Piasa

A fearsome being from the cosmology of the ancient Mississpians, the Underwater Panther ruled the watery Underworld.

I'm volunteering with a museum here in town, putting together an exhibition on Native Americans and their connection to animals. I've been writing a lot of labels, but one of my favorite cases has to do with the Underwater Panther.

Also called the Piasa and Mishipeshu, the Underwater Panther is the ruler of the Underwater realm. To back up a couple of steps, many of the Eastern Woodlands Native Americans believed in a world with four corners that rested on top of a watery realm (the underworld) which then rotated up to form the night sky. Or, in another version, the world was made on a Turtle's back, with creatures diving through the watery Underworld to bring up the dirt necessary to make the land.

The Underwater Panther was described as having the head and body of a cat, perhaps a mountain lion or lynx, the horns of a deer, and the tail of snake. One image of the Underwater Panther was described by Father Jacques Marquette, a French explorer on his travels on the Mississippi River.

Drawing based on Father Marquette's description of the Underwater Panther.

The Underwater Panther uses his tail to whip up whirlpools, and he was said to appear in places where whirlpools occurred. He could be very dangerous, often drowning those who got too close, but for those bold enough to seek him out, he could also give great rewards of power, knowledge, and strength.

The image of the Underwater Panther, particularly his tail, appears all over Eastern Native American imagery.

Piasa pot in the National Museum of the American Indian. (Wikimedia)

The red and white swirl indicate the whirlpool the Underwater Panther creates and allow the artist to distinguish the creature without having to actually depict a long tail, something a bit difficult to do in ceramics.

The tail was also said to be made of copper, a valuable material, particularly in Mississippian times. Many copper items have been found across Eastern North America in shape of spirals, echoing the whirlpool made by the creature from which they came.

Unlike many European cosmologies, the Underworld is not evil, and neither is the Underwater Panther. Powerful spirits, whether they be from the Underworld or the Aboveworld, were dangerous if approached inappropriately. The Underwater Panther is simply a powerful being, one who could use his powers to reward the bold or punish the proud.

Share Spotlight: Quipu

This week's Share spotlight comes from The Brain Scoop:
Quipu

Quipus are an ancient accounting system. Very different from the system we are used to today, they were nonetheless extremely effective for a society without a writing system.

Quipus are a great representation of the ways different cultures, and people, interpret information.

What other record keeping systems have you heard of? How else do people process and store important information?

Imagine What You'll Know Tomorrow

I'm swamped with end of semester work, so this week, y'all get a post about... my homework.

Today, my 12 to 14 page paper is due. It's the last major project of the semester and, Praise be to God, it's written. I still need to edit it before four o'clock, but at least I have something to turn in.

This paper has been a long and bumpy road for me. I have an anthropology background and I'm writing for a history professor. I've learned that we don't always think the same way and communication has been a consistent problem (seems to be a theme this semester, in fact).

There are some good things, though. I love my topic.

I'm writing on how archaeologists (and historians, and museums) look at how people got to the Americas. That theory you learned in school? That people walked across the Beringia Land Bridge roughly 14,000 years ago and then came down the ice free corridor into lower North American and eventually all the way to Tierra del Fuego?

Yeah, it's wrong.

Turns out people have been in the Americas for a lot longer than that and the archeological community can no longer deny the mounting evidence.

But what's really fascinating is what's happening now. The Beringia theory has been around for more than fifty years with virtually no opposition. That means that archaeologists are working almost from scratch to create new theories and widening their net to collect new evidence. It's the scientific theory in progress!

Sorry, minor geek out there. I find it fascinating.

If you want to learn about these new theories, I would suggest 1491 by Charles C. Mann for a good general Pre-Columbian history of the Americas. Mann is a personable writer that has pretty much made his living interpreting science history for the public.

If you are a little braver, try Across Atlantic Ice by Dennis Stanford and Bruce Bradley. It's a good bit more technical, though they do attempt to explain their terms, and really meant for archaeology students. However, their theory is fascinating and well worth the investigation.

Find any other neat books or theories? Let me know!

"Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow." --Kay, Men in Black