Oral Tradition and Effigy Mounds One of the biggest impediments to correct interpretation of the earthworks (correct here meaning accurate to the actual intentions of the builders) is confusion about Native “oral tradition” – what it is, who has a right to convey it, and how it should be taken. The so-called experts, including anthropologists and archaeologists, have been as confused on this subject as those without formal education, often either dismissing all sources of oral tradition as disingenuous, or taking such interpretations at face value as meaning what the informants say literally. We can take as a premise that not all oral tradition can be literally correct because different versions, often offered within the same social group, are frequently in frank contradiction, especially regarding the origin and meaning of the mounds. Too much time has elapsed between the period of major earthwork construction and the historic period for there to have been anything close to accurate transmission of elusive things like intent or purpose, with too many intervening huge social changes, including the transition to agriculture and the fragmentation of societies caused by the bow and arrow, not to mention the European invasion. Common historical explanations of the mounds offered by Natives that they were used for defense or in connection with corn ceremonies obviously related to present concerns rather than to preserved ancestral memories, since the builders of the works neither had corn nor the need for large defensive works. However, the Native legends are not without meaning. They have proven to be accurate about the connection of the mound-builders to modern tribes. Central Algonquians recall that the works of the Ohio Valley were the work of their ancestors; the Winnebago adamantly claim to have been the authors of the effigy mounds of Wisconsin and Iowa; and the Caddo preserve traditions that they say derive from Poverty Point. These claims are backed by substantial modern evidence. And if understood as mythic narratives that naturally evolve over time, these oral traditions also can provide substantial enlightenment about the actual intents and purposes of the mounds. I’m inspired on this subject by a short essay by Frances Densmore, published in 1928 in The American Anthropologist, titled “A Winnebago Explanation of Effigy Mounds.” Densmore was the brilliant anthropologist who became fluent in Ojibwe language and who debunked the term “Gitchi Manitou” (“Great Spirit”) as a non-native derivative of Christian missionary work. Densmore had the good fortune to visit a cluster of Wisconsin effigy mounds in the company of one family of Winnebagos, who freely shared their “oral tradition” about the mounds. In sum, it was said that these were defensive works containing secret inner chambers for refuge, built in the shape of “Dream animals” that corresponded to the clan protectors of that group. Like many other oral traditions about the mounds, this cannot possibly be literally true. The effigy mounds of the upper Midwest do not contain inner chambers and obviously were not built in any manner suitable for defense – the most common figures are birds with long extended wings and beaks. There were probably thousands of such effigy mounds built, spread widely over at least four states, most already eroded by the time of Euro-American contact. Nor can they represent clan animals or even “Dream” animals because almost none of the birds or quadrupeds are identifiable by species, a kind of anonymity that had to be intentional. Thomas Lewis, who discovered the bear effigy at Old Fort, did an analysis showing that wingspans of the Wisconsin-Iowa effigy birds corresponded to no actual bird species of the region. Despite being a debunker of Indian legends, Densmore was tentatively convinced or at least impressed by the explanation given, enough to speculate that the skeletons found in some effigy mounds had been people seeking refuge who were buried alive by mound collapse. The professional surprise at finding skeletons inside the effigy mounds of Wisconsin and Iowa came because the famous effigy mounds of Ohio were known to contain no burials. Archaeologists and anthropologists have continued to assume that whatever the purpose of these effigy mounds was, it had to be the same, from eastern Ontario to South Dakota. But what the physical evidence has been telling us is that they were not the same. The category of “effigy mound” is one of our own invention, loaded with our own cultural prejudices about the nature of religious icons and the universality of god worship. The so-called effigy mounds of Ontario and the Ohio Valley were Algonquian works, while the effigy mounds of the Wisconsin-Iowa area were distinctly Siouan in character. Many differences separate the two: 1. The Algonquian effigies carried species identification markers, while the Siouan effigies appear to have been meant to represent generic animals and birds (perhaps because the exact form of resurrection was not known). 2. The Algonquian effigies were rigidly geometric, symmetric, and mathematically precise, while the Siouan effigies were freeform and often asymmetric. 3. The Algonquian effigies were built near burial grounds but did not contain burials, while the Siouan effigies may have all contained burials of some kind (cremation remains if not bones). 4. The Algonquian effigies point in different directions that seem to be specific to the site, while the Siouan effigies nearly all point to the south, reflecting some common belief about the portal to the sky world being in the south. Cognizant of these differences, which were noted by Lewis in the 1890s, we can take the explanations offered to Densmore as important. They certify that the Winnebago feel a strong ancestral connection to the effigy mounds of the upper Midwest. They also reveal that the mounds were remembered as serving a discrete earthly purpose that was neither religious nor “ceremonial” – that is, they were not some form of idol or god worship as they have so often been interpreted by Euro-Americans, from 19th century missionaries through to Ohio History Central. If these had been “ceremonial sites,” the Winnebago could be expected to remember that in some way. In Winnebago cosmology, the “Dream” world is identical to the world of the dead, the world of the ancestors. To remember these mounds as depicting “Dream” animals is another way of saying that the mounds afford connection to the world of the dead. That they actually served as sepulchral mounds for burial of the dead was not remembered, perhaps for the simple reason that burial practices changed.
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:52:40 +0000
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