If they had a writing system — and the evidence for writing or proto-writing among Mississippian cultures is limited and disputed — the records have not survived in recoverable form.

The absence of a recovered name for the city is, in a way, a reminder of how much has been lost.

The architectural achievements of Cahokia survived because they were too large to disappear.

The names, the stories, the specific religious and political traditions that gave those achievements their meaning — these did not survive in recoverable form, at least not in the direct record.

They may survive, in transformed versions, in the oral traditions and cultural practices of the nations that claim Mississippian heritage.