[Aztlan] Chunkey and the spread of Cahokian culture

[michael ruggeri]

Listeros,

Archaeology Magazine has a story on the Mississippian game of chunkey  
written by the foremost authority on Cahokia, Timothy Pauketat. The  
game involved participants hurling spears or sticks at a rolling disc  
known as the chunkey stone. Cahokians used the game as an instrument  
of cultural expansion. The game was devised at the planned capital  
city of Cahokia which became an imperial power. Their religious and  
cultural and artistic beliefs and styles spread across the  
Mississippian world and intensified maize agriculture spread with it.  
One of the important envoys of this new culture was the game of  
chunkey. Emissaries from Cahokia, carrying chunkey stones and war  
clubs, spread out, up and down the Mississippi and into the plains, to  
carry out peace missions and create political alliances. A Pax  
Cahokiana was established, and the game of chunkey was a primary  
vehicle for this.

Archaeology Magazine has the story here;
http://www.archaeology.org/0909/abstracts/pastime.html

Mike Ruggeri

Mike Ruggeri's Mississippians and Mound Builders including the Adena  
and Hopewell
http://tinyurl.com/276d8z

Mike Ruggeri's Mississippians/Mound Builders Art Portfolio
http://tinyurl.com/y9dlgzz