For more than 60 years scholars have tried to make sense of the pre-Columbian artistic tradition of the Southeastern United States popularly known as the “Southern Cult.” During the 1990s, Kent Reilly organized a series of workshops seeking a breakthrough. Participants included archaeologists, folklorists, art historians, anthropologists, and Native religious practitioners. This volume is the result, and according to archaeologist Vincus Steponaitis’ foreword, it is the breakthrough Reilly sought.
The Southern Cult flourished from A.D. 900 to 1600 and consists of the artifacts, symbols, motifs, and architectural groups for the ritual activities practiced by numerous ethnic groups in the region, including the Woodland and Mississippian cultures from the great centers at Moundville, Alabama; Spiro, Oklahoma; Cahokia, Illinois; and hundreds of smaller sites. This volume brings together 10 essays by leading archaeologists, anthropologists, and art historians, who analyze the iconography of Southern Cult art to reconstruct its cosmological vision and ideology. Created from copper, shell, stone, clay, and wood, these sacred objects are carved or incised with a complex set of symbols and motifs. The ceremonial communities were dominated by earthen mounds and plazas arranged with geometric precision.
The scholars draw heavily on ethnographic materials from modern descendents, tribes that were mainly relocated to Oklahoma in the 19th century, to help them unravel the meaning of the ancient iconography. Other clues go back to the Hopewell culture, which was centered in southern Ohio around A.D. 1. Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms is a wonderful piece of detective work that offers a rational solution to a long-standing and difficult problem.
