Military elites are also organized into a complex ranking and organizational structure, are given preferential privileges and prerogatives, and serve in political roles as counselors to higher authority and as agents of war and holders of public offices. Jones 1990:21-24. Examples of differential rankings of chiefs and warriors were found among the Mississippian period Coosa, Hudson 1990:62-66. and the early eighteenth-century Natchez Swanton 1911., Muskogees Swanton 1928., Choctaws, and Cherokees. Reid 1970:297-98; Gilbert 1943:348-50. The Apalachee Ball Game Myth clearly indicates that warriors in Apalachee society could attain status through prowess in warfare. It also demonstrates that elite warriors existed, and that the role of war chief, the incarnate Thunder deity, was an achieved social position. Hann 1988. Warriors are also typically associated with special buildings or structures that are religious in nature such as the warrior’s houses that were located around the ceremonial square, and they perform rituals during which the distinctions between the sacred and military are obscured or nonexistent such as those during the Green Corn and other documented ceremonies. Jones 1990:25, 31; Hudson 1976:83-84; Payne 1985; Hewitt 1939. A concomitant attribute of elite warriors is the existence of idealized cultural heroes who embody the prototypical attributes of the warrior. Jones 1990:17. The mythological character of the Thunder deity fulfilled this criterion in Southeastern cultures. Keyes 1992. The existence of military elites also provides insight into the spread of the Mississippian pattern of social organization. Neighboring chiefdoms would be forced to mimic the military organization of their more powerful neighbors if they were to withstand intensified raiding once a paramount chiefdom was established and a system of military elites came into existence. Jones 1990:9; Hudson 1990. The more effective and successful model of military organization utilizing warrior elites would therefore have spread throughout the Southeast with the development of paramount chiefdoms during the Mississippian period. This cultural focus on the importance of warfare for social advancement was described in myths and illustrated through symbols. Myths explained warfare as part of the natural order of the cosmos and provided templates for the role of warriors. The Appalachee Ball Game Myth, recorded in 1676, describes the role of the Lightning or Thunder deity as a prototypical warrior and protector of society. It prescribes exact numbers and types of enemy warriors that must be killed for an Appalachee man to achieve social advancement to the role of an incarnate Lightning Deity, and the informant who recited the myth identified a living Appalachee warrior as the incarnate deity. Similar myths recorded among the Tunica Haas, N.D. and other societies descended from Mississippian chiefdoms strongly suggest that this pattern of social advancement through warfare was widely reflected in belief systems. Allan and Van Horne 1989; Swanton 1929; Dorsey 1904. Central to mythological descriptions of warfare is the Thunder deity, who also transforms himself into a falcon; a predator from the Upper World that kills by striking as a warrior kills with a warclub. In myths the Thunder also repeatedly demonstrates his control over creatures from the Upper and Lower Worlds as well as his control over enemies and human society. Ibid. References Cited Allan, Jean and Wayne Van Horne Symbolic and Ritual Aspects of Mississippian Warclubs. Paper presented at the 51st Southeastern Archeological Conference. Barlowe, Arthur 1930 Captain Arthur Barlowe's Narrative of the First Voyage to the Coasts of America. In Original Narratives of Early American History: Early English and French Voyages 1534 - 1608, pp. 223 - 242, Henry S. Burrage, ed. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, (1584) Bourne, Edward Gaylord, ed. Narratives of the Career of Hernando De Soto in the Conquest of Florida, 2 volumes. New York: A. S. Barnes. Fundaburk, Emma Lila and Mary D. F. Foreman 1957 Sun Circles and Human Hands. Fairhope, Alabama: Southern Publications. Gilbert, William Harlen, Jr. The Eastern Cherokees. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 133, pp. 169-413. Haas, Mary N.D. Tunica Texts. University of California Publications in Linguistics 6. Hann, John H. 1988 Apalachee: The Land Between the Rivers. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. Harrington, Michael R. A Sacred Warclub of the Oto. Indian Notes and Monographs, Vol. 10, number 2. New York: Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. Hewitt, J.N.B. 1939 Notes on the Creek Indians, John R. Swanton, ed. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 123, pp. 119-159. Washington: Smithsonian Institution. Hudson, Charles The Southeastern Indians. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. 1988 A Spanish-Coosa Alliance in Sixteenth-Century North Georgia. Georgia Historical Quarterly, 72(4):599-626. The Juan Pardo Expeditions. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. Jones, David E. 1990 Military Elites: A Comparative Study. Paper presented at the 89th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, Louisiana. Keyes, Greg 1992 Myth and Social History: The Early Southeast. Paper presented at the Southern Anthropological Society Meetings, St. Augustine, Florida. Lahren, Craig and Hugh Berryman 1984 Fracture Patterns and Status at Chucalissa (40SY1): A Biocultural Approach. Tennessee Anthropologist 9(1):15-21. Lawson, John 1967 A New Voyage to Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, (1709). Laudonierre, Rene 1904 The Voiage of Captaine Rene Laudonierre to Florida, 1564. In The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, Vol. IX, pp. 1 - 100, Richard Hakluyt, ed. New York: Macmillan Co. Le Moyne, Jacques 1968 The Narrative of Le Moyne. In Settlement of Florida, pp. 89-122, Charles E. Bennett, compiler. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, (1591). Lorant, Stefan 1946 The New World. New York: Duell, Sloane, and Pearce. Marquette, James The Discovery and Voyages of Father James Marquette. In Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley, pp.3-66, John Gilmary Shea, ed. Clinton Hall, New York: Redfeild, (1673). Milner, George R., Eve Anderson and Virginia G. Smith 1991 Warfare in Late Prehistoric West-Central Illinois. American Antiquity 56(4):581-603. Payne, John Howard 1985 The Green Corn Dance. The Chronicles of Oklahoma 10:170-95, (1932). In Ethnology of the Southeastern Indians, Charles M. Hudson, ed. New York: Garland Publishing Inc., (1835). Reid, John P. A Law of Blood: Primitive Law in the Cherokee Nation. New York: New York University Press. Rountree, Helen C. 1989 The Powhatan Indians of Virginia. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Smith, John 1986 A Map of Virginia with a Description of the Countrey, the Commodities, People, Government, and Religion. Ibid, (1612). In The Complete Works of Captain John Smith, Volume 1, Philip L. Barbour, ed., 2 volumes. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, (1608). Swanton, John R. Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 43. Social Organization and Social Usages of the Indians of the Creek Confederacy. 42nd Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, pp. 25-472. Myths and Tales of the Southeastern Indians. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 88. The Indians of the Southeastern United States. Smithsonian Institution/ Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 137. New York: Greenwood Press. Van Horne, Wayne The Warclub: Weapon and Symbol in Southeastern Indian Societies. University of Georgia: Dissertation. Varner, John Grier and Jeanette Johnson Varner The Florida of the Inca. Austin: University of Texas Press, (1605). This key link between warriors and their association with the Thunder deity provides insight into symbolism in Mississippian iconography. Various forms of warclubs and trophies of war such as scalps, heads, severed limbs and bones are widely depicted in association with Thunder images of falcons, falcon wings, tails and the forked-eye pattern. In association with these are symbols of Thunder’s control of the upper and lower worlds- such as sun symbols and step frets juxtaposed with serpent symbols. This self-identification of warriors with the Thunder deity was also reflected in battle costume through the use of raptor feather headdresses and forked-eye designs painted around the eyes. The predominant form of wooden sword used in the Southeast was also fashioned in a distinct talon shape. The importance of the association of warclubs with warriorhood and the Thunder Deity even found expression in the ceremonial “mace” form of warclub, probably a symbol carried by chiefs or other social elites. It is saturated with cosmological symbolism of the power of the Sun and Thunder deities. At the top it depicts the sky vault with the Sun at the apex. The sun is connected through a vertical line to the cross and circle beneath it, which depicts sacred fire and human society. Two falcon talons form protrusions next to the sky vault. These “maces” are found in high status burials and are often painted red and black or red and white reflecting duality symbolism. The practical importance of warclubs in warfare, their symbolic association with the social role and status of warriors, and the cosmological symbolism attributed to them due to their association with the Thunder deity imbued the warclub with multiple and significant levels of cultural meaning. Not only were they used as symbols of high status and depicted in iconography in association with cosmological symbolism and images of warfare, they were also prominent ritual objects in ceremonies. Ethnohistorical descriptions of their use in ceremonies abound, including ceremonies to prepare for war, ceremonies to end war (where they were ritually buried, giving rise to our modern phrase “burying the hatchet”), and in various ceremonies of renewal and rites of intensification. They played a significant role in many of the rituals carried out over the several days of the Busk or Green Corn Ceremony among historic Muskogean societies and ceremonial flint swords are still used in this fashion by the Choctaws today. I believe we have only begun to realize the importance of warfare in shaping Mississippian society and culture. Certainly what we have pieced together in the last decade or two forces us to reevaluate our view of the role of warriors and warfare in Mississippian cultures. At a personal level I want to thank Charles Hudson for telling me to “See what you can find out” eighteen years ago. I have learned more than I could have imagined, and appreciate all of his direction, help and inspiration. Thank you.