Abstract Native American worldviews suggest that humans create the world through story; storytelling is central in oral societies. Storytelling was embodied in artworks made at and disseminated from Cahokia, and it was also embodied in the landscape. Cosmological, goddess, and hero stories were told, but heroes depicted in Braden-style artworks found far from Cahokia suggest that the story of a Birdman wearing human-head earrings and braid was a charter myth at Cahokia. As the foundation of ideology and ritual, stories drew people to Cahokia, but the heroic epic was a new type of story critical to the spread of Cahokian ideologies.
Julie Zimmermann (Wed,) studied this question.