Reconstruction of the "Birdman" burial. The falcon warrior an important pre-Columbian Caho

I am convinced that all indigenous cultures are connected as are all #aboriginals (children of the sun)

When I discovered the image of the birdman I new I had to share. Here are some basic facts regarding the culture and cosmology of the Aboriginal Americans. They should ring a few bells within your consciousness of cosmic memories.

Cahokia Mounds is located on the site of an ancient Native American city (c. 600–1400 CE) situated directly across the Mississippi River from modern St. Louis, Missouri. The aboriginals of America used the Mississippi River the same way the Nubians used the Nile River in Africa. Cahokia was the largest and most influential urban settlement in the Mississippian culture which developed advanced societies across much of what is now the Southeastern United States, beginning more than 500 years before European contact.Today, Cahokia Mounds is considered the largest and most complex archaeological site north of the great Pre-Columbian cities in Mexico(Maya & Aztec).The Mounds were later named after the Cahokia tribe, a historic Illiniwek people living in the area when the first French explorers arrived in the 17th century. As this was centuries after Cahokia was abandoned by its original inhabitants, the Cahokia tribe was not necessarily descendants of the original Mississippian-era people. Most likely multiple ethnic groups settled Cahokia

The falcon warrior or "birdman" (HERU) is a common motif in Mississippian culture. This burial clearly had powerful iconographic significance. The falcon is one of the most conspicuous symbols of the S.E.C.C. It was simultaneously an avatar of warriors and an object of supplication for a lengthy life, healthy family, and a long line of descendants. Its supernatural origin is placed in the Upper World with a pantheon including the Sun, Moon, and Four Stars.At Cahokia, the falcon imagery was elaborated in figural expression. It is associated with warfare, high stakes gaming, and possibly family dynastic ambitions, symbolized by arrow flights and the rising of the pre-dawn morning star as metaphors for the succession of descendants into the future.

Most S.E.C.C. imagery focuses on cosmology and the supernatural beings who inhabit the cosmos. The cosmological map encompassed real, knowable locations, whether in this world or the supernatural reality of the Otherworld. S.E.C.C. iconography portrayed the cosmos in three levels. The Above World or Overworld, was the home of the Thunderers, the Sun, Moon, and Morning Star or Red Horn / "He Who Wears Human Heads For Earrings" and represented Order and Stability. The Middle World was the Earth that humans live in. The Beneath World or Under World was a cold, dark place of Chaos that was home to the Underwater Panther and Corn Mother or "Old Woman Who Never Dies".

Online sources

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/march/12/cahokia.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeastern_Ceremonial_Complex#

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeastern_Ceremonial_Complex#Birdman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahokia

Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, Illinois", US World Heritage Sites, National Park Service, accessed 2012-05-03

Chappell, Sally A. Kitt (2002). Cahokia: Mirror of the Cosmos. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-10136-1.

Townsend, Richard F., and Robert V. Sharp, eds. (2004). Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand. The Art Institute of Chicago and Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-10601-7.