Shawnee (Merveilles des Morte)
Shawnee Sachemate Shawnee Kingdom | |
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.svg) Flag | |
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Extent of Shawnee in Midwestern Kolumbia Extent of Shawnee in Midwestern Kolumbia | |
| Capital | Keehita |
| Largest city | Chillicothe |
| Official languages | Shawnee |
| Recognised regional languages | Irenwa, Erie, Ojibwemowin, Meskwaki, Wyandot, Iroquioan languages |
| Ethnic groups | Algonquian peoples (Shawnee, Miami, Menominee, Meskwaki) |
| Religion | Midewiwin |
| Demonym(s) | Shawnee |
| Government | Absolute monarchy |
• Sachem | Tecumseh II |
| Establishment | c.1480 |
• Keehita Mound Culture | c.1000 AD |
• Confederacy formed | c.1300-c.1350 |
| c.1400-c.1480 | |
| Area | |
• Total | 780,000 km2 (300,000 sq mi) |
| Population | |
• 1550 estimate | 50,000 |
| Currency | none (gold bullion only) |
The Shawnee Sachemate (also called the Shawnee Kingdom) is an indigenous Kolumbian monarchy located in the Midwestern region of Kolumbia, centered along the Ohio River Valley in an urban center known as the Shawnee Pentapolis. The Shawnee first established a mound-building culture in the Keehita region around 1000 AD, as a branch of the earlier Hopewell Culture. Urbanization and centralization quickly evolved over the next few centuries, resulting in the formation of the Shawnee Confederacy in the late 13th century. After multiple failed attempts by the Iroquois Confederacy to subjugate the region, the Shawnee established a fully-centralized government around the city-state of Chillicothe, ruled by a single hereditary Sachem or "King".
The Sachemate quickly expanded over the Great Lakes region and Michigan peninsula, fully assimilating the Erie people who were decimated by the Beaver Wars. The Sachemate has seen rapid urbanization and cultural growth, while also experiencing gradual decentralization of political power to the other Shawnee city-states. Nordic sources in Kolumbia refer to the Shawnee as the Shovnir Kingdom.
History
Sources
The earliest written sources on Shawnee history are genealogical tables written in the 16th century, included in historical commentaries from Vinland and other Nordic-Kolumbian states. These sources refer to the Shawnee as the "Shovnir Kingdom", and serve to trace the ancestry of the incumbent Sachem back to the legendary generation of Kokumthena. These genealogies, along with oral traditions of Kolumbian mythology, became the basis of the Shawnee theatrical epics from the early 17th century.
The first non-fiction history of the Shawnee is a French work from the 1650s, titled Histoire de Royaume Chaouenons (History of the Shawnee Kingdom). This is mostly ignored by current historians, as it little more than a literal interpretation of the theatrical epics. For the most part, it is the genealogical tables and surviving oral traditions that are considered primary sources.
The theatrical epics imagine every generation of the genealogy to have ruled as a centralized kingdom all the way back to the time of Kokumthena, contrary to the archaeological evidence. It is sometimes argued that the original genealogies may not have been a proper kinglist, but merely elaborated the noble ancestry of the Sachem. It is also possible that these genealogies helped to expand on previous oral traditions, rather than simply documenting it.
The genealogies also do not always agree with each other. Some versions indicate only a few generations separating Kokumthena from Leanwe, the first man created by the Great Spirit, while another version inserts an extra 25 generations here. The generations after Kokumthena are usually more consistent, always including the most famous legendary names, but can still vary between seven and twelve generations in length.
Mythology
The early mythology of the Shawnee parallels that of other Algonquin societies. The Great Spirit (Gitchi Manitou) created the first men on the east coast of Kolumbia. After some time, these people were prompted to migrate west at the words of a great prophet (or medicine man), speaking on behalf of the Great Spirit. As they migrated, the prophet used divination through a cowry shell to guide their path. Somewhere around lake Huron, the cowry shell stopped working and the people lost their path. This is a similar but divergent story from all Algonquin nations, which is told differently from the perspective of different tribes.
In fulfillment of prophesy, Kokumthena was born at this time, being fully mature and wise even in infancy. While still a child, she received dreams from the Great Spirit, telling her the path to a bountiful countryside to the south. While most people didn't believe her, one group decided to follow her southwards, and eventually they arrived at Keehita at the Ohio River Valley. Despite not displaying any great feats of strength or cunning, Kokumthena is revered as the greatest and most respected hero of Shawnee legend, alternatively known as the "Heavenly Grandmother" or "Grandmother Woodchuck", and traced as the common ancestor of all subsequent Sachems.
Kokumthena is often described as closely related to Glooscap, the epic hero of Iroquois mythology, who is either her uncle or cousin. One famous story says how Glooscap stole all hunting animals in the world, and put them into a single bag. Kokumthena eventually persuaded Glooscap to let them go, and gave him a lock of her hair as collateral. According to the synchronistic chronicle, she is supposed to be a contemporary of Lief Ericcson, or possibly his sons. She is known to have seven sons, but her husband is only mentioned in a couple versions of the genealogy, calling him Quothe the "Prince of Keehita". It is implied that there were people living in Keehita before the Shawnee arrived, who became assimilated under Kokumthena's guidance.
The seven sons of Kokumthena have an epic cycle of their own, revolving around their struggle against an all-powerful monster called Water Panther. Each son has a supernatural power given by the Great Spirit, but ultimately they are only able to defeat Water Panther by working together as a team. It is clear in the story that each son is meant to represent a different aspect of nature, which is key for the traditional way of life of the Shawnee, and their teamwork represents the importance of respecting the path of their ancestors.
The eldest son, Monnittokie, acts as the main character of the story and is the leader of his siblings, often acting as an apprentice to Kokumthena. Monnittokie's patron is Misiginebig, AKA the Great Serpent, who teaches him the cunning and resourcefulness of snakes. After Pothquotte, the youngest son, sacrifices his life to weaken Water Panther, the other brothers are able to finally defeat him with the help of Misiginebig. After Water Panther is mortally wounded and retreats back to the Mississippi River, the Great Serpent goes to sleep on the banks of Bush River, waiting for the day he can return to help the Shawnee once more. This site where Misiginebig sleeps is known as the Serpent Mound.
Monnittokie had two sons, named Hokolesqua and Hasanoanda. Hokolesqua is patriarch of the Shawnee Sachems, while Hasanoanda is the ancestor of the Miami Sachems. Some versions of the genealogy describe Monnittokie as the patriarch of all the Michigan tribes, but most only ascribe him with the Shawnee and Miami only. Hokolesqua had five sons, who are the eponymous ancestors of each of the five Shawnee clans. It is after this point that the genealogies become very confusing. Due to the Shawnee taboo against incest, it became tradition that each generation would take a wife from a different clan, but these wives could still trace their ancestry back to Hokolesqua. As a result, some genealogies from this point onward trace the ancestry of the Sachems matrilineally, while others trace it patrinileally.
At some point, another legend tells how a Sachem named Catahecassa teamed up with an Erie chief named Otetiani to solve a mutual problem. Some of the greatest warriors of both tribes were routinely disappearing, only to be found murdered by some unknown entity. This legend is somewhat enigmatic in-context, and probably only serves to portray mutual cooperation between the Shawnee and Erie people. This suggests it might have been added fairly late, after the assimilation of the Erie people after the colonial Beaver Wars.
- Leanwe
- Neeshwie
- Glooscap?
- Neethwie
- Kokumthena == Quothe
- Pothquotte (Turtle)
- Pellewa (Turkey)
- Wichse (Dog)
- Messewa (Deer)
- Hathepati (Racoon)
- Petakine'thi (Rabbit)
- Monnittokie (Snake)
- Hasanoanda
- Sachems of Miami
- Hokolesqua
- Hathawekela
- Kispoko
- Mekoche
- Pekowi
- Chillicothe
- Lalawethika
- Cheeseekau
- Catahecassa
- Okeema
- Popoquan
- Satokh == Nonhelema
- Popoquan
- Okeema
- Catahecassa
- Cheeseekau
- Lalawethika
- Hasanoanda
- Kokumthena == Quothe
- Neeshwie
Origins
The Hopewell culture of the Ohio valley first developed agriculture around 1000 AD, probably inspired by trade from the neighboring Mississippi culture. They originally grew corn, beans and sunflowers as primary food sources. Their houses were dug into the ground with a plaster roof, able to sustain 40-50 individuals year-round. On average, each of the cities around Keehita could sustain around 300-500 people. Originally, these settlements were only semi-permanent proto-cities, and the people would continue migrating after 20-30 years at a time. These cities were designed in a circular pattern, with houses facing inwards towards a central plaza, and surrounded by a defensive palisade.
The monumental works by the Keehita culture are their earthwork mounds, used for both religious political contexts. This was largely used to bury their dead, or to bury sacrifices to the gods, but also served as a kind of religious art. The Serpent Mound near Bush Creek is the most impressive earthwork structure of this type, which later found its way into the national mythos of the Shawnee kingdom.
In the early 13th century, Keehita had coalesced into a single, continuous culture. They were not politically united, however, but operated as separate proto-city-states organized by tribal clans. Competition between these states led to internal warfare and more complex defenses. At this same time, Keehita heavily traded with other cultures in every direction. Situated at the ideal junction of major rivers, Keehita benefited from trade both from the Mississippi culture in the west and the Nordic cultures from the northeast, incorporating the best aspects of both worlds into their own society. At its height, Keehita was producing their own forms of bowls, salt pans, leather, painted pottery, beads, and ceremonial effigies, all of which are usually associated with the Mississippi culture. From the Nordic people, Keehita adopted glass, iron, brass, and copper.
As it turns out, this turn towards external trade became Keehita's undoing. In the mid 13th century, the houses became much smaller and fewer in number, indicating a sudden decline in population. This is most likely due to the onslaught of European diseases carried from the Nordic cultures by trade. It is sometimes theorized that the Shawnee kingdom arose as a direct successor of Keehita, as suggested by their oral mythology, but this is not widely accepted. The Shawnee are more closely related to the Monongahela culture further east, who migrated into Ohio around the late 13th century.
As detailed in the Algonquin oral history, the Shawnee are a branch of the Algonquin people who gradually migrated from the East Coast of Kolumbia towards the Great Lakes. This is confirmed by the Shawnee language, which traces its roots to a Proto-Algonquin origin. In most Algonquin languages, the word shawano translates to "south", which is comparable to the Shawnee word shawa meaning "temperate weather".
Confederacy
According to oral tradition, Ohio was invaded and conquered by a group of people from Monongahela, a region located just west of the Susquehanna River. The leader of this invasion was Sheewa, who united the clans of Keehita under a tribal confederacy. Not only did the people of Keehita not put up any resistance to this new leadership, but instead they welcomed a new era of peace and stability. Sheewa eventually died with no sons, and his daughter Nonhelema married back into the previous dynasty of Sachems.
Up until this point, the people of Keehita were experiencing a generation of chaos and despair, ever since the Great Serpent went asleep. Legends speak of various plagues that span between realistic and fantastic, including strange diseases, hail storms, and blood raining from the sky. After seven years of consecutive famine, the five Shawnee clans mutually rejected the Sachem and began to make war against each other. Sheewa and his nomadic army was able to put an end to this conflict, and he taught the Shawnee people to grow new food and cooperate under a central government.
While this legend makes sense in a historical context, some aspects are clearly exaggerated. The collapse of the Keehita culture coincides with the introduction of European diseases that they acquired from outside trade, which could lead to social unrest and famine. Some historians also argue that the sudden increase of defensive technology and enlarged palisades supports the narrative of inter-tribal warfare. However, there is also evidence to suggest this began decades before European diseases arrived.
It is suggested by the archaeological record that the Shawnee didn't actually exist in the Ohio River Valley until this point, having migrated west from Monongahela. Later legends, possibly influenced by the Nordic genealogies, imagined the Keehita culture as the direct predecessor of the Sachemate, rather than a completely different state entirely.
Under the confederacy, the Shawnee population grew much more rapidly than in previous years, as the new generation had acclimated to European diseases. Architecture during this time changed dramatically, replacing the earlier pit houses with above-ground longhouses. While these longhouses are very similar to that used by the Iroquois and Lenape, there is also some influence from Vinlandic meeting halls, most famously at the capitol building in Chillicothe. These larger plazas supported a larger population, about 140 people at a time. Despite these changes, the homes were still only semi-permanent.
For the most part, the Shawnee retained the same material culture as Keehita, combining elements from the Mississippi and Algonquin influences. In fact, a genetic study in the 20th century suggests that the subjugation of Keehita may have been a mutual assimilation, not a displacement. That being said, the society of the confederacy was transformed by their trade from the Nordics. Wheat was also introduced at this time, as a substitute for corn in times of need. Iron and copper weapons were also being used by the Shawnee around 1400 AD, around the same time that domestic metallurgy first appears.
Old Beaver Wars
Shawnee mythology characterizes their conflict with the Iroquois Confederacy as a pivotal event that centralized the Shawnee tribes into a hereditary kingdom. This conflict originally had no proper name, and wasn't taken seriously by historians until the 18th century. French historian Jean Molinet connected legends from multiple different sources that all describe an expansionist phase of the Iroquois into the Great Lakes sometime in the 15th century. This was dubbed the "Old Beaver War" to distinguish it from the events of the 17th century in the same region. Later historians have greatly revised Molinet's original theory, but the name for the conflict has stuck.
In the Shawnee version of events, the conflict began during the rule of the Sachem Shemanetoo. In securing an alliance with the Miami tribe, Shemanetoo married a daughter of the Miami Sachem, named Methoataske, who was famed for her beauty and modesty. Their first child was a daughter named Asoundechris. At some point, Methoataske was abducted and sexually abused by the Erie, where she became pregnant. In captivity, she gave birth to a son named Peteusha, but soon afterwards she was impregnated again. This time, the Erie sent her back to the Shawnee, but threatened that if she told anyone about her captivity they would murder Peteusha.
With the help of magic from a Medicine Man, Methoataske arranged events to trick Shemanetoo into thinking the child was his. When the child was born at last, she gave him the name Cottawamago. For several years, the two brothers grew up in isolation, one trained in the traditions of the Shawnee and the other trained in the court of the Iroquois. However, at some point Shemanetoo learned from an evil spirit that Cottawamago was not his son, which threw him into a rage. He demanded Methoataske to divulge who the father is, and when she refused he ordered her to be executed. Instead of dying, however, Methoataske ran off and was transformed into a raven by the Great Spirit.
Cottawamago, as a bastard child, was forced into exile. He lived for some time in the wild, guided by seven spirits to master the knowledge of nature. Afterwards, he came to live in the city of Keseki (OTL Sunwatch) under a false identity, gaining a reputation as a great warrior. Having grown to manhood, his mother finally appeared in the form of a raven, telling him that the Shawnee is need of his help.
As the Beaver War with the Iroquois had begun, the Erie invaded Ohio and moved towards Baldwin River. Shemanetoo assembled a council of the clan chiefs in Keehita, and raised their best warriors to fight back against the Erie. The oral history gives vivid detail of the battles fought by Shemanetoo against the Erie, defending the Shawnee cities between Baldwin River and Madison Lake. Peteusha, unaware of his real mother, was trained by the Iroquois to be their ultimate weapon against the Shawnee. The estranged prince devised a plan that first isolated Shemanetoo, then had him assassinated by an arrow.
Methoataske, in raven form, related all this to Cottawamago, how his adopted father was killed in battle and the Shawnee depend on him now for survival. The clan elders were unsure at first to trust Cottawamago, until his mother flew in to perch on his head, giving a sign from the gods. After being proclaimed the new Sachem, Cottawamago gathered the remaining warriors from every city and clan, assembling them into a single army to defend from the Erie. They dispatched this army from Keseki, and pushed the invaders out from Baldwin River. It is said in some legends that the Great Serpent Misiginebig himself appeared out of the Serpent mound, and decimated the armies of the Iroquois.
Peteusha was dispatched once again to assassinate Cottawamago. He challenged Cottawamago to a dual, fighting hand-to-hand while his assassin awaited nearby with a bow. However, during the fight Methoataske appeared as a raven and told him the truth, that the man he is fighting his is own brother. In shock, Peteusha took the arrow himself and allowed Cottawamago to escape unharmed.
After the war was over, Cottawamago married Asoundechris, securing a new era for the Shawnee nation. He returned to Keehita as a hero, not only proving himself worthy of the title of Sachem, but wielding such effective power that was worthy of the exonym "king". By Asoundechris, the new king had a son named Tecumseh, who became Sachem after him. The Erie retreated from Ohio in the twentieth year since the war began.
Very little of the mythology can be verified by archaeology, if any. The Old Beaver War massively disrupted the social order of the Shawnee, which dismantled the old confederacy and propelled them into a fully-organized kingdom. However, the concept of the Old Beaver War as a single engagement over one generation is no longer supported by historians. Rather, there were several conflicts across the 15th century spanning three or four generations, where the Shawnee were almost always on the defensive. All the cities mentioned in the oral legend have been the sites of battles against Iroquois-speaking tribes, but these are often decades apart.
Early Kingdom
As the conflict of the Old Beaver Wars spanned over a long period, the centralization of the Shawnee confederacy was also a gradual process. By the early 16th century, the Shawnee had mostly abandoned a nomadic lifestyle in favor of lifelong, permanent settlements. The cities were organized with designated farmlands, sustaining a stable diet of corn, beans, wheat, and meat.
While every male of the tribe was still expected to prove their manhood in combat, violence was gradually monopolized by the elite chieftains. It became the clan leaders who kept an organized military, and controlled the supply of weapons. The elites also first dominated the control of horses once they first appeared in Ohio in the early 16th century. Once that transition completed, the material culture demonstrates a social stratification that never previously existed in the region before. The five Shawnee clans settled into compact urban centers, each of which became an independent polity or "city-state". These cities maintained a general circular structure with fortified palisades, inherited from the Keehita culture.
At the same time that the Shawnee culture urbanized, they gradually transitioned from an internal to an external focus. As the Erie withdrew from the Ohio valley at the end of the 15th century, the Shawnee pushed outward in an expansionist phase that continued until the colonial Beaver Wars began. They first expanded eastward into the Shenandoah valley, forming a natural border at the Appalachian Mountains. This was retroactively justified as an "ancestral right" by the oral mythology, which described the Shawnee kingdom as the "Ohio-Shenandoah People". The Treaty of Shamokin in the colonial Beaver Wars recognized this claim officially.
At first, there was probably a brief period in which the Shawnee Kingdom still acted as a single polity, during the conquest of the Shenandoah Valley. This theory is based on the timetable of the Pentapolis urbanization, and evidence in Shawnee oral legends, although some historians still disagree. Regardless, at some point the local clan leaders or "Septs" had gained significant political leverage over their local polities, siphoning power away from the Sachem in Chillicothe. Within some limitations, the Septs were now able to collect their own tribute and raise their own military.
It was this new order of cooperation between the five city-states that became known as the "Shawnee Pentapolis". As each city collected their own tribute and ruled their own territory, there became new incentive for the polities to expand on their own accord on behalf of the whole kingdom. Throughout the 16th century, this northern expansion phase assumed rule over the Miami, Potawatomi, and Fox people.
One evidence of the Sachem being marginalized from power is what little emphasis is given to him in any further oral history, after the reign of Tecumseh I. Supposedly, the Sachemate's matrilineal practice was adopted at this point to ensure the heir was legitimate, to avoid the same problems that started the Old Beaver War. At the same time, other new traditions by the Sachemate was indicative of their new central government, such as the royal court in the Chillicothe meeting hall.
European Contact
Administration
The Shawnee is ruled by an elective monarchy. The head of state is called the Sachem, which is often translated as "King" by contemporary sources. The Sachem is not succeeded automatically, but is informally selected from eligible members of the royal family. This selection process includes the clan elders, administrative Septs (nobles), and preeminent shamans. The Sachems trace their ancestry matrilineally. This means that sons of the Sachem are not eligible in succession, but only sons of his sister or daughter.
The royal family of the Shawnee is called the House of Chillicothe, originating from the oldest and most powerful clan of the tribe. This dynasty traces its descent from the patriarch Chillicothe who supposedly lived around 1100 AD, and was the great grandson of Kokunthena. This is considered a myth, and the royal family most likely came to power around the mid 14th century. This same royal family also rules over the city-state of Chillicothe, which is the largest city of the Shawnee Pentapolis. Traditionally, the government convenes and enacts legislation from the ancient fort in Keehita, a Pre-Kolumbian settlement that predates the Shawnee rule in Ohio.
The Shawnee Kingdom is subdivided into five administrative regions, called Septates. Each Septate is ruled by a hereditary Sept, which is sometimes rendered as "Duke" by contemporary sources. Each Sept is representative from one of the five major clans of the Shawnee, and administrates from a metropolitan that bears their name: Chillicothe, Hathawekela, Kispoko, Mekoche, and Pekowi. The Sept is responsible to collect tribute of vassal tribes and cities which are owed to the Sachem, but can collect additional tribute for their themselves. In addition, the territory of the Shawnee encompasses six tribal vassals and twenty cities.
Even though the Shawnee do not operate as a nomadic group, tribal organization and clan kinship are still very strong elements of their society. Religious elites in the society are set apart in a similar manner as the Mississippi culture. There are also many lower offices over the military and nobility beyond the Septs, which are largely meritocratic instead of hereditary. This proof of merit for is a ritualistic process, taking the form of donated tribute or gifts to high-ranking clan members, as well as arranged marriages. In times of warfare, merit is more directly displayed by acts of valor in battle.
The Shawnee military is organized into six divisions, loosely associated with each of the five Septates. Beyond these divisions, military offices are very organic and can be freely moved around at the Sept's discretion. Warfare is a ritualistic process, and the Shawnee make war against neighboring tribes on a seasonal basis, as is the case for most Kolumbian nations. These periodic wars allow for rapid social mobility for individual warriors, and enables the Septates to acquire additional sources of tribute as reward. Horses are exclusively used for fast transportation of units and communication, with no real cavalry units.
Legendary and historical Sachems
- Kokumthena (c.1000 AD)
- Monnittokie
- Hokolesqua
- Chillicothe (c.1100 AD)
- Lalawethika
- Cheeseekau
- Catahecassa
- Okeema
- Popoquan
- Sheewa (c.1350)
- Satokh
- others TBD
- Shemanetoo (c.1480)
- Cottawamago (c.1480-c.1500)
- Tecumseh I (c.1500-c.1525)
Economy
Like most pre-modern societies, the backbone of the Shawnee economy is agriculture. Like the Mississippi culture, their diet follows the "three sisters" system of corn, squash, and beans. In times of need, wheat is also cultivated to supplement the other three, but this isn't used often in cooking. The Shawnee are also the first people in the world to cultivate sunflower seeds domestically, which they export along with the rest of their agricultural goods.
In terms of meat, the Shawnee hunt a variety of creatures both on land and in rivers, including turkey, deer, and elk. Starting in the 15th century, Turkeys were fully domesticated and raised for food instead of hunted. Black bears are also hunted, using their pelts as a source of leather that can be likewise exported. The Septates and Sachemate requires regular tribute of food or livestock from vassal tribes and cities, which functions as a kind of tax.
While much of the tools and weapons used by the Shawnee were imported from other cultures, they have a lot of native manufacturing as well. Arrowheads and knives are particularly distinctive, carved from flint into large triangles. Other tools are carved from bones, stones, shells or antlers. Farming equipment, for example, is constructed from mussel shells.
Much of the wealth owned by the Shawnee is acquired from overland trade. Located along Ohio River halfway between the Mississippi and Saint Nathun, the kingdom quickly became a major hub of trade linking the east coast to the rest of Kolumbia. This surplus of trade allowed a mercantile subculture to develop within the kingdom, as many people have started making a business out of trade instead of farming.
Like most of the New World, the Shawnee has no standard currency. Starting in the mid 15th century, the concept of personal wealth evolved along with the emergence of social stratification. This wealth comes from raw goods that people own, such as land or livestock, which are traded directly in a barter system rather than sold. Over time, the Sachemate adopted gold and silver bullion to represent wealth for the social elites, which makes trade with foreign cultures much simpler.
Religion
The Shawnee Kingdom has no official religion, but the vast majority of their population practices the ethnic-traditional faith known as Midewiwin. Midewiwin is a formalized religion based on the traditional beliefs of the Algonquin people, spanning several nations beyond the Shawnee. Its name derives from the word midewi, which can either be translated as "spiritual state" or "sacred mystery".
According to mythology, the traditional practices of Midewiwin was first established by Mateguas, the brother of Glooscap, who also passed on this religion to Kokumthena. Archaeology confirms that the traditional beliefs of the Algonquins is indeed very old. However, originally it was probably a more loosely-defined animistic religion more typical of nomadic cultures. It was contact with more developed cultures, particularly Europeans, that inspired the religion to become more formalized and mechanical. This new religious movement was referred to in Nordic sources as "the Great Medicine Society".
While Midewiwin has no formal hierarchy, they do recognize different levels of spiritual authority known as "Degrees". Each higher degree of Midewiwin is associated with a greater spiritual insight, giving them access to higher levels of secret knowledge. Nine degrees in total are recognized in the religion, but effectively only the first four degrees are ever used. Clerics of the Midewiwin religion are called Midew, which is commonly translated as "Medicine Man".
It is the role of the Medicine Man to administer rituals for the spiritual well-being of the tribe, and to teach these beliefs to the next generation. Some of these rituals involve acts of magic or divination, especially for healing sickness or physical injury, which is where the term "medicine" comes into play. These rituals include seven fixed holidays across the year, and six sacraments across an individual's life (birth, naming, first-kill, puberty, marriage, and death). There is additionally the "Shaking Tent" ceremony, which is essentially an exorcism to ward off spirits from a house. Traditionally, the Medicine Man operates out of a sacred building called a Midewigwam, a kind of longhouse constructed on holy ground. Foreign sources typically refer to this building as a "Grand Medicine Lodge".
With the introduction of contact with Europe, a plurality of Christians have also appeared in the kingdom, mostly divided between Catholics and Jungists.
Art
The Shawnee produce a number of different works of art, mostly in the form of textiles and ceramics. No Kolumbian cultures had ever developed the potter's wheel, so pottery is produced by a coiling method that is constructive rather than destructive. Consequently, this form of pottery lends itself towards imagery of a coiling snake, which is a common motif across all Shawnee art. Pottery and urns are distinguished by elaborately decorated handles and rims. Typically, these contain symbolism of snakes or salamanders, separated along four symmetric handles. The rims tend to have elaborate, guilloche-style patterns, either inscribed using mussel shells or imprinted with negative painting.
Much of the Shawnee art and symbolism is inherited by their trade from the west, particularly the Mississippi and Sioux. Some pottery is also designed in a head shape like Mississippi. At the same time, some artistic influence comes from the east, such as geometric patterns of people and animals. Some have compared the snake motif on Shawnee pottery to that of the ouroboros, linked to the Nordic Midgard Serpent. After the introduction of metallurgy, this same artistic style was used on printed copper sheets. The Shawnee are also known to imitate the Mississippi tradition of monumental art, particularly in ceremonial burial mounds like the Serpent Mound, although these became more scarce after the 16th century.
The Shawnee are also known for a variety of performing arts. Originally used for ceremonial purposes, the Shawnee practice traditional dances both individually and in groups. In the 17th century, these dances were made more stylized and formal, and eventually evolved into the Shawnee epic theatrical tradition. Chunkey, also known as the hoop-and-stick game, is the most common competitive sport among the Shawnee.
Footnotes
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