SnakeMedicine_Book1

ON LOCATION
21 I CAHOKIA, ILLINOIS
Cahokia is at the center of the Mississippian culture, both culturally
and physically, of the Native American mound builders. Some
believe that the origins of the Native American tribes flowed from this
famous site on the Mississippi River. Forty percent of the U.S. watershed
stems from the Mississippi River and its tributaries. Cahokia in
its zenith was an encampment of over ten thousand people. Massive
ceremonial grounds were erected for purposes that have yet to be decisively
determined. Great earth pyramids not unlike those of in Central
America and even the Peruvian Incas were built. Some theorize the
need for food and shelter resulted in decimating the nearby surroundings
of Cahokia, forcing tribes farther and farther to find a sustainable
living—trees, shelter, fuel, and game.
The World Heritage List [http://whc.
unesco.org/en/list/ pulled 21Nov2016] includes
1052 properties forming part of the
cultural and natural heritage identified
by the United Nations’ World Heritage
Committee as having outstanding universal
value. In 1982, Cahokia Mounds State
Historic Site was inducted in to the List.
Covering six square miles, N38 39 31
W90 3 41, Cahokia is an assemblage of at
least 120 Indian burial mounds. Some
historians believe this is the center of a
large chiefdom that spread throughout the
Mississippi rivershed. Cahokia’s first century
presence is largely muted and vaguely
outline by vegetation growth. Yet, at the
top of Monk’s Mound, the dominant
mound, you can see miles across the
Mississippi to the city of St. Louis.
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