2RHPZ
09-17-2005, 05:30 AM
Cahokian Indians: America's Ancient Warriors
The Cahokian Indians used a sophisticated form of warfare to create the largest Indian empire of the Mississippian civilization.
By Timothy R. Pauketat
Days like this would have ranked among the most notable victories for America's ancient war parties. The first such armed foray may have been dispatched from Cahokia one summer day around a.d. 1050. While archaeologists do not know exactly when or how such raids took place, they do know that for the next century tribes near Cahokia were subdued if not subordinated. To be certain, raids and assassinations were not unknown among Indians in the ninth and tenth centuries, but feuds between rival high-ranking families only infrequently erupted into large-scale violence in what is now southwestern Illinois. Few common people, however, were ever killed as a result of these feuds, since the combatants probably included only the highest-ranking young adults from the villages in the region.
Ordinary farmers were primarily concerned with their plots of maize, squash, sunflower, and weedy seed crops. With these crops, they paid debts or gave gifts to their kin or neighbors, especially their high-ranking chiefs. The chiefs, in turn, mediated disputes and performed religious functions on behalf of the villagers. Such was the sedentary existence of the tribes living along this middle stretch of the Mississippi River until that fateful season--the Cahokian summer--midway through the eleventh century.
During that summer Cahokian politics exploded, and the ripple effect was felt throughout the Southeast and Midwest for centuries thereafter. That season was the moment when an unknown Cahokian chief--guardian of the surrounding lands, religious figurehead, and adjudicator of a town of a thousand-plus individuals--came into direct control of all the lands, labor, and fighting forces of the adjoining chiefdoms of the alluvial plain near present-day St. Louis. Never before had control been so consolidated. Just how this person had risen to power is uncertain, although the means probably fell within the traditional recipes of chiefly intrigue, subterfuge, and thuggery. Regardless, the formerly independent chiefs of small neighboring communities seem to have been swept away that summer and replaced by loyal and subordinate followers of Cahokia.
The History Net (http://historynet.com/mhq/blcahokia/)
The Cahokian Indians used a sophisticated form of warfare to create the largest Indian empire of the Mississippian civilization.
By Timothy R. Pauketat
Days like this would have ranked among the most notable victories for America's ancient war parties. The first such armed foray may have been dispatched from Cahokia one summer day around a.d. 1050. While archaeologists do not know exactly when or how such raids took place, they do know that for the next century tribes near Cahokia were subdued if not subordinated. To be certain, raids and assassinations were not unknown among Indians in the ninth and tenth centuries, but feuds between rival high-ranking families only infrequently erupted into large-scale violence in what is now southwestern Illinois. Few common people, however, were ever killed as a result of these feuds, since the combatants probably included only the highest-ranking young adults from the villages in the region.
Ordinary farmers were primarily concerned with their plots of maize, squash, sunflower, and weedy seed crops. With these crops, they paid debts or gave gifts to their kin or neighbors, especially their high-ranking chiefs. The chiefs, in turn, mediated disputes and performed religious functions on behalf of the villagers. Such was the sedentary existence of the tribes living along this middle stretch of the Mississippi River until that fateful season--the Cahokian summer--midway through the eleventh century.
During that summer Cahokian politics exploded, and the ripple effect was felt throughout the Southeast and Midwest for centuries thereafter. That season was the moment when an unknown Cahokian chief--guardian of the surrounding lands, religious figurehead, and adjudicator of a town of a thousand-plus individuals--came into direct control of all the lands, labor, and fighting forces of the adjoining chiefdoms of the alluvial plain near present-day St. Louis. Never before had control been so consolidated. Just how this person had risen to power is uncertain, although the means probably fell within the traditional recipes of chiefly intrigue, subterfuge, and thuggery. Regardless, the formerly independent chiefs of small neighboring communities seem to have been swept away that summer and replaced by loyal and subordinate followers of Cahokia.
The History Net (http://historynet.com/mhq/blcahokia/)