From the Editors
In our care of the earth we don’t have to look too far to find inspiration. The Ancient Ohio Earthworks give glimpses of a people connected spiritually to the earth and all of creation. These structures are mysterious and give away only a few of their secrets. But they beckon us to honor an animated cosmos. In this issue our writers offer reflections on these architectural wonders—theological, historical, cultural, musical and imaginative. We hope they inspire you to visit these sites.
In this issue:
Speaking of Faith: David Cave on Hopewell culture; John Hancock on Learning from the Elders
Walking the Talk: Frenchman Antony Dumaine discovers Ancient Ohio; Rick Sowash celebrates Serpent Mound; Julie Malkin and Richard Schade visit Mound City;
Quick Escapes: John Hancock suggests one-hour earthwork getaways
Learn More: Web resources for research, study, and travel
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Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks: Faith as Orientation to the World |
Shortly after midnight on November 18, 2001, my family and I were lying in the middle of Highway 715 near Red River Gorge and gazing up into a sky streaked by shooting stars. We had come to see a Leonid meteor shower, the best in decades, and before long we were uttering comic-book exclamations: Wow!, Amazing!, Cool!. At that moment the heavens seemed more alive than the quiet, terrestrial world around us. |
This celestial event came to mind when I was asked to offer thoughts on the ancient ceremonial earthworks of built by the Hopewell culture (c.100 B.C.E. — 400 C.E.), which are known for their astronomically-informed designs. I first studied them as a comparative religion interpreter for the University of Cincinnati’s Earthworks project, led by John Hancock, and was immediately struck by their grand scale. The Newark Earthwork Complex, for example, occupied an area four times the size of downtown Cincinnati. Now, almost twenty years later, I can reflect on them with more impartiality, realizing their similarities not only to contemporary earthworks by artists such as Robert Smithson, Walter de Maria, or Michael Heizer, but also to other architectural constructions and installations, both large and small, by which humans have, as expressions of faith, oriented themselves in the world and given it sacred significance.
In Christian thought, faith has been interpreted in two principal ways: to believe in a set of doctrines (for example, the Trinity or Christ’s redemption), or, to adopt an orientation to the world, as in to trust in something or someone (such as God’s goodness, the moral arc of history, or the restorative power of nature).
As the modern period dawned, faith in doctrine was gradually undermined by scientism and secularism, each of which questioned the church’s supernatural claims. But faith as trusting that something will come about, or can be relied upon, weathered modern skepticism more easily, even if one were pressed to defend a belief that God is good, that the moral arc bends toward justice, or that nature is spiritually restorative. Scholars have argued that a faith orientation can be described as either “open” or “closed.” The former welcomes diversity and change; the latter prizes boundaries, continuity, and security. In either case, one grows spiritually depending upon how well one engages the imagination with a willingness to adapt in order to preserve one’s faith orientation.
The Hopewell earthworks were precision engineered for astronomical, ceremonial, and mortuary purposes. They functioned as centers for artistic creativity, tool making, time-keeping, and complex ritual. As micro-universes they replicated, aligned with, and, thereby, benefited from the overwhelming macro-universe of the cosmos, with all its exhilarating and frightening mysteries. We cannot know how much the Hopewell possessed an intellectual approach to reality, given the lack of written evidence; they seem to have relied on religious specialists, shared myth, and ritual to speak for the group. Based on what we do know, it is fair to say that the Hopewell exhibited a “closed” orientation to the world, notwithstanding the extensive trade that passed through their hamlets. They enacted their belief that the universe could be ordered and relied upon by building a complex network of earthworks aligned with the movements of the sun and moon, by organizing an egalitarian society with strong leadership and religious specialists, by formalizing religious performances, and by segregating funerary practices. They also designed abstract and representational art to define and influence the human and natural world.
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The earthworks of the Ohio valley open us to an ancient world view that is as impressive as it is fascinating. They also instruct and challenge us. They teach us to notice how we orient our own place in the world and, so, how we define our relations to others, connect with the environment, and move into the uncertain future. And they challenge us to assess whether we are moving into that future mindlessly or with thoughtfulness, consideration, and imagination, born out of trust and through redemptive deeds, such that years from now our progeny will look upon our vestiges and conclude: they did seek their better natures, as God and the universe would have it.
(David Cave is a scholar of comparative religion presently serving as Chief of Advancement for the Contemporary Arts Center. He and his family attended Mt. Auburn back in the 1990s. For more of David’s thoughts on ancient Ohio cultures, see his short videos on the Ancient Ohio Trail website: “Burning Things” and “Elaboration and Ritual”)
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Learning from the Elders
John Hancock writes:
Among the highlights of my twenty-five year engagement with Ohio’s two-thousand-year-old earthworks has been meeting and learning from some of the descendants of their makers. The builders don’t correspond to any specific modern tribe, but instead to a broader “Eastern Woodland” tradition that includes today’s Ottawa, Miami, Shawnee, Wyandotte, Lenape, and several others. While creating our “Ancient Ohio Trail” project, my co-authors and I were able to meet with chiefs, elders, and storytellers from Ohio as well as from displaced groups now based in Oklahoma. (Many of our on-camera interviews are excerpted on the website.)
Despite the disruptions of the past seventeen centuries, we were seeking stories and themes that might shed light on past and present meanings of the earthworks and the exotic artifacts left by their builders: mica and copper cutouts of woodland creatures, exquisite abstract geometries, and animal effigy smoking pipes.
We were not disappointed. These interviews honored us with a glimpse into spiritual traditions that evoke what scholars have called “the compact unity of mythical experience.” Religious practice imbues all aspects of American Indian life. Most occasions are marked by ceremonies, drawing attention to the sacredness of all persons and all things. This sense of reverence connects across time and generations (the ancestors), and throughout the natural world (especially with animals).
Let me share a few of these ideas that I found especially moving.
Despite being forcibly removed in the 1830s, these tribes consider Ohio a revered homeland, and these sites are deeply sacred. The earth itself is honored, especially where it was lovingly piled up into these monumental and precise shapes. The ancestors are “in the earth” even beyond the literal sense where there may be preserved burials. A sense of continuous time means that the ancestors remain in the soil, and in the wider landscape.
The ancestors are also remembered in the sky. Understanding the moon as female is culturally widespread, but in American Indian tradition, it is also a more important calendrical marker than the sun, despite the complexity of its phases and rising positions. The Newark Earthworks’ precise astronomical alignments are lunar, not solar. One story tells how, when the moon is full the female ancestors, the mothers and the grandmothers, are dancing around it and ready to receive prayers.
Such an intimacy with the natural world also extends to the forests, the rivers, and the animals. One creation story describes the Earth Diver, who brings up the land out of the water; it features all the woodland creatures, each trying his or her best to provide the firm ground on which the world may be established. The existence of the world is owed to an animal – whichever one is the hero of any particular version!
The animals talk with each other, and in other stories also with humans – so that attributes are shared, or compared, and wisdom is imparted. The stories reverently convey how the other creatures (and by extension the rest of nature) have qualities and moods with which we can identify, virtues and strengths we should respect, and contributions to our well-being for which we should be thankful.
Bears, turtles, deer, birds, and snakes, are all lovingly portrayed in the artifacts fashioned by the ancient earthwork builders. Among the most spectacular is “The Shaman of Newark” – a hand-sized figurine of a seated person wearing a bear skin. It is sculpted so that, when the figure is tilted slightly, it transforms from human to bear and back again. The effigy pipes (on display in Chillicothe and Columbus) portray their creatures with startling, loving detail; they face the smoker at close range, to share the force of their respective spirits together with the strong, hallucinogenic tobacco.
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PHOTO: The Shaman of Newark (Ohio History Connection, Columbus)
All this has left me impressed by what seems to be a type of spiritual maturity. Since of course animals can’t talk, these stories avoid the “myth problem:” well beyond the question of their “literal” truth, their clarity as insightful myths (a different “truth”) can shine through and avoid a collapse into debunked superstition. One of our storytellers shared this truth-about-truth explicitly, and memorably (before launching into a fine tale about a talking bear!).
Though these American Indian stories are rooted in a pre-technological way of life – hunting, gathering, early agriculture (watching the sky to know when to plant) – we have today much need of a comparably intimate respect for, and identification with, the earth, the sky, and all its creatures.
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A Frenchman Discovers Ancient Ohio
Antony Dumaine writes:
Growing up in the Southwest of France, my vision of the United States was mostly limited to what I saw in the movies. When it comes to culture and entertainment, the French are enamored of the United States. Westerns are not only emblematic of this fascination, they also shape the basis of our understanding and perceptions of indigenous Americans. Not only are these interpretations underscored by tropes and clichés (as I have learned), they are also restricted to a time period after European colonization.
Several years ago I had the opportunity to visit the Serpent Mound with my wife and mother-in-law. I had wanted to visit some Amish communities (the French are fascinated with Amish culture). But we did not have time to make the drive to Mansfield. My mother-in-law suggested Serpent Mound. It was a rainy, miserable, day after Thanksgiving. In spite of the gloom, I was amazed. The complex geometry spoke of a culture we have not imagined. Upon seeing this ancient and sacred relic, I realized how limited my vision of a pre-Columbian United States actually was.
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In France, we say that the United States is a new country and that there’s nothing «old» to visit. That’s partly what makes it so enticing and exciting to go there. However, in labeling the US a new country, we cut off any speculation about what existed before the Europeans arrived.
We know, for example, about the Inca, the Maya and the Aztec in Mexico and South America. We know about Machu Picchu, the Caracol Temples and the Nazca Lines. But when it comes to the United States, we think less about any kind of grandeur or history the indigenous tribes might have left behind.
It was striking to witness these mounds and broaden my understanding of United States history and the cultures and mysteries that preceded this «new» world.
(Antony Dumaine is married to Elizabeth Malkin, who translated this piece from the French.)
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“Serpent Mound” for solo cello
Rick Sowash writes;
When my daughter took Art History at SCPA, she acquired a big fat book of color prints of famous paintings and sculptures. Smack in the middle, pictured on opposite pages, were photos of Stonehenge and Serpent Mound. I thought this was appropriate: Serpent Mound is our continent's answer to Stonehenge.
I only wish the Indians had built it nearer the interstate so that more people could see it. What were they thinking?
Seriously though, it occurred to me that, being an Ohio composer, I ought to write a piece about Ohio's most celebrated landmark.
Can music really be "about" something other than itself?
It's a perennial debate. I've written plenty of "program music," i.e. instrumental works that attempt to render an extra-musical narrative offered through the piece's title, inviting imaginative correlations with the music. What's the harm of it? At the very least, a programmatic title gives listeners an entrée to the music that would be lacking if the title was simply something like "Prelude in F sharp minor."
It works the other way about, too: extra-musical things can inspire music. Asking myself, "What would a piece of music titled "Serpent Mound" sound like" proved a great way to begin the composing process.
The result is a meditation, score for solo cello, on a squiggly-squirmy four-note descending musical shape. I wanted the piece to have a wintry mood, as if we are seeing the famous effigy during a light snowfall, pondering its ancient-ness and mystery, accepting that we will never known precisely why it was built or what the builders thought they were doing. Accordingly, the final cadence is ambiguous: does the piece end in a major key or a minor key? It is an open question, as if we haven't really gotten to the bottom of conjectures about Serpent Mound ... and we never will.
When the piece ends, the listener should be left thinking, "Well, that may or may not have evoked Serpent Mound, but it did take me to another state of mind for a little while."
To see and hear my friend cellist Sherill Roberts playing "Serpent Mound," click here:
To see a PDF of the score, click here:
Preview YouTube video serpent mound cello solo by Rick Sowash
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A Visit to Mound City
Julie Malkin writes;
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October 19, 2019 was a perfect fall day with a clear sky and mild temperatures. Richard, having read John Hancock’s pamphlet, suggested a trip to Mound City in Chillicothe. As we drove through flat, clean, harvested corn fields, I wondered how this land had looked to the native people who constructed Ohio’s earth works, many centuries ago. Surely, not as it does now. |
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Mound City is part of the Hopewell Culture National Historic Park, which evolved from the Mound City Group National Monument (established by President Harding in 1923). It is one of 6 earthwork sites in the Ross County area and consists of 23 mounds on a 13 acre enclosed rectangle. The mounds were constructed between 1-400 C.E. and are believed to have served ceremonial functions, including funerals. The European pioneers coined the term “Mound City” due to the dense arrangement of structures in such a small area. |
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In “The Pioneers”, David McCullough describes the early settlers’ fascination and respect for the mounds of southeast Ohio. According to the National Park Service , early settlers were hesitant to farm around the mounds.
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But as agricultural pressure increased, the mounds were plowed over and progressively degraded. During WWI, the US military built Camp Sherman on the site, and the remains of the mounds were essentially leveled. After the war, the Ohio History Connection funded the reconstruction of Mound City.
Today the mounds and surrounding earth walls are carefully manicured. There is a level groomed path surrounding the perimeter of the site, which passes close to the Scioto River. As we walked the path I imagined native people approaching the mounds from far distances by way of the river. We walked quietly, feeling a reverence as if we were in a cemetery. Indeed, the Park Service asks visitors to respect the spiritual significance of the site. Unfortunately, the mounds are a tempting invitation for children. Not all parents curb their children’s impulses to charge up and down. While this was a bit disconcerting, we were still able to feel a sense of awe in the complex geometry.
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The National Park Service hosts an informative Visitors Center (which is currently closed due to Covid-19). Inside, visitors find displays of artifacts and history of the Hopewell culture. Of particular interest to me was the fine artistry of some of the artifacts as well as evidence of extensive trading routes utilized by the Hopewell. As it turned out, October 19, 2019 was International Archeology Day at the visitor center. A local amateur archeologist was on hand to share his collection of artifacts and to provide unofficial assessments of visitors’ own finds. Locals brought arrowheads (not of Hopewell origin) and rocks, hoping they were “tools” from Hopewell culture. The archeologist explained the various hallmarks of tools. To the untrained eye, many of these tools look like ordinary rocks. I was intrigued to learn that arrow heads are somewhat easy to find in the cornfields of Southwest Ohio, and that “tools” are still uncovered.
With visions of Hopewell tools in my head, I kept my eyes on the ground as we walked along the river. My perception of rocks had been temporarily transformed by the knowledge of how early native Americans incorporated found objects into their work and survival. Sure enough, I found a rock that resembled something the archeologist had shared. I hurried back to the visitor’s center, hoping he would confirm my find. Alas, it is just a rock. But, even in bringing me back to reality, he supported my excitement.
Among many memories from that day, I recall how that visit inspired my imagination- of what the land may have looked like almost 2000 years ago, of what the people were like, where and how they lived, of the possibility of uncovering new finds linking us to the past, and feeling spirituality connected to the earth.
My “Artifact”
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Check out these local earthworks, all less than an hour away.
1. Cincinnati Mound Tour
Finneytown: At 5923 Winton Ridge Lane, at the south edge of the reservoir, a small driveway enters beside the “Finneytown Historic Cemetery.” In the middle among the early graves is a wide, low mound.
Take Winton Road to Cross County East, exit Montgomery Road Norwood, head north up the hill.
Norwood: A large, steep, elliptical, Adena mound stands at the crest of Norwood Heights, in a small park next to the water tower. Take Montgomery Road up the hill and turn right at the Mound Café, then look for the small driveway circa 2420 Indian Mound Avenue. See the Ancient Ohio Trail’s “Cincinnati and the Little Miami” Route.
Continue out Montgomery Road, through the Pleasant Ridge business district.
Pleasant Ridge: A low mound is situated in a little triangular pocket park at 6666 Dante Avenue in Pleasant Ridge, at the intersection with Glen and Doon (off Montgomery Road to the left, two streets past Orchard Lane).
Take Kennedy Avenue to Duck Creek East, go through Madisonville and then down through Mariemont, and cross the bridge to Newtown. Go east on Main Street (Batavia Pike), then left on Round Bottom Road.
Newtown: The “Odd Fellows Cemetery Mound” is about 110 x 90 x 11 feet high, of Adena origin, and well preserved. Another mound known as OFCM-2 is also in the cemetery, though much smaller to the point of invisibility. The cemetery was established by the IOOF in 1863, and is also known as “Flagg Spring Cemetery.”
Optional: At the Newtown Municipal Center, 3537 Church Street, an interactive video exhibit showcases the spectacular but now lost earthworks of the Little Miami Valley, and the Cincinnati Museum Center’s recent archaeological investigations in nearby Clear Creek Park.
2. Shawnee Lookout Park and Miami Fort
Cross US 50 just a bit north of the canal trailhead and take Miamiview and Lawrenceburg Roads to the Park entrance (on its northern perimeter). Enter the park and follow the road past the golf course and a sharp bend to the right to the Log Cabin. The “Cabin View Picnic Area” should be a good spot for breakfast or lunch.
Continue to the end of the road and the trailhead for the “Miami Fort Trail” – a loop trail about the same length as the one at Rentschler Forest, but with more ups and downs.
You’ll see the well preserved earthen walls, a series of ancient interior ponds, and a large ravine that was part of the enclosed space. A short extension of the trail goes farther out to the point, where there is a small mound and the spectacular panorama of the Great Miami Confluence. See: Great Miami Route at www.ancientohiotrail.org.
3. Rentschler Forest Metro Park, Hamilton
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Use the East Entrance: navigate to: 5598 Rentschler Estates Drive and park by the barn. The earthwork trail (1.2 mile loop, mainly level) will lead to the best surviving (and most interesting) feature of this Adena-Hopewell enclosure, the concentric-circle gateway, about 150 feet in diameter. There is some off-trail hiking, so wear long pants and sturdy boots; bring bug-spray.
There are several map-versions on the web to help you get oriented.
4. Miamisburg Mound Park (791 Mound Rd., Miamisburg OH 45342)
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Take I-75 north toward Dayton and exit on Austin Rd, then navigate to Mound Rd. The park and Mound are on your right. The Mound sits on a high overlook with sweeping views of the Great Miami River valley. It is one of the largest Adena mounds in North America and contains 54,000 cubic feet of earth. The mound also contains two burial vaults. Visitors can reach the top by climbing 116 sturdy wooden steps. The park has ample parking and nice picnic shelters. An explanatory video on Native American traditions associated with earth mounds can be found on the web site http://www.ancientohiotrail.org/routes/great-miami-valley.
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The Ancient Ohio trail web site (http://ancientohiotrail.org) is an indispensable online museum with abundant resources for study and travel. A lavishly illustrated guidebook covering every one of the major sites, can be downloaded to read or print.
Our own John Hancock has been leading a multiyear effort to get the Hopewell earthworks designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The US application process is nearly complete. For details, background, and updates, see the World Heritage Ohio web site (http://worldheritageohio.org/).
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What’s Next
Our March issue will feature “Gardening”. What plans do you have for your 2021 garden? Have you started preparations? What gardening stories or advice can you share with us? Contact Julie Malkin ([email protected]) or John Tallmadge ([email protected])
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Thanks to all our contributors for this issue! If you’d like to write for us, please contact your faithful editors, Julie Malkin ([email protected]) and John Tallmadge ([email protected]).
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