Art and ritual provided the symbolic and metaphorical means by which the people of the Mississippian world visualized their spiritual relationships with the supernatural. Mississippian art—or, more specifically, what I shall argue is the art of a Mississippian Art and Ceremonial Complex (MACC)—often displayed an encoded symbolic system that portrayed the locations and inhabitants of a perceived, yet unseen, reality. The MACC possessed a complex symbolic language with important political and …