Intro to Beliefs and Rituals in Archaic Eastern North America (book) (original) (raw)

2015, Beliefs and Rituals in Archaic Eastern North America (book)

75 135 152 25. Rain-calling shrine on the peak of Mishuehue Mountain, near Oapan, Guerrero, Mexico 248 26. Man carrying an offering of turkey and tamales to be placed on an altar at the Acatlan rain-calling, Guerrero, Mexico 255 27. Sacred bundles being cleansed before they are carried to springs and caves of San Andres de la Cal, Morelos, Mexico 256 28. Oracle head placed inside a cave in a mountain consulted by the hunter gatherer Chichimecas 257 29. Four priests who led the hunter-gatherer Chichimecas from Atzlan, wearing sacred packs 259 30. Soft rock "Holy Earth" that is eaten by pilgrims to Chalma, Morelos, Mexico 261 31. Tiger fighters praying before one shrine in their multiday circuit of shrines, Acatlan, Guerrero, Mexico 265 32. A ritual specialist, her attendant, and pilgrims praying for rain at a spring near San Andres de la Cal, Morelos, Mexico 281 33. Rock formation at the rain-calling shrine of Tepee, village of Amayaltepec, Guerrero, Mexico 282 34. Cyprus tree shrine in Morelos where pilgrims seeking fertility hang baggies with umbilical cords, baby shoes, baby socks, and pictures of children 296 35. Pilgrim at the shrine on top of Mishuehue Mountain firing a bottle rocket over the valley below, mimicking lightning and thunder 305 36. Trail followed by mounted pilgrims to the top of Mishuehue Mountain and the rain-calling shrine there 315 37. Sacred ahuehuete (cypress) tree at Ocuilan, Morelos, from whose roots spring gallons of water 317 38. The Virgin of the Nativity Church in Tixtla, Guerrero, planted between giant ahuehuetes 318 Particularly influential have been Jill Furst (1995), Stacey Schaefer (2002), James Brady (various), Lee Irwin (1994), and Robert Hall (various). Individuals who helped me in numerous ways should be mentioned next. Thanks to Marcial Camilo Ayala, who has accompanied me on most of the Mexican rain-callings and made arrangements for us for several of them. It was he who first alerted me to the existence of annual rain-callings in Guerrero when I visited his painting studio in Cuernavaca, Mexico, in the summer of 2009. Then there are the two miraculous Appalachian State un dergraduate students, Dan Polito and Josh Piercy, who knew how to do every thing I needed on the very day I realized I needed them and then produced publishable line drawings and maps in good time. Chris Ellis rephotographed Figure 10 for me several times. Curtiss Hoffman of the Massachusetts Ar chaeological Society gave permission to reprint Figures 9 and 25. Michael Smith of the Paleontological Society of Austin provided the fos sil data necessary to create Figure 5, which he has used for a map he pro duced. John Gifford provided Figure 14, which Carlos Alvarez Zarikian fa cilitated for me by giving me Gifford's contact information. Ashley Dumas at the Alabama Archaeological Society gave permission to use Figure 17. Marilyn Smith gave permission to use Figure 32. Brandy Tunmire of the University of Missouri obtained Figure 20 and Debra Ray at Graham Cave gave permission to print it. Margaret Nelson and Michelle Hegmon helped with another, unutilized illustration. The idea for this work came from the dictionary produced by Mary Miller and Karl Taube (1993). I also thank the authors of unpublished papers I have cited for giving per mission to cite from their work. Alice Kehoe reviewed an early draft of the manuscript and gave not only useful corrective comments but praise-thank you. Thanks to the anonymous second reviewer and the various members x / Acknowledgments of the team at the University of Alabama Press. Jennifer Backer was the able copy editor. Finally, thanks to Marilyn Smith for your patience and to a group of colleagues from the Anthropology Department at Appalachian State University who met with me on several occasions to discuss themes ex plored here and have been strong supporters of me throughout my career in the department: Diane Mines, Greg Reck, and Tim Smith. xii / Introduction the journal Southeastern Archaeology edited by Michael Russo (1994a), which reviews the case for Middle Archaic mounds. I began a discussion of spe cific mid-south Archaic rituals in caves as conference papers in 2005, some of which resulted in publications (Claassen 2010,2011a, 2012b, 2012c). Other authors over the years have also interpreted Archaic ritual (e.g., Blitz 1993; Deller and Ellis 2001;Hall i985;Hofman i985;Webb 1971 ;W. Webb 1950). Most important, since 1990 we have come to realize that mound building and other made places for rituals, cemeteries, human sacrifice, trophy human body parts, plaza/mound spatial arrangement, and offering caches, all ele ments of Aztec, Maya, and Mississippian rituals and beliefs, began in the east ern United States and as a set can be found by 6,000 ya. It should be obvious, then, why we need to problematize ritual and beliefs during the Archaic in the eastern United States and why a book such as this one is needed as a preliminary step in interrogating the archaeological record of this era. Fortunately the archaeological record is not mute about ritual or beliefs as both are materialized in many ways. As will be clear in the body of this work, archaeologists working in the eastern United States have begun to probe this materiality, particularly for the dirt mounds, the shell mortuary mounds, the shell rings, and several of the portable products of these people such as copper, stone beads, bird effigies, and cave caches. There are several outstanding elements of Archaic ritual and beliefs that have defined the geographical scope of this guide. Burial in dirt mounds oc curs in the Illinois valley and adjacent Missouri; burial in shell mounds has expression in the southern Ohio valley (SOV) from western Kentucky to northern West Virginia, in Florida, and in Georgians well as in shell-bearing contexts in the Northeast and Far North. Persistent use of red ocher in mor tuary contexts can be found in most states north of the Ohio River and in the Far North and New England, and great piles of oyster shell-feasting debris accumulated on the Hudson River and again from South Carolina to Loui siana in rings and shellworks. Bannerstones, plummets, and decorated bone pins are found throughout much of the eastern United States, and soapstone cooking slabs, copper items, and evidence of the practices of dog burial and human sacrifice in the northern quadrant. Given the geography of these ex pressions, I have bounded this review of rituals at the eastern edge of the Plains but included expressions up to Hudson Bay through southern Florida. Obviously some of the Archaic beliefs and practices highlighted in this work extend beyond the eastern Woodlands, even to western Canada and Alaska. As for the beginning of the period 11,000 ya, 1 have been swayed by Brad Koldehoff and John Walthall's (2009:137) argument that Dalton people were "Archaic" in lifestyle and by Kenneth Sassaman's (2010a) startling idea 2 / Parti omtc O| Dan ran i. Locations of annotated Paleoindian and Early Archaic sites. (Data from the Commission for Environmental Cooperation. Map by Dan Polito.) 2013), many of them monumental in mass by the time they were closed (see Claassen 2010). They used caves, sinkholes, and rockshelters for rituals and fishhooks and atlatls for subsistence as well as for rituals. The indigenous population located north of the Ohio River used red ocher, cremation, and natural rises for burial, and copper, bone pins, plummets, various stone types, and cache blades for offerings to spirits. South of the Tennessee River, on the Gulf Coastal Plain, the indigenous groups used stone beads, bird imagery, steatite bowls, dirt mounds, astronomically derived measurements systems, and alignments in their rituals. Smaller migrations have been identified for dozens of localities such as Dalton people moving northward to hunt caribou and westward to hunt bi son (Koldehoff and Walthall 2009), the northward movement of Kanawha Black cherts from West Virginia into Ohio, Ontario, and Indiana (Purtill 2009:571), the cohabitation of LeCroy and Kirk point users south of the Tennessee River (Griffin 1974:94), westerners from the Great Lakes and St.