ETOWAH INDIAN MOUNDS
My first knowledge
of Indians came mostly from the cowboy movies of the 1930s and 40s of the plains
Indians on horseback surviving by hunting the buffalo. It was only as an adult I learned that before
the white man came some earlier Indians had developed villages and an agricultural
way of life. Representatives of this
more advanced way of life were the mounds Indians widely spread across the Midwest and Southeastern parts of the country.
My most
recent visit was in Cartersville , Georgia , to the Etowah Indians Mounds, the most
intact Mississippian Culture site in the Southeastern US .
Several thousand Native Americans had lived on
this 54-acre site between 1000 A.D. to 1550 A.D. cultivating corn, beans and
squash in the loamy soil flooded regularly by the Etowah River Mexico
Unfortunately the Spaniard Hernando
DeSoto came this way in his explorations to find gold and left behind smallpox
and measles for which the natives had no natural immunity. It wasn’t long before the town’s population
was drastically reduced and the survivors left the area and eventually become
known as the Creeks. Having no oral
tradition, they forgot that their ancestors had built the large mounds along
the river.
Outside the
visitors center is a model of the buildings that once crowded the area, a
wattle and daub hut made of branches filled with wet red clay that soon was
baked hard by the sun. The logs set up
for fire in the middle of the room with no smoke hole in the roof make me think
this could be an unhealthy living area. A display in the center’s museum gives a more
complete picture of what the village once looked like.
We crossed a bridge over a 10-foot-deep
ditch that had been a source of dirt for the mounds and then became part of the
defensive structure. A sign explained
that inside the moat a 12-foot-high wall of upright logs had once effectively
kept enemies at bay.
Used as a fish trap, a V-shaped stone
barrier crossing the river has been kept intact. Woven river cane baskets were placed at the
point of the V to catch catfish, drum and gar an important part of the diet of
the villagers.
Mound A is 63-feet high and is
exceeded in size only by the large mound at Cahokia near St. Louis
The first well-documented
archaeological dig was done in 1925 by Warren K. Moorehead who was known as the
dean of American archeology. He spent
four winters excavating the site mostly focusing on Mound C. Further work was done later by archeologists
from the Georgia State Parks
Mound C had been a burial mound,
and the artifacts excavated with the 350 bodies found there indicated they were
of high status. One piece of evidence as to the high status of
the bodies was the brightly colored cloth with ornate patterns buried with
them.
Two marble figures found in
the burial mound
In this mound were two almost life-size
marble figures of such complexity that it is difficult to understand how they
could have been carved without the use of metal tools other than the copper
they used in breast plates and copper ear ornaments. These figures are now on display in the
museum along with artifacts showing how the people decorated themselves with
shell beads, tattoos, and feathers. We
were told the images had been found broken and hastily buried, one theory being
that successful attackers had broken them and buried them to destroy their
power.
Other displays give a rather good
picture of what life must have been like during that period of history. A movie
at the visitor’s center gives a history of the Southeast Mounds Indians, and
the park ranger gives an introductory lecture on the area. The site was designated a National Historic
Landmark in 1964.
A reconstruction of what the Etowah Indians looked like.
A V-shaped stone barrier crossing the river was used as a fish trap.
A V-shaped stone barrier crossing the river was used as a fish trap.
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