The majority of Muskogean provinces existing prior to the 1600s could best be described as representative theocracies, very similar in structure to the constitutional monarchy of 16th Century England. During the Hierarchal Period, all male & female citizens theoretically voted to select clan representatives, who then elected leaders. (Convicted felons, war captives and children could not vote.) However, the choice of leaders was limited only to those members of the elite, who maintained disproportionate wealth and political power because of hereditary qualifications – namely descent from the town’s founders. The Muskogean governments were NOT chiefdoms, in any sense of the word used by contemporary anthropologists. Chiefdom is defined as a community dominated by a single man. However, the chronicles of the early Spanish explorers such as de Pardo give evidence that non-Muskogean chiefdoms with Woodland Culture lifestyles, were under the political domination of Muskogeans. After the European Disease Holocaust, Creek communities evolved to being representative democracies.
Like in Maya provinces, the Muskogean Head of State and Chief Priest, was the Great Sun – Mikko Hese’. The Hitchiti speaking peoples of southeastern Georgia actually used a Maya word for part of this title, Mako Hese’. The Great Sun could be a man or woman, and was elected by the Council of Elders from a list selected by the lower legislative body, the Council of Beloved Men and Women, from a family that was known to have been descended from the Sun Goddess (or Creator.) By the way, this is one of the reasons that ancestry among Muskogeans was matriarchal. He or she was NOT necessarily leader for life like a European king. He or she could be deposed at any time by the consensus of two councils. However, in Hierarchal Period times, the councils were dominated by (at least distant) relatives of the Great Sun, so the Head of State would have to have been found highly incompetent to have been impeached.
The Great Sun’s role in the community was virtually identical to that of the Emperor of Japan prior to World War II. In fact, the Japanese Emperor was also considered to be a direct descendant from the Sun God. The primary duty of the Great Sun was to represent the community’s interests in his constant worship of the Creator. He or she never addressed the general population directly. It was the job of the Yahoola (Speaker) to transmit his messages to them and to carry their concerns back to the Great Sun. The Great Sun could issue no order to the populace without the consensus of the two councils. He or she could not shed blood, nor participate in warfare. Once war was declared, operation of the government shifted to the Taskimikko (War Leader) and the Taskicike’ (Tas-ki-chi-kee ~ House of Warriors.)
More populous provinces such as around Ochesee (Lamar Mounds Site) and Etalwa (Etowah Mounds) would have been divided into administrative districts known as tvlofa (taw-lo-fa) A governor known simply as a miko lived in a one-mound town known as a tvlufamikko. The miko would administer clusters of smaller villages, hamlets and scattered towns known as tvlofuce’ (taw-lo-fu-chee), which in turn were administered by oratvya (see below.) The well-documented fact that Muskogean provinces were divided into a hierarchy of administrative districts, headed by officials appointed by the central government, totally negates the terms “chiefdom” and “paramount chiefdom” that are used universally by anthropologists.
Activities of the government such as storage of food reserves, maintenance and construction of public works, coordination of guardians (professional soldiers, who watched over town palisades and frontiers,) fabrication and maintenance of weapons, planning for festivals, diplomacy with neighboring provinces, preparation and protection of written records, etc. were carried out by a professional bureaucracy. During the Hierarchal Period, these bureaucrats were most likely relatives of the House of the Great Sun, or descended from the town’s original founders. Large towns, such as Etalwa. were probably occupied by the bureaucracy and the commoners, who assisted them. The professionals such as talliya (architects, town planners & construction supervisors) and coyetvya (cho-ye-taw-ya ~scribes) were members of societies or guilds, who passed their skills down from generation to generation. The word talliya can mean either “to plan or lay out a town” or “to build a town” in Archaic Hitchiti and Koasati.
Oratvya (O-ra-taw-ya ~facilitators) were middle level administrators, who were assigned to manage sections of a town, villages, or specific projects authorized by the councils or House of Warriors. Evidently, in larger towns such as Ocmulgee, Ochesee and Etalwa there were male and female artisans, who specialized in sophisticated ceramics, stone sculptures and copper work for the use of the elite. There were several other societies, whose role involved coordination of certain festivals such as Poskita (New Years), promotion of military or hunting skills, or devotion to certain religious shrines. The numerous round non-domestic structures found at Ocmulgee probably were “clubhouses” for these societies, or perhaps ritual headquarters for clans (see clans below.)
The vast majority of citizens, living in scattered villages, hamlets and farmsteads, were commoners (Cvpofv-vfasv ~ Chaw-faw-aw-fa-saw), who spent their days maintaining households, tilling fields, hunting, fishing, and participating in public works projects. It is highly likely that the ancestors of the commoners were ethnically different than the elite caste. For the elite to claim special hereditary privileges probably required that they initially, and perhaps always, looked physically different. As will be illustrated in our program, the statues of the elite generally have Mesoamerican features, or at least, facial features that are not predominant in modern day Creek Indians. At Ocmulgee and the earliest town at Etalwa, the commoners were probably of Muskogean descent, mixed in with immigrants from indigenous peoples and war captives, sikooya. However, as the Muskogean culture spread across the Southeast, the Muskogeans became the elite, and probably the indigenous people were the commoners. When the speaker translated the village names in the Carolina’s mentioned by de Pardo’s chronicler, he found that in all but one of the provinces, all political titles were Muskogean, yet the town names reflected a variety of ethnic compositions – including Yuchi, Hitchiti-Muskogean, Muskogee-Muskogean, Koasati- Muskogean, Alabamo-Muskogean, Chiska-Muskogean, Siouian, Algonquian, and possibly Proto-Cherokee.
The sikooya were the bottom of Muskogean society. Their name literally means excrement in Hitchiti and Archaic Muskogee. They performed the drudgery tasks like gathering firewood, cutting trees for public works, digging ditches, etc. They were not hereditary slaves. Over time, through marriage or achievement, they could become full citizens of the community.
An interesting correlation . . . the word Sequoyah is NOT a Cherokee word, but is, in fact, the Cherokee way of pronouncing sikooya. This strongly suggests that either Sequoyah’s mother or perhaps, the man himself, was originally a Muskogean captured by the Cherokees, when they were armed and backed by the British government in the mid-1700s.
