SnakeMedicine_Book1

ON LOCATION
2 I B E A R M O U N D , E F F I G Y M O U N D S
N AT I O N A L M O N U M E N T, I OWA
The Great Mississippi River is the backbone of the United States,
its watershed draining approximately 40 percent of the entire
continental United Sates. The river stretches 2320 miles from Upper
Mississippi until the Lower Mississippi spills out from its delta where
Louisiana meets the Gulf of Mexico.
The Upper Mississippi Region, includes
parts of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa,
Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, South
Dakota, and Wisconsin; and the Lower
Mississippi Region lies below the confluence
with the Ohio River (excluding the
Arkansas, Red, and White Rivers) and
coastal streams that ultimately discharge
into the Gulf of Mexico. This region
includes parts of Arkansas, Kentucky
Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and
Tennessee.
Roughly due north and 400 miles from
Cahokia (the last destination in the Snake
Medicine itinerary), another significant
and ancient sacred site is found. Effigy
Mounds National Monument is 10 miles
south of Harpers Ferry, Iowa. Dozens of
effigy mounds shaped like birds or bears
are found in the park, which President
Truman signed into existence in 1949.
Outside the park, it is estimated there are
dozens, if not hundreds, more mounds in
the “Driftless Area” (an area around the
Mississippi River that comprises northeast
Iowa, southwest Wisconsin, southeast
Minnesota, northern Illinois). The topologic
area is so named because the Pleistocene
glaciers stopped short of flattening
the terrain here. One scholar estimated
that there are 206 mounds of which 31 are
effigies within the park boundaries in
eastern Iowa.
Archeologists believe the effigy mounds
were built during the Late Woodland
Period (700-1300 A.D.). These mounds take
five different shapes: birds in flight,
reptiles with tails (lizards or turtles),
mammals (panther, wildcat, elephant, and
others with a tail) lying on their right
sides; tailless animals, also lying on their
sides and generally called “bear mounds”.
The fifth type effigy mound is built in the
image of humans. Effigy mounds in the
park, take the shape of birds or bears, all
heading south along the river.
The region was inhabited by the Upper
Mississippians, who were also called the
Oneota. The tribal name evolved into the
Ioway, Oto, and other Siouan-speaking
tribes that inhabited the Midwest when
the first Europeans arrived. The general
assumption is, however, none of these
tribes has a cultural memory of building
monuments; therefore they are not the
mound builders. But in the Winnebago’s
ancient lore, a chief had a dream to build
a mound to use for refuge when the tribe
was under attack. Perhaps the Winnebago’s
forefathers built the effigy monuments.
We will never know for certain.
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