Published on Friday, November 10, 2000 © 2000 Madison
Newspapers, Inc. Used with permission
Byline: John-Brian Paprock
“They
are gates of spiritual protection against all enemies both human and
otherwise,” says Steve Funmaker of the effigy mounds that are concentrated in
south central Wisconsin. Funmaker, of
the Ho Chunk Historic Preservation office, warns, “They should be left
alone. They shouldn’t be dug into. They shouldn’t have picnic tables on
them. The arrogance of some people -
they don’t understand what they are and therefore just step on them like they
don’t mean anything.”
A
new book, due out mid-November 2000, will go a long way to help with
understanding the history and the mystery of Wisconsin’s fantastic ancient
monuments – the effigy mounds.
Robert
Birmingham, Wisconsin State Archeologist, and Leslie Eisenberg, director of the
Burial Site Preservation Office, have collated the scattered and often
ubiquitous information and research into a much needed book from UW Press:
“Indian Mounds of Wisconsin,” due out this November.
Not
only does the book break ground in making a case for Native American
continuity, but it also makes some sense of the wild history of the various
alternative theories that have been presented since the 19th
century. Birmingham explains, “It would
be difficult to justify relieving people of their land if they had such a deep
history and so there was an unwillingness to recognize that Native Americans
had a deep history in this land. So,
many were willing to believe otherwise.”
The
remarkable earthworks have been attributed to peoples from Aztecs to Vikings,
but Birmingham points out that two things have created a dramatic shift. “One is a change in attitude toward Native
Americans by dominant culture in general, and secondly we now know something of
the history of the land.”
“People
are finding out that there’s more and more as we go along. They say ‘Wow, there were Native Americans
here at one time!’ This is kind of news to them, but we always knew that,” said
Funmaker. He is critical of books and all
the sudden interest in the topic.
Funmaker is not alone, but there are different views even among Native
Americans.
At
least three different tribes claim ownership of the mounds and ancestry to the
mound builders. Perhaps, effigy mounds were part of an inter-tribal religious
movement. Maybe they were even part of
inter-tribal ceremonials that helped link people together. One thing is nearly unanimous; these are
sacred and holy sites that need to be protected. As Funmaker puts it “Sacred all along, not brand new sacred.”
Birmingham
writes in the book’s introduction that “sacred character of a place continues
to recognized and shared over a long period of time, perhaps even by people
from different cultural backgrounds.” People like Linda Maloney, effigy mound
preservation advocate, understand this.
“I’m fourth generation Maloney in this area
and my dad, raised Irish Catholic, was born at the end of Orchard Street in the
20s.” says Linda Maloney of Madison.
“When I was a little girl, he took me to the mounds down by Vilas, the
ones at the end of Orchard Street. He
said, if you are feeling sad or lonely or afraid and you want to go someplace,
this is where you can come to. You see
how the bear will hold you and give you a great big hug. You can see how you
can snuggle into the bird and you can stay there until you feel better again
and then go home.”
“That
was my first introduction to the mounds,” she said, “Over my life I would go
there and feel better. Then I just
became fascinated with them and I went on to work to preserve them with the
Mound Committee in Monona. They are very highly spiritual places, ceremonial
places that have to be protected – whether they were graves or season markers
or clan markers or places of celebration or whatever, they needed to be
protected.”
Birmingham
made it very clear that all royalties from the book will go toward mound
preservation.
Co-author
Eisenberg, a forensic anthropologist, works to protect the mounds as part of
her duties with the Burial Sites Preservation Program. She gets calls to check on mound sites
several times a month - sometimes, to make a determination of authenticity
effigy or burial mound; sometimes, to make sure the mounds are being properly
protected. According to the Burial Site
Protection Law of 1985, Wisconsin progressively defined all Native American
mounds as human burial places. The law
protects them from disturbance and destruction, as it does for all cemeteries
and family plots. Eisenberg states that
new mounds are being determined regularly and added to the over 9,000 burial
sites already catalogued throughout the state.
Eisenberg
has almost daily contact with tribal offices throughout the state where the
tribe often sends someone to inspect the site. The Ho Chunk Nation has taken a
lead role as the protector of the mounds.
“There are ceremonies that are performed depending on how strongly we
want to protect the mounds from encroachment,” explains Funmaker. He said that some of the elders have been
going out to different mound sites on a case-by-case basis, sit in one spot and
watch all the people come and go, “They won’t interfere, but they will watch
and take mental notes. If it is someone
they recognize they will put their names in memory and go back to the council
and talk about it.”
“It
is our strong opinion that mounds need to be to be understood in context with
Native American societies and belief systems,” says Birmingham “We do have protection laws, but we believe
that people become more respectful with education. The more people understand, the more respectful and honoring they
become.”
“The
important thing,” he said, “is that the mounds out there today were built by
the ancestors of modern Native Americans and they reflect the belief systems
and sometimes the social systems – certainly the broader cosmology of the
people that made them and those sorts of beliefs haven’t changed.”
Unique
in the world, the effigy mound clusters are most numerous in Dane County - so
numerous that Madison has been called “Mound City.” In fact, of the 36 public
sites listed in the book’s appendix, 17 of them are in Dane County (with 7 more
in 4 adjacent counties).
Birmingham
theorizes, “Southern Wisconsin has been some of the best environment in the
Midwest for centuries. The resources must have been great. All the clusters of effigy mounds throughout
the state have one thing in common - they tend to be in very very good resource
rich areas.”
Birmingham
continues, “The effigy mounds and other related sites truly reflect that this
part of the country not only provided many resources, but also provided a very
inspirational landscape – you can still see how inspiring it is. The mound locations are places where anyone
could draw a great deal of inspiration and consider it special and holy.
They’re great places to put effigy mounds because the landscape just evokes
that kind of response. An effigy mound
group was built to blend into the landscape not stand out from it.”
“For
the mounds to last as long as they have, there must have been a lot of
cooperation. For them to be built here,
this had to be a very peaceful place,” Maloney adds.
It
will not ruin the many insights and stories of the book to give away the book’s
last paragraph:
“For
Native Americans, the mounds are eternally sacred places, the graves of
ancestors, that connect them to the land and the supernatural. But the mounds have also become highly
visible and powerful symbols of the persistence into the modern era of uniquely
Native American values and beliefs. Indeed,
when thunder and lightning move across the Wisconsin skies and water roils in
the lakes and streams, there are still some who know that thunderbirds and
water spirits are about their ancient struggle, which brings harmony to an
unsettled world.”
