animals to oblivion: great flightless birds, hippopotamuses, giant tortoises,
and lemurs of perhaps a dozen and a half species, one the size of gorillas.
It would seem, then, that even if there will never be conclusive evidence for
Paul Martin’s argument for exclusively human agency in American extinc-
tions, persisting researchers cannot exclude bipedal hunters.
Bison roamed and foraged much of the Southeast, too, and Chicka-
saw ancestors, among other peoples, left bison bones in their middens.
Whether native southerners killed bison excessively or wastefully, as Plains
people apparently did, we know not. Perhaps the question is relatively un-
important, since bison were not the principal large animal prey in southern
cultures. This was the white-tailed deer, which figured as large in south-
eastern landscapes, native lore and religion, and subsistence as the bison
in the West and the beaver in the North. The importance of deer, indeed,
can hardly be overestimated, and arguably (if perhaps ironically) their al-
ready huge numbers probably increased even as Mississippian peoples cre-
ated substantial towns and ever-larger crop fields. This expansion occurred
because Mississippians manipulated nature with fire, as had their prede-
cessors, but now probably more so, and fire helped create edge environ-
ments and landscape mosaics called ecotones with more grasses and suc-
culents for deer browse. Mississippians persisted in the Woodland practice
of using fire to maintain grassy pastures—deer parks, actually—as well.
Native uses for deer carcasses were the equal of western peoples’ consump-
tion of bisons’ bodies: Venison was a major source of protein, and Indi-
ans believed eating deer meat made them strong and wise. Tongues fig-
ured in rituals, divinations, and feasts. Bucks’ antler tips became arrow
points. Hides were essential for bedding, covers, dresses, breechcloths and
leggings, fringe, moccasins, and countless other domestic goods. In the
Cherokee origins narrative, the deer was the most intelligent of animals
(even smarter than the wily rabbit) and had led all creatures from the under-
world, through the mouth of a cave onto the earth. Cherokees and Chicka-
saws named daughters after lovely does and cute fawns. Southern peoples
were so numerous, though, and spoke so many languages that, except for
Cherokees, we know little that is reliable, much less generalizable, about
religion and ethics as possible constraints upon the waste of deer.
In the Cherokee myth, deer, bears, rabbits, and other animals spoke and
interacted with humans, and rather equally, for a period, establishing re-
spect even as humans hunted them. Later, however, humans grew in num-
bers, then became greedy and disrespectful, killing too many of their fel-
low creatures. Deer and bears held councils and made retaliatory war upon