Southern Death Cult

Long, long ago (about 8 years) in a cave system far, far away (unless you live near Clarksville, Tennessee), some interesting petroglyphs were discovered.  These cave markings, drawings, and etchings depict (among other things) a mystical warrior in the Mississippian tradition, helping to identify these markings as belonging to a culture that flourished roughly a thousand years ago, stretching along the Mississippi Valley (and possibly the Tennessee River Valley, which Clarksville* is somewhat adjacent to).  This aspect of the Mississippian culture was sometimes called the Southern Death Cult, although that was probably misleading-- the Cult, now mostly referred to as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, was built around martial and cosmological symbology, and when you get war and gods together, you tend to end up with a certain amount of death.  But it wasn't really a "death cult" per se-- they didn't worship death itself or anything.

*Supposedly, the Last Train to Clarksville wasn't specifically headed to Clarksville, TN; it was just a random name that Bobby Hart thought sounded good.