MYTHOLOGY: See SACRED TRADITION. OBSIDIAN: Volcanic glass, a material imported by Hopewellians possibly from Wyoming. Rare in Illinois. PALEO-INDIAN (See Clovis and Folsom): Hunters of big game who roamed over North America in glacial times. PATTERN: The largest archaeological unit in the McKern Classification System. PECKING: The process (other than chipping) by which a stone artifact was brought to general shape by breaking off small particles with a stone hammer. PEOPLE: The term “people” as used in this paper does not refer to a physical type but simply to cultural groups unless specifically stated to the contrary. PERIOD: Unless otherwise specifically stated, the word applies to a cultural level regardless of time and place. PHASE: The major division of the pattern as used in the McKern Classification System. PLANT-RAISING: The economy or cultural status of a cultural group who grew food (and fibre) plants but were without domesticated food-draft animals. POLITICAL ORGANIZATION: A formalized social means of controlling the members of a nation or tribe and compelling compliance with established customs or laws with defined customary or lawful penalties for violations together with the machinery for determining equity, rights, or damages in non-criminal disputes through governmental agencies such as officers (chiefs) and official bodies (councils) regularly selected for these purposes. POLISHING: A process by which the surface of a ground stone artifact was brought to a high degree of smoothness and gloss by rubbing with fine earth and water. It is readily distinguishable from polish due to wear in digging. PRIEST: Any person selected in a regular and customary manner for religious office who by virtue of installation into that office and acceptance of the duties is (believed to be) invested with the power to communicate and intercede with members of the spirit world, a god or gods or in certain instances to act for them on behalf of his group. PRIMITIVE PEOPLE: Refers to any people in the Self-Domestication Stage and to the simple plant-growers of the Farming Period. PROTOCULTURAL: A stage presumed to have existed prior to man’s discovery of the principle of conchoidal fracturing of flint, when he used native sticks and stones as tools, and sometimes by haphazard breaking of these secured new forms more suitable for his purposes. PROTOMISS: An abbreviated form for Protomississippi, the earliest known subculture of the Middle (Mississippi) Phase in southwestern Illinois. Dillinger is the type site.