ABSTRACT
The art of the Mississippian phase of Woodlands cultures is distinctly different from both Adena and Hopewell art. From the artistic evidence presented, it seems clear that the Mississippian cultures were more centralized than the earlier Adena and Hopewell cultures of the middle Woodlands period, and that they lavished their high-status burials with various art forms in exotic materials, documenting a complex ceremonial symbolism. A great many art forms from the Mississippian cultures seem to depict high-status individuals—perhaps chiefs and/or priests wearing complex costumes of a zoomorphic sort. The pattern of life for pre-European contact Native Americans in the Great Lakes and Plains regions varied according to their ecological zones and settlement patterns. Midewinwin society functioned among many Great Lakes peoples as a medicine and hunting-magic society. The ecological zone of the Plains peoples of North America is vast compared to that of the Great Lakes peoples.
