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Title: American Indian Ways of Life: An Interpretation of the Archaeology of Illinois and Adjoining Areas - Story of Illinois Series, #9
Author: Deuel, Thorne
Language: English
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BOARD OF
ILLINOIS STATE MUSEUM ADVISORS
M. M. Leighton, Ph. D., _Chairman_
Illinois Geological Survey, Urbana
Everett P. Coleman, M. D.
Coleman Clinic
Canton
Percival Robertson, Ph. D.
The Principia College
Elsah
N. W. McGee, Ph. D.
North Central College
Naperville
Sol Tax, Ph. D.
University of Chicago
Chicago
Copyright by
ILLINOIS STATE MUSEUM
1958
STATE OF ILLINOIS
William G. Stratton, _Governor_
DEPT. OF REGISTRATION & EDUCATION—ILLINOIS STATE MUSEUM
Vera M. Binks, _Director_ Thorne Deuel, _Museum Director_
STORY OF ILLINOIS SERIES, No. 9
AMERICAN INDIAN WAYS OF LIFE
An Interpretation of the Archaeology of Illinois and Adjoining Areas
by
Thorne Deuel
[Illustration: Seal of the State of Illinois]
Springfield, Illinois
1958
[Printed by authority of the State of Illinois]
[Illustration: Site of the ancient Middle Mississippi religious city
on the Kincaid farm near Metropolis, Illinois, as it is today. Four
mounds can be seen; the village area is in the foreground and the
plaza at the right (south) of the largest mound with house on it.]
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 5
Paleo-Indians 9
Archaic Man 12
Cultures and Cultural Change 19
Initial Woodland 20
Food Storers (Advanced Phase) 23
The Hopewellian Civilization (Classic Phase) 26
Final Woodland 30
Middle Mississippi 34
Upper Mississippi 42
The Illini 45
The Indians Leave Illinois 54
Summary of Illinois Prehistory 54
Glossary 59
Bibliography 67
Diagram: Stream of Culture 57
Table I: Stages and Archaeological Units 4
Table II: Radiocarbon Dates 8
Table III: Cultural Characteristics of Archaeological Units 70
[Illustration: TABLE I. STAGES AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL UNITS]
STAGE
SUBSTAGE
ARCHAEOLOGICAL UNITS
PATTERN
PHASE
SUBCULTURE
TYPE STATIONS
IV. MACHINE AGE
Lacking in the Americas
III. FARMING
DOMESTIC PLANTS AND FOOD-DRAFT ANIMALS
Lacking in the Americas
PLANT-RAISING
MISSISSIPPI
Historic Illini: 1673-1833
[Illini Tribes]
Brandt II (Ra^v1)
Upper: 1100 (?)-1600 A.D.
Langford
Fisher II and III
Middle: 1000-1500 A.D.
Cumberland
Kincaid Site
Cahokia
Dickson Mound (F^o34) and Fout’s Village (F^v664)
Protomiss
Dillinger Village Site
WOODLAND (Hoe-culture)
Final: 200 (?)-1000 A.D.
Effigy Mound
Tampico
Maples Mills Site
Stone Vault
Spencer Mound Group
Jersey Bluff
Otter Creek Sites
Raymond
Raymond Site
Lewis
Lewis (Pp^v1A)
Classic: 500 B.C-500 A.D.
Hopewell (South)
Hubele Village (Wh^v30)
Wilson Mound (Wh^o6)
Hopewell (North)
Clear Lake Village (T^v1)
Liverpool Mound (F^o77-II)
II. SELF-DOMESTICATION
FOOD-STORING
WOODLAND (Ceramic)
Advanced: 1000 (?)-100 (?) B.C.
Crab Orchard
Sugar Camp Hill Village (Wm^v1)
Baumer
Baumer Hamlet (Mx^v30)
HUNTING-COLLECTING
Initial: 2500-500 B.C.
Morton
F^o14-II and F^v35
Red Ochre
Hilltop Mound (F^o11)
Black Sand
Liverpool Hamlet and Cemetery (F^v88 and F^o77-I)
LITHIC
Archaic: 8000-2500 B.C.
Terminal
Ferry Site (Hn^v251) and Godar Cemetery
Medial
Modoc II
Simple
Modoc I
Paleo-Indian: 50,000 (?)-8,000 (?) B.C.
Folsom
Fluted points as isolated finds only.
Clovis
I. NATURAL MAN
PROTO-CULTURAL
None found in America
INTRODUCTION
This paper is primarily planned for the layman, the beginning student of
prehistory and others interested in acquiring a general understanding of
how primitive man lived during his successive occupations of Illinois
and neighboring areas in the more important archaeological periods. Most
of the archaeological data for the chief cultures or ways of life are
given in references in the accompanying bibliography of technical
publications selected as those from which (in the opinion of the writer)
the information can be most easily gleaned.
The reconstructions given of the cultural features, where not those
ordinarily inferred from archaeological findings, are based on a study
of the practices commonly found among primitive people now, or until
recently, living in the same stage or substage. These are tentative
conclusions resulting from a study of fifty tribes in the
Self-Domestication (pre-farming) stage and forty in the Plant-Raising
substage. Because primitive tribes which are under pressure from people
with advanced food-draft-animal agriculture or with machine industry or
which are in a transitional condition between two adjacent stages are
disorganized or drastically changing a formerly stabilized mode of life,
great care has been exercised in drawing general conclusions from their
cultural features.
The reconstructions of the perishable objects shown in the drawings are
generally in keeping with the culture in which they are exhibited but
cannot be vouched for as to their detailed form. The handle of an adze,
the shape of a cabin roof, the headdress of a tribal chief each served
the purpose for which they were made and their exact form was and is of
no more consequence in the culture than the fashions in women’s hats or
the fins on an automobile are in our own. The details in cultures serve
to set them apart from each other; it is the basic and significant
features and subfeatures that determine relationships and permit the
most useful classification.
The study mentioned above is still incomplete, but results so far
obtained indicate:
1. That man in the same stage (and substage) of cultural development
_tends_ to invent and employ the same broad social and spiritual
features, regardless of surroundings.
2. That where significant differences arise between substages of the
same stage, they are (at least sometimes) linked with peculiarities
of climate and/or natural resources which the people have seized
upon and exploited to the improvement of their economic situation.
3. That many details within these broad types of economic, social and
spiritual features appear to vary unpredictably within the range of
available possibilities.
The stage and criterion for each were proposed in an earlier issue (No.
6) of this series, _Man’s Venture In Culture_, (Deuel 1950, pp. 5-12)
as:
1. _Natural Man_ (_Protocultural_), when “man” presumably employed
sticks and stones as implements and weapons.
2. _Self-Domestication_, following the discovery of the principle of the
conchoidal fracturing of flint and its control, and the invention of
tool and weapon types.
3. _Farming_ or _Food-Raising_, due to the discovery that grains
(grasses) and food-draft animals could be bred and raised in
captivity.
4. _Inanimate Power Machine_ (_Machine Age_), after the discovery of the
availability of water and wind as sources for energy and the
adaptation of animal-driven machines to utilize them.
Man in the wild or Protocultural stage is thought not to have reached
the Americas. The oxlike mammals were not domesticated in America for
drawing ploughs and vehicles, turning grain mills or to serve as a
continuous food supply source. Consequently, we are concerned in the
following discussion only with peoples in the Self-Domestication stage
and the Plant-Raising substage of Farming.
In ordinary language, the word “culture” is used in a diversity of
senses. In these pages it is used in one of two ways, the one employed
being readily understood from the context. In a general sense, culture
means the significant beliefs, customary activities and social
prohibitions that are peculiar to man (together with the man-made tools,
weapons and other material objects that he finds or has found necessary)
that modify, limit or enhance in some manner, most of his discernible
natural activities due to and arising from his physical animal
inheritance and organization. Culture in a specific sense refers to the
significant cultural features of a group or period under consideration.
For convenience, any cultural activity according to its dominant purpose
may be spoken of as belonging to one of three aspects of culture, (a)
economic (technological and intellectual); (b) social (and political);
and (c) spiritual (religious, artistic and recreational). To lesser
degrees, most cultural activities have relationships with the two
aspects other than the dominant.
Certain prevalent archaeological designations have been changed to
remove time implications (e.g. “early” and “late” Woodland to _Initial_
[beginning] and _Final_ [end of an archaeological series]), or to
shorten (e.g. “Tennessee-Cumberland” or “Gordon-Fewkes” to
_Cumberland_).
Technical terms have generally been avoided; but where it has seemed
necessary to retain them or to use words in a special sense, they are
explained in the text or can be found in the glossary. The terms
_pattern_ and _phase_ are those generally employed in the McKern system
of classification, for the larger groupings into which it is customary
to place the “cultures” as determined from the typology of the
artifacts, their association in the assemblage and pertinent data
recovered at a site (or local community) with due regard to
circumstances of time and location of other sites nearby and over a
larger area. The largest unit is the _pattern_ which is made up of a
number of _phases_. Cultural divisions smaller than these units are
spoken of here as _subcultures_.
The approximate relationships of the archaeological units to the broader
cultural stages and substages are given in Table I, page 4. The
succession and coexistence of the archaeological units is indicated in
the diagram “The Stream of Culture”, p. 57. The summary of
“Characteristics of the Archaeological-Cultural Units” occurs on pages
70-76.
This is a story mainly of Illinois when occupied by American Indians but
it would not give a reasonably true picture without showing the known
extensions of some of the cultures into surrounding areas and the
probable intrusions from outside the state.
Of necessity in attempting a summary of the archaeology of Illinois and
adjacent areas, the writer has had to lean heavily on the field work and
reports of the many anthropologists who have contributed so much to the
present understanding of the American Indian in the United States. To
this invaluable source material and to these able scientists the
indebtedness of the writer is acknowledged to be very great indeed. In
the compass of a work of this type it is impossible to name them or give
them credit for original or similar views, nor is it practicable to
include in the bibliography all the publications used.
Acknowledgment of assistance is made especially to Georg K. Neumann,
Joseph R. Caldwell and Melvin L. Fowler, Milton D. Thompson, Ruth Kerr,
Nora Deuel and Orvetta Robinson for reading and discussing the
manuscript from various viewpoints, to Dr. James B. Griffin for helpful
information on the dates of sites and of archaeological data, to Irvin
Peithmann, Southern Illinois University, for photographs furnished, for
information on sites he had discovered and the privilege of visiting
them in his company, to George Langford for photographs and data
regarding the Fisher site, to Charles Hodge for all photographs
reproduced not otherwise credited, and to Jerry Connolly, Bettye
Broyles, Barbara Parmalee and Jeanne McCarty for their excellent
drawings. Without all this considerable and valuable aid the publication
could not have been completed.
TABLE II. RADIOCARBON DATES[1]
CULTURAL UNIT C14 DATE SITE STATE COUNTY
MIDDLE MISSISSIPPI A.D. 1420±200 Crable Village Illinois Fulton
MIDDLE MISSISSIPPI 1326±250 Nodena Village Arkansas Arkansas
MIDDLE MISSISSIPPI 1156±200 Cahokia Illinois Madison
EFFIGY MOUND[2] 1041±212 Effigy Mounds Iowa Allamakee
National Park
HOPEWELLIAN 508±60 Twenhafel Illinois Jackson
(Weber) Md.
HOPEWELLIAN 432±200 Rutherford Illinois Hardin
Mound
HOPEWELLIAN 256±200 Knight Mound Illinois Calhoun
HOPEWELLIAN 214±250 Baehr Mound Illinois Brown
HOPEWELLIAN[2] B.C. 48±160 Hopewellian Ohio Ross
Group Mound #25
HOPEWELLIAN[3] 57±108 Wilson Mound Illinois White
HOPEWELLIAN 315±164 Havana Mound Illinois Mason
ADENA 423±150 Toepfner Mound Ohio Franklin
#I
ADENA 697±170 Dover Mound Kentucky Mason
ARCHAIC 704±80 Poverty Point Louisiana W. Carroll
(N.E.) Parish
ADENA 826±410 Toepfner Mound Ohio Franklin
#II
ARCHAIC 904±90 Poverty Point Louisiana W. Carroll
(N.E.) Parish
ARCHAIC 1624±300 Kays Landing Tennessee Humphrey
ARCHAIC[2] 2170±215 Indian Knoll Kentucky Ohio
ARCHAIC[2] 2360±270 Annis Mound Kentucky Butler
ARCHAIC 2765±300 Modoc Rock Illinois Randolph
Shelter
ARCHAIC 2812±250 Perry Site Alabama Lauderdale
(N.W.)
ARCHAIC 2950±250 Annis Shell Kentucky Butler
Mound
ARCHAIC 3325±300 Modoc Rock Illinois Randolph
Shelter
ARCHAIC 3352±300 Indian Knoll Kentucky Ohio
ARCHAIC 3646±400 Oconto Old Wisconsin Oconto
Copper Site (E.)
ARCHAIC[2] 3657±164 Modoc Rock Illinois Randolph
Shelter
ARCHAIC 5194±500 Eva Site Tennessee Benton
ARCHAIC 5556±400 Oconto Old Wisconsin Oconto
Copper Site (E.)
ARCHAIC 5945±500 Graham Cave Missouri Montgomery
ARCHAIC 6204±300 Russell Cave Alabama Jackson
ARCHAIC[2] 6219±388 Modoc Rock Illinois Randolph
Shelter
ARCHAIC 7310±352 Graham Cave Missouri Montgomery
ARCHAIC 7922±392 Modoc Rock Illinois Randolph
Shelter
PALEO-INDIAN 7934±350 Lubbock Site Texas Lubbock
(Folsom)[2] (N.W.)
PALEO-INDIAN 18,000 Sandia Cave New Mexico Bernalillo
(Sandia) (Center)
PALEO-INDIAN (?) 22,000 Tule Spring Nevada Clark
Site (S.E.)
PALEO-INDIAN 35,000 Lewisville Site Texas Denton
(Clovis?)[4]
[1]These dates are selected as giving a significant picture of sequence
and contemporaneity of cultures. Dates based on shell specimens are
excluded on account of their general unreliability. Adena sites are
not included after 400 B.C. These are burial mounds and with their
inferred customs may be present in two or more cultural units rather
than constitute a feature characteristic of one.
[2]An average of at least two dates for this period.
[3]Average of three out of four dates. Libby’s second date disregarded
as widely out of line.
[4]Two samples gave identical results. Cultural identification as Clovis
based on single spearhead is doubtful.
PALEO-INDIANS, BIG GAME HUNTERS, DISCOVER A NEW WORLD (50,000? to
8,000? B.C.)[5]
Man probably discovered America as early as 50,000 years ago and
gradually occupied the two continents in the succeeding millenia. The
first discoverers of the New World were of Mongolian racial stock as are
the American Indians. They crossed from Siberia to Alaska over an
existing land bridge, over ice, or possibly by wading or by boat over
the shallow sea in the wake of mammoth, mastodon or musk ox herds on
whose flesh they lived. Following in the path of the huge animals, they
made their way possibly up the Yukon from its mouth to the divide,
thence down into the Mackenzie Basin, and along a great river where now
exist a chain of lakes and so into the Mississippi Valley.
The migrants trailing each herd doubtless traveled in their several ways
in family groups, uniting from time to time to trap and kill one of the
great shaggy beasts. When the animals stopped, the families bedded down
nearby in the most sheltered spots available taking care not to lose
touch with the herd. These were wanderers, not explorers, nor were they
seeking new homes; they were hunters that traveled where the herd led.
[Illustration: Fig. 1. Archaic flint drill, stone hammer, and flint
scraper as used in Archaic period and their modern steel
counterparts. (B.B.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 2. Paleo-Indians attack a mired-down mammoth.
(B.G.P.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 3. Paleo-Indian spearheads from the William
Small collection. A, B, and C are Clovis points; D, a Folsom point.
All are from Illinois.]
Their belongings, by our standards, were pitifully few, their way of
life laborious, full of hardship and danger, but their needs were simple
and their means of meeting them doubtless seemed ample to these hardy
hunters. The chief weapon was a thrusting spear with a chipped flint
head and a long shaft to keep the hunter as far from harm’s way as
possible when attacking the dangerous animal. The narrow width of the
spearpoint made it easy to withdraw from a wound and attack again. Our
evidence that the Paleo-Indians (as the Big Game Hunters are commonly
called) lived in Illinois are these same spearheads (Clovis and Folsom
types), usually grooved or fluted lengthwise of the blade, which are
scattered over much of the Illinois prairie as isolated finds. No
campsites of this people have yet been discovered in Illinois, as they
have been in Pennsylvania, Alabama and several southwestern states. We
can only surmise that in Illinois the hunters also had stone hammers and
chipped flint scrapers as they had elsewhere.
Having arrived in the great central valley between the Rocky Mountains
and the eastern ranges, the herds probably moved slowly from one
browsing ground to another in the open corridor between glaciers. It may
have taken them many years to reach what is now the United States.
Eventually the herds wandered back and forth across the Mississippi
Valley, and some favorable spots came to be used as camping grounds
again and again by the same or different families. Such places would
appeal immediately to the campers because of their protection from rain
and the piercing glacial winds, the presence of a plentiful supply of
wood and water. The possibility of our gaining a better knowledge of
Paleo-Indian life in Illinois rests on the discovery of such a site,
difficult now to recognize because it may no longer provide wood, water,
or shelter of any sort.
There are in southern Illinois a number of simple linear stone piles
known locally as “stone forts,” all in the same type of land structure.
Each forms an obstruction five to fifteen feet in height across a narrow
neck or ridge leading to the plateau top of a near-vertical-sided
“promontory” projecting out into a stream valley, making an excellent
corral, with no fence necessary except across the entrance. They may
have been used in late Paleo-Indian times and on into the Archaic period
for impounding large game and/or driving them over the cliff.
ARCHAIC MAN, FIRST SETTLER IN ILLINOIS (8000 to 2500 B.C.)[6]
We have reason to believe that the Big Game Hunters wandered over
Illinois and the adjoining states during the last advance of the
glaciers. Around 12,000 B.C. the climate in the Midwest became milder,
the glaciers “retreated,” and the mighty torrents—the Mississippi, the
Ohio and the Illinois that had torn irresistibly down their
valleys—shrank into smaller, less turbulent rivers that occupied but a
fraction of their former beds. The great shaggy mammoths, musk oxen, the
ground sloths and the giant beavers moved westward toward the mountains
or to the north.
Some of the Big Game Hunters with their families may have followed the
retreating glacier and the herds; others stayed behind in country to
which they had grown attached. With the great herds gone, the human
families remaining in Illinois had to hunt the game animals that now
frequented the area—deer, elk (wapiti), bear and smaller mammals. The
large hunting party was no longer practicable. The game roamed over the
country singly or by twos or threes and had to be stalked by one or two
hunters. Families were compelled to live widely separated one from
another in order to secure ample food throughout the year. Thus
developed a new way of life which we call the Archaic phase or culture.
The hunter, as time passed, learned the secret habits of the deer, bear
and raccoon and the more sluggish fishes. His wife and daughters learned
the haunts and ways of the smaller animals, the rodents, turtles and
lizards, discovered where edible greens, wild tubers, nuts and fruits
grew and where mussels and snails abounded in creeks and rivers. With
increasing knowledge Archaic man made better and fuller use of his
changed and changing surroundings, food became more plentifully
available, life easier and less hazardous though still very difficult
from our standpoint.
[Illustration: Fig. 4. Hafted primitive stone adze and grooved ax,
with modern steel-bitted ax in the background. (B.B.)]
With new needs and some leisure from the labor of providing food,
Archaic man invented specialized devices, new methods of making tools
and weapons, the more skillful among them shaping the objects carefully
into symmetrical forms pleasing to the eye of others and strangely
satisfying to the maker.[7] He pecked a hollow in both sides of his
cobblestone hammer so he could grip it securely and use it more
skillfully. He pecked and ground diorite and granite into adzes,
hatchets (celts), and axes with a groove for hafting. These were a
decided improvement over flaked choppers. He ground and polished banded
and highly-colored shale (“slate”) into prismatic and cylindrical
spearthrower weights and bored them with a tube, sand and water. His own
person he decked out with necklaces and oval pendants (made by boring a
hole in smooth flat waterworn pebbles) and with bone ornaments cut to
shape, ground, engraved and polished. These he and his wife wore as had
their forefathers but not the skin robes of glacial times.
As life grew easier, the family or local group increased in size. Sons
brought their wives to the family dwelling place and built windbreaks
near those of their parents. With food abundant the little settlement
became a small cluster of households or a hamlet consisting possibly of
sixty to seventy persons.
If Archaic Man Was Like Present-Day Archaic Tribes[8]
[Illustration: Fig. 5. Rock shelter near Cobden. Such shelters were
used by Archaic and succeeding peoples. (Photograph by Irvin
Peithmann)]
If Archaic man in Illinois lived as do present-day Archaic peoples, the
family or local group, though they restricted themselves during most of
the year to their hunting grounds which they guarded jealously from
trespassers, did not camp continuously in one spot. At appropriate
seasons of the year they rotated from one hamlet site to another to take
advantage of the food resources of that locality. In winter perhaps they
moved to a rock shelter, like that of Modoc in Randolph County,
Illinois, near the wooded valleys of streams emptying into the river
where deer and elk sought protection from the rigors of winter; in
spring to upland lakes for duck and other waterfowl; and in autumn to
wooded parklands to harvest acorns, hickory nuts, and berries. The spot
chosen for each hamlet location was generally one that had been so used
at that same season from time out of mind by the family and its
forebears.
[Illustration: Fig. 6. Primitive woman carrying a load with the aid
of a tumpline. (J.C.)]
It is probable, as among most primitive peoples, that men did only work
thought suitable to men, and women that appropriate for women. Men made
the weapons and tools they used, did the hunting and fishing, and the
fighting (when quarrels developed into feuds or wars between local
groups of the same tribe). The rest of the labor fell to the
women—caring for the children, collecting edible plants, clams and small
animals, preparing the food, and carrying burdens. All work was done by
hand; loads were carried on the back. It is possible that boats, perhaps
of dugout type, were used as among present-day Archaic peoples living on
waterways. There was no other specialization and each “household”
provided for the needs of all its members to the best of its ability. No
food was grown and no domestic animal except the dog was known.
Once or twice a year when food was easily and bountifully available,
local groups from nearby hunting territories met together for religious
rites. These local groups spoke the same dialect, had the same way of
life, and considered themselves a unit or tribe. They had no political
form of government but were kept in order through habits formed by early
training and by extension of the kinship system to the whole tribe. Thus
the tribal elders were considered fathers and mothers, and to them were
due obedience and respect, just as children they had been taught to
regard their own blood fathers, uncles, and other older relatives. The
elders knew the tribal customs; and to be accepted as a tribal member,
boys must respect, learn and conform to these customs.
The object of these annual gatherings was to teach the young the tribal
customs and to perform solemn ceremonies, the purpose of which was to
insure the security and well-being of the tribe, a continuing abundance
of the favorite foods, and to express gratitude and thanksgiving to
unseen Spirits who watched over the game animals (and possibly the
edible plants) for the blessings received during the past year. These
gatherings and cooperative undertakings served, on the one hand, as a
welcome change from the usual daily grind and afforded opportunities for
the young to get acquainted and choose mates and, on the other, to unify
the language and customs of the constituent local groups, to enhance the
influence of the tribal elders and keep fresh in the minds of all the
history of the tribe, the importance of its activities, and its sacred
tradition, all essential to the way of life of dynamic Archaic peoples
of recent times.
[Illustration: Fig. 7. Fertility rites were probably performed by
Archaic peoples to ensure the abundance of game animals for the next
year. (J.C.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 8. Archaic weapons: A, Hidden Valley type
spearhead; B, prismatic atlatl weight of polished red shale; C,
throwing a spear with an atlatl; D, socketed antler spearhead; E,
short thrusting spear or javelin. A, B, and D are from Modoc Shelter
in Randolph County, Illinois.]
In the later (Medial) Archaic period at Modoc, the dead were buried in
the floor of the rock shelter. Burial probably indicates a belief in
life after death. Care in preparing the body for burial, in the funeral
rites and burying, and in the customary mourning thereafter was highly
important so the dead man could go promptly to the spirit world in peace
and not remain in the neighborhood to disturb his kinsmen. Immediately
after the burial, it is probable that the little settlement removed to a
distant location as is customary with peoples in this stage of culture.
The rites for important dead in the Terminal period probably began with
the conventional mourning of relatives, with painting the body with red
ochre and grease and adorning it with the dead man’s jewelry, followed
at the appropriate time by the conveyance of the body to the grave side,
where the corpse was deposited in a pit together with personal insigne
and weapons. The grooved stone axe, large spearheads, daggers,
bannerstones, spearthrower with weight and more rarely copper articles
were placed alongside or on the corpse. In some instances large stones
were laid upon the grave probably for one or more of the following
reasons: (a) to mark the grave of an important tribesman; (b) to keep
the body from being disturbed by animals; and (c) to hold the dead man’s
ghost until he departed for the spirit world.
[Illustration: Fig. 9. Grooved stone axes are frequently found in
Archaic graves but were not buried with the dead after this period.
(J.C.)]
It is very probable that, on occasions of social and religious import,
Modoc man and other Archaic tribes in Illinois bedecked themselves in
their best paint and jewelry. Possibly the colorful and intriguing
bannerstones, which were undoubtedly developed from the spearthrower
weight, were carried or worn by the local group headmen who had won that
right because they were skillful hunters, courageous fighters, or
learned in the tribal customs and beliefs and thus recognized by the
tribe as leaders for the time being.
[Illustration: Fig. 10. Anculosa shell necklace with flat pendant of
water-worn stone from the Archaic period. Anculosa necklaces were
worn by many Illinois peoples probably up to the European contact
period.]
CULTURES AND CULTURAL CHANGE
Man can live virtually anywhere on the earth’s surface where he can
obtain food, water and fuel, and do so without any fundamental change in
his physical structure. This is largely because he is easily able to
modify his customary ways of filling his basic needs under new or
changing conditions of his surroundings. For primitive man to “live
better” required an increasing knowledge of the resources in his
locality and ingenuity in devising effective means and contrivances for
exploiting them.
Because of this ability, the Paleo-Indian wanderers (Big Game Hunters)
in Illinois around 12,000 to 10,000 B.C., when confronted with rising
temperatures and other regional changes, could choose whether they would
follow the mammoth and musk ox herds and familiar subglacial conditions
elsewhere or adopt new and strange methods of securing food and other
requirements.
As Big Game Hunters they probably lived as a number of families attached
to a herd and relatively independent of each other except at hunting
times. They had no homes, only temporary camps, and were bound to a
moving herd, not to any particular region. The Paleo-Indian culture
consisted of methods of trapping and slaying the great beasts and of
filling other simple physical needs; a simple code of social behavior
which enabled men and wives to live together with their children and,
for brief periods, in gatherings of the families in relative peace and
contentment; with religious beliefs and rites suitable to their cultural
level that they believed assured them of a continuance of their
satisfactory existence.
When the climate changed, those families that chose to remain in
Illinois had to develop, perhaps slowly and painfully, a new way of
life. The habits and haunts of deer, elk, bear and raccoon had to be
learned. Other methods of hunting and of making tools and devices to fit
new conditions were invented as a result of the new fund of knowledge
assembled. Each family eventually acquired a more or less definite piece
of land or hunting territory in which it selected certain favorable
places to build the temporary hamlet at suitable seasons. As the man and
his family became better adapted to the land and its resources, he
hunted more successfully, and the family or local group grew larger in
number.
Probably a number of neighboring families, when food was especially
abundant, gathered together for social and religious purposes as peoples
living today in the same status still do. Religious beliefs and other
customs had all this time doubtless been shifting gradually in meeting
the needs and dangers of changing conditions to a new way of life we
call the Archaic culture.
Every way of life is built on an older, often simpler, culture from
which it has changed more or less rapidly. Due to important inventions,
the group may modify its economy (ways of securing and processing food,
etc.) and produce a substantially improved manner of living which, from
archaeological evidence alone, may be difficult to recognize as a
development from its earlier phase.
On occasion, people from another region may invade an area, drive out
the inhabitants and bring in a differing way of life. Usually this
merely extends, to a desirable region less effectively exploited by
others, the range of a vigorous cultural group whose territory has
become too densely populated.
Sometimes newcomers essay to live peaceably with the natives and a new
cultural blend is developed. If fundamental changes are made in the
economy by internal development or by imitating another culture, social
and religious customs are very likely to change too, though usually at a
slower pace.
As time went on, the Archaic way of life slowly changed and finally
disappeared, but probably not so suddenly as might at first appear; for
many Archaic customs, tools, and weapons continued to be made and used
in the “new” culture by the descendants of rugged earlier people or were
adopted by newcomers to the region. Other changes were added through new
inventions and incoming people from other regions producing a new
culture now generally known as Woodland.
THE INITIAL WOODLAND CULTURES[9] (2500-500 B.C.)
After 5000 B.C. the temperatures continued to rise producing a climatic
interval known as the Thermal Maximum when it was warmer and drier than
at the present time. After reaching its high point, the temperature
gradually declined and probably ended in southern Illinois about 2100
B.C. or later in a climate much like that of today.
By projecting the rate of deposit from the eight- to the eleven-foot
level of the Modoc Rock Shelter up to the five-foot level where the
Archaic remains appear to end, we secure a date for its upper limit of
about 2100 B.C. (Deuel 1957, p. 2). The remains between the five- and
eight-foot depths are scantier and less varied than in the earlier
(lower) layers and may indicate a cultural group in a losing struggle to
maintain itself under changing conditions.
[Illustration: Fig. 11. Potsherds from the Lake Baikal in southern
Siberia resemble those of Initial and Classic Woodland (Hopewellian)
in Illinois. The letters with subscripts refer to Siberian pottery.
A-E, reduced to ½ actual size; F-H, reduced to ¹/₁₆ actual size.
(Siberian pottery from Richthofen in ANTHROPOS, 1932: 128, 129, 130;
Illinois pottery from Illinois State Museum collections.)]
In northern Illinois, similar climatic conditions were developing.
There, possibly as early as 2500 B.C., a new culture, the Initial
(early) Woodland, was coming into existence. At any rate, groups living
there some time prior to 1000 B.C. made pottery, placed their dead in
cemeteries and in low burial mounds in a flexed or “doubled-up”
position, occasionally with food, personal ornaments and other funeral
offerings.
[Illustration: Fig. 12. A flint dagger or hunting knife from “Red
Ochre subculture” of Initial Woodland. (B.B.)]
The pottery of one Woodland group (Morton) in the Illinois valley
resembled, in shape, surface treatment, design and area decorated, pots
made in the Lake Baikal region in Asia some 7000 miles distant. The
appearance of such striking similarities has long been a puzzle to
anthropologists. In the first place the detailed likenesses suggest both
were made by one and the same people. It seems fairly obvious that the
several resemblances did not travel from tribe to tribe from Asia to
central North America. The preservation of a pottery tradition during a
migration of 7000 miles, probably lasting for several generations, seems
equally incredible. Perhaps the most plausible explanation is that two
widely separated divisions of a people originating in central Asia with
the same cultural background and similar surroundings arrived
independently at a remarkably similar but very simple pottery type.
[Illustration: Fig. 13. A copper gorget, A, (possibly patterned
after the double-bitted ax-shaped bannerstone) and shell gorgets, B
and C, from “Red Ochre subculture” of Initial Woodland. All from
Mound 11, Fulton County, Illinois.]
These late migrants probably found groups like the Black Sand (and Red
Ochre) peoples in Illinois who were just emerging from the Archaic phase
into Initial Woodland. The settlements of all early Woodland peoples
were small in extent and poor in cultural remains. The population of
these hamlets probably seldom exceeded fifty. No traces of house
structures have yet been discerned. Temporary huts, probably built of
small poles and brush, may have been conical or hemispherical in shape.
The artifacts or cultural objects, except for a small amount of jewelry
(shell and copper beads and pendants) and the few offerings placed in
graves, show little evidence of any urge to fine workmanship or much
feeling for beauty of line or form. Life was probably too hard and the
effort in securing food and other requirements too exacting to leave
much leisure for artistic workmanship in durable materials.[10]
THE FOOD STORERS (BAUMER AND CRAB ORCHARD CULTURES) (1000?-100 B.C.?)
It has been seen that in southern Illinois the Archaic way of life may
have persisted until 2100 B.C. or perhaps even later. Across the state
on the Ohio River a Woodland people succeeded the earlier Archaic
residents. Their culture is known as Baumer and their nearest cultural
relatives lived south of the Ohio in Kentucky (Round Grave or Upper
Valley People). The Baumer artifacts do not resemble those of the
Archaic period very closely, giving one the impression that the Baumer
people developed their way of life elsewhere and moved into Illinois,
possibly while Archaic groups were still in the region.
The Baumer culture differs in several ways from the northern Initial
Woodland; actually it appears to be more advanced although it has been
termed early Woodland by some archaeologists. In the first place, the
area of settlement was more extensive which seems to indicate a larger
population than do early northern Woodland campsites. Their artifacts
are numerous and varied, suggesting they were well adapted to their
surroundings. Flat forms of polished stone (resembling in outline
certain Archaic bannerstones from which they may have derived) served
presumably as breast ornaments or gorgets (as similar pieces did in the
Hopewellian period). Tear-shaped stone objects (plummets) were made as
they had been in Medial and Terminal Archaic. House structures were
semi-permanent, large, square, made of poles or logs set in holes in the
ground. Huts with circular floors seem to have been in use also. Most
important of the cultural habits noted were numerous pits apparently for
the storage of food. In these the remains of acorns and hickory nuts
were found. These people, like the acorn gatherers of California and the
Eskimo, knew how to preserve food over long periods. Acorns were
probably abundant enough for a Baumer family to lay up several months’
supply in a short time. This permitted them to live in larger
settlements and gave them sufficient leisure to build rather substantial
houses and shape symmetrical ornaments from stone. These facts seem to
substantiate the hypothesis that they were a sedentary people by virtue
of their knowledge of how to store food.
[Illustration: Fig. 14. Housewife storing roasted acorns in a pit
near door of her square log cabin dwelling. Characteristic clay
vessel (“flower-pot” type) with “mat-impressed exterior.” Baumer
period. (J.C.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 15. A, stone pestle; B, reel-shaped stone
gorget; C, “spud-shaped” stone gorget or pendant; D, grooved
plummet. From the Baumer subculture and site.]
[Illustration: Fig. 16. Pots from the Crab Orchard period of Baumer
subculture recovered from the Sugar Camp Hill Site by Moreau Maxwell
for Southern Illinois University. Vessel in center is roughly 16″
tall. (Photographs furnished through courtesy of Dr. James B.
Griffin, Univ. of Michigan.)]
The size of the Baumer settlement, the semi-permanent houses, the
presence of chipped spades, stone pestles and pottery might lead one to
think that these people were plant-growers rather than simple food
storers. Comparing them with the acorn-gathering tribes of California,
who were storers and not food growers, it is seen that these, too, had
permanent settlements with well over one hundred inhabitants, rather
substantial houses, stone pestles, and some tribes, at least, had
pottery vessels. The Californians doubtless had digging tools since the
rooms of some houses were dug four feet down into the soil.
Traces of Hopewellian influence, possibly indicating inter-marriage with
Hopewellians, have been noted at the Sugar Camp Hill site (date
undetermined) in Jackson County, which is presumably later than Baumer.
However, the Baumerians like the native Californians were conservative,
for four centuries intervened between the oldest Hopewellian village in
the north and the earliest known station of that culture in southern
Illinois.[11]
THE HOPEWELLIAN CIVILIZATION[12] (500 B.C.-500 A.D.)
Toward the end of the Initial Woodland period maize or corn, as we call
it today, was introduced into northern Illinois, presumably from Mexico
and Middle America through the agency of intervening tribes. In an
apparently short time, its production seems to have been greatly
intensified and exploited. Other food crops and tobacco may have
accompanied maize.
About the same time, a formalized religion arose, probably concerned
with the worship of deities who personified natural forces like the sun,
rain and thunder, which were important to a plant-growing people. From
the evidence of burial places, there seem to have been two or possibly
three social classes. Doubtless the first comprised the families who
introduced and grew the new food plants and who were inspired to invent
the complex religion. The burial of the dead, especially those socially
important and of the highest class, was accompanied by elaborate and
colorful ceremonies closely bound to the religion. This seems to be a
continuation in grander form of the earlier Red Ochre funeral and
burial. It is unfortunate that we do not have tangible evidence of their
other religious and political ceremonies which may have been even more
impressive and significant. The official dress and insignia of the
officials, which we can barely glimpse in the rich and varied remains in
the tombs, signify a political system of social control and an
established priesthood for the spiritual guidance of the community.
Shamans or medicine men probably had only the duty of treating disease.
Reverence for and possibly worship of ancestors is suggested by the
impressive tomb chambers and mounds and the care obviously bestowed on
certain of their socially prominent dead.
Social and political prestige, religious pomp and ceremonial, all seem
to have combined to stimulate a demand for rare materials, beautiful
jewels and impressive regalia. This initiated the search for pearls at
home, the development of skillful and artistic workmanship in flint,
bone, shell, copper and mica, travel abroad and trade in materials
obtainable only in distant regions.
Aside from those technologies connected with the growing of plant foods,
probably few new crafts appeared in the culture; rather those already,
existing in the Initial Woodland were raised to a high degree of
excellence. Art in several forms flourished—carving in the round and in
relief, the making of fine symmetrical polished, decorated and painted
pottery commonly called typical Hopewellian, hammered copper jewelry,
the setting of pearls and highly-colored native stones as eyes in
sculptured animals and in bear-tooth pendants and ear ornaments, etching
of delicate designs, naturalistic and conventional, on bone and the
modeling and firing of exquisite statuettes in clay. We admire and
wonder at the excellence of execution in the best of their small
sculpture because they are skillfully fashioned and finished and because
they so accurately portray the characteristics and habits of animals
with which we are familiar. The artist had the crudest of tools to aid
him—rough stone hammers and an anvil for pecking stone to the general
form; sandstone files or abraders; clay and water to polish pieces;
flint and tubular drills for boring; and flint knives to cut and engrave
pottery and bone—in spite of which the best craftsmen well knew how to
bring out the beauty of the piece.
[Illustration: Fig. 17. Artist’s idea of a Hopewellian chief or high
priest in full ceremonial regalia. (J.C.) Evidence for dress (except
for calumet) has been found in Illinois.]
For the first time in Amerindian history in Illinois we become aware of
an accumulation of wealth, a surplus of handmade goods over and above
those needed for survival; many of these were neither well-suited nor
intended for immediate physical needs, but rather were aimed at social
display or spiritual enhancement. Wealth reflects a relatively constant
and abundant supply of food and other necessities and the resulting
accompaniment of considerable leisure time for a sizable portion of the
community. It may also mark the beginning of craft specialization.[13]
It is hardly necessary to add that, if such a profusion of grave
offerings as indicated by Hopewellian tombs—feather cloth robes, pearl
necklaces, copper hatchets, and beautifully fashioned art objects—were
left with the dead, that the high political and religious officers were
correspondingly bedecked in gorgeous apparel for civil and religious
ceremonies.
Nor should sight be lost of the fact that these creations and materials,
so commonplace and inexpensive today, were to the Hopewellians as
valuable and highly desirable as gold, silk, and precious stones are to
us in Western civilization. For a better perspective these tomb
offerings should be compared with objects usually found in camp and
grave sites of the Initial and Final Woodland peoples.
Traders may have gone to distant regions to select and barter for raw
materials, to the Lake Superior region for copper, to Ohio for
pipestone, to the south Atlantic and Gulf Coasts for the small
Marginella and Oliva shells, for the larger Cassis and Busycon shells,
and to the Yellowstone or Mexico for obsidian (of which little is found
in Illinois graves). Trade, to some degree, removes the limitations
imposed by the immediate surroundings. Pearls were secured in quantity
from the clams of the native streams. Bone, antler, tortoise and clam
shell, bears’ teeth, bear, wildcat and wolverine jaws from their hunting
and collecting pursuits were utilized more fully than ever before. Even
human jaws, possibly of enemies, were cut, polished and bored for use as
pendants.
Though the Hopewellians may not have been the pacifists they are
sometimes painted, there must have been long periods of peaceful
relationships with distant and nearer neighbors with whom they traded or
through whose territories their traders had to pass. Whether or not a
condition of peace was maintained within the borders of their culture
area by the force of arms is an interesting question that cannot now be
answered.
[Illustration: Fig. 18. The Hopewellian assemblage of artifacts that
collectively identify the Hopewellian (Classic Woodland) period and,
except for shell spoon, turtle shell dish, and some bead types,
distinguish it from the other Woodland assemblages. A, drinking cup
of marine shell (_Cassis madagascarensis_); B, C, D, Hopewellian
pottery (restored); E, mussel shell spoon with “handle”; F, turtle
shell dish; G, sheet mica (mirror?); H, antler headdress; I, J,
platform pipes with effigy mammal bowls, polished stone (Otter and
bear’s head, eyes set with copper pellets); K, platform pipe (plain
bowl), curved base, polished stone; L, copper earspools or
ornaments, pair; M, imitation bear tooth, copper; N, (Below) N₁,
Bear jaw, cut in half, ground and drilled to be worn as a double
pendant; (Above) N₂, Fragment of a human jaw that has been similarly
treated; O, copper hatchet that carries imprint of textile on its
surface; P, copper adze; Q, R, Hopewellian spearheads; S, massive
bead of copper; T, bracelet of copper beads; U, necklace of pearls;
V, necklace of copper beads; W, necklace of graduated ground shell
beads from columella (central column) of marine shell.]
In southern Illinois the advance of Hopewellian culture was slower. The
infiltration of new pottery styles noted at Crab Orchard very possibly
represents intermarriage with Hopewellian women. Possibly through ties
of relationship and the acceptance of the new food plants, the old
Baumer way of life was submerged by the Hopewellian customs though here
and there former habits still are recognizable. Some customs of Baumer
and Crab Orchard were adopted by the northern Hopewellians—the
reel-shaped gorget, the plummet and the chipped stone hoe.
In the north of Illinois, Hopewellian lasted until 250 A.D. (Poole site)
and in the west and south to about 450 or 500 A.D. Though the culture
died out in Illinois by 500 A.D., it still flourished in Mississippi
(Bynum site) around 800 A.D. and at Marksville, Louisiana, as late as
850 A.D.
As was stated earlier, emerging cultures grow out of earlier ones.
Although it may not yet be generally recognized, the Hopewellian
civilization probably exerted tremendous influence on the Mississippi
cultures and on tribes that followed them in the great central valley of
the United States and beyond, down to historic times. It must be borne
in mind that in spite of their splendid achievements, the Hopewellians
had no domestic animals but the dog, no herds for meat and great wealth,
no draft animals to drag the plough and turn the mill. All labor was “by
hand,” all transport on the back or in a boat driven by human power.
THE DARK AGE IN ILLINOIS—FINAL WOODLAND (200 to 900 A.D.)
The Hopewellian civilization apparently disappeared as suddenly as it
seems to have arisen. This impression is probably due to the fact that
the people continued to live in the old villages long after the
characteristic colorful Hopewell customs were no longer practiced.
Actually the culture may have declined for a century or more before it
finally broke down completely. Many of the simpler folk traditions
probably persisted in the area for some centuries afterward.
Possibly long continued abuses of power and privilege by religious and
political officials, especially those from the highest social caste,
weakened the confidence of the lower classes in their leaders and the
culture. Newcomers from Iowa, Missouri and Kentucky may have further
disorganized certain settlements and separated areas of the larger
community from each other. Generally, however, the writer gets the
impression that the decay began within the civilization although its
final downfall may have been accelerated by external pressures.
With failing confidence and a rising uneasiness, trade would naturally
decrease and the incentive to fine workmanship decline. The larger
cultural community split apart into a number of small tribes, who were
isolationists and individualists. All the separate little tribal units
were Woodland culturally with some small evidence of their Hopewellian
heritage, but each differed in certain respects from its neighbors.
Villages dwindled to the mere hamlets, widely separated one from
another. The elaborate ceremonial dress, insignia, and jewelry, and the
artistic creations (at least in durable materials) became a part of the
past; the people found themselves reduced to the rude cultural level of
their early Woodland ancestors. Huts were flimsy and left no discernible
remains. Tools, weapons, and ornaments were, in general, carelessly made
and poorly finished. Although tobacco was smoked and small patches of
maize and beans may have been grown, the chief economic dependence
undoubtedly was on hunting, fishing and collecting.
[Illustration: Fig. 19. Group of mounds exhibiting bird, mammal,
linear and conical mounds as they occur characteristically in Effigy
Mound subculture of Final Woodland. (B.B.)]
The religious beliefs, too, were probably simplified and mixed with
magic and superstition, surviving relics of the religion of the past
age. In a word, the social and religious customs of the little tribes
were broadly similar but in minor details differed from each other much
as do their artifactual remains.
A study of the Final Woodland and other phases of Illinois history
reveals certain relationships among some distinguishable differences of
detail:
1. The almost complete lack of evidence of Hopewellian art, trade and
religion in the late Woodland period gives little apparent indication
that the people were the direct descendants and heirs of that
civilization. On the other hand, the general resemblance of Final
Woodland assemblages to those of the Initial phase seems marked. Let us
examine further.
[Illustration: Fig. 20. Graves near Quincy, Illinois, Stone Vault
period. (Photographs through courtesy of O. D. Thurber.)]
[Illustration: Stone mound after earth was removed.]
[Illustration: Four excavated “vaults”, the third of which shows a
“corridor” entrance with stone steps.]
The tobacco pipe of the late phase with the stem projecting beyond the
bowl is found in most aspects. Likewise, the vertically elongated pot is
common but not the only form. Burials are often in mounds, frequently in
a central chamber or grave, with skeletons in the flexed and/or extended
positions, occasionally accompanied by grave offerings. All these are
broadly reminiscent of Hopewellian customs and, in the writer’s opinion,
indicate a continuing thread of tradition from Initial Woodland through
Hopewellian into the Final phase.
2. The relationship to the Middle Mississippi seems more evident and has
been attributed by some authors to the “impact” of a high culture on
that of cruder or “under-developed” neighbors. What are the grounds for
these conclusions?
New pottery forms were being attempted, the flattened globular pot, the
shallow bowl (occasionally found in Hopewellian sites), the cup or
beaker and the plate. In southern counties, a new method of making pits
is indicated by a tendency of sherds, even grit-tempered ones, to split
or laminate (see Maxwell, _Woodland Cultures of Southern Illinois_,
Beloit, 1951, p. 204). Secondary features previously lacking begin to
appear as “raised points” or knobs on rims, some roughly resembling
animal heads with ears and a snout. Triangular arrowheads and others
reflecting larger spearhead types are all made from curved, not flat
flakes as the Mississippian points are. The stone discoidal that seems
to be the game piece of the historically known chunkey game, which was
possibly initiated in late Hopewellian times (see Fowler, _The
Rutherford Mound_, Springfield, 1957, pp. 31-33) occurs in the Bluff
subculture and probably in the Tampico also.
[Illustration: Fig. 21. Canton ware pot (Tampico subculture) from
Clear Lake village site in Tazewell County. Designs are formed with
cord impressions. (From Schoenbeck collection in Illinois State
Museum. Max. diam. at shoulder 18″.]
[Illustration: Fig. 22. “Handled” pipe in form of raven with head
projecting from rim, from Jersey Bluff subculture. After
Titterington. Reduced about ½.]
All these bespeak Middle Mississippian tendencies. A common conclusion,
as mentioned previously, is that these features were borrowed from
non-Woodland groups. The writer, however, gets the impression from his
studies that the Middle Mississippi phase developed through the
interplay of invention and adoption of improvements, modification and
re-invention, between the Final Woodland subcultures in Illinois and
adjacent territory. This does not mean that Illinois communities alone
were responsible for the emergence of this phase but rather that they
played an important dynamic role in its development. The Cahokia
subculture of western and central Illinois probably constituted the
native local tribe or nation.
Final Woodland Archaeology
Archaeologically these peoples are in the Final Woodland phase of
culture. The Final Phase yields tobacco pipes and crude flint
arrowheads, its chief artifactual differences with the Initial phase.
The clay of their pottery was generally mixed with grit or sand to
prevent firing cracks in the vessel walls. The customary
vertically-elongated pot with a conical or pointed bottom was
accompanied by new forms—the globular or flattened globular with “round”
(spherical) bases, the “coconut shell” cup or larger vessel, and shallow
bowls. The flattened globular pots and the bowls were occasionally
decorated with two or four knobs or with “raised points” on the rim,
sometimes giving a squarish appearance to the mouth. In some instances
these decorative projections were crudely modeled ears and snout which
give the effect of animals’ heads facing out and foreshadowing the
Middle Mississippi effigy shallow bowls. An important invention, the bow
and arrow, appears in Illinois for the first time in this period.
Judging by the crudity of the chipped flint arrowheads, these people
were poor archers and preferred the spear and spearthrower in hunting
and fighting. Pipes, like most artifacts except weapon heads, are rare.
The “elbow” or L-shaped pipe is generally representative of the culture.
The six recognized Final Woodland subcultures with their diagnostic
(though not very significant) traits are (1) Effigy Mound named for its
distinguishing characteristic; (2) Tampico with pottery decorated with
designs formed by cord-impressions, in northern Illinois; (3) Stone
Vault with stone mounds containing walled tomb chambers; (4) Jersey
Bluff with its unique “handled” tobacco pipes, in the west; (5) Raymond,
best characterized by the generalized Woodland nature of its artifacts;
and (6) Lewis with incised spiral designs on pottery, in southern
Illinois.
A SECOND PLANT-RAISING CIVILIZATION—THE MIDDLE MISSISSIPPIANS
(1000-1500 A.D.)
The Middle Mississippi culture seems to have arisen, as previously
suggested, in the area where several important highways of aboriginal
travel converged—the region surrounding the Ohio and Mississippi rivers
from the mouth of the Wabash to the mouth of the Illinois. Whether or
not its development was stimulated by the contracts of Muskhogeans and
Algonkians or whether it was due to interplay between the cultures of
the Final Woodland petty tribes is unknown.
Two slightly differing subcultures of the Middle phase appeared in the
state. One, known archaeologically as the Cumberland
(Tennessee-Cumberland), may have embraced at one time all the southern
Illinois counties between the mouths of the Kaskaskia and the Wabash.
[The Angel Site near Evansville, Indiana, may belong to the Cumberland
subculture.] The other subculture, which may be termed Cahokia,
flourished in counties bordering on the Mississippi from Union County to
Wisconsin. As the two periods show few significant cultural differences,
they will, except as noted hereafter, be treated as a single unit.
The bow and arrow invented in the Final Woodland phase, was developed
early in the Middle Mississippi period into an effective weapon although
spear and perhaps spearthrower continued in use. The chunkey game was
probably played as a part of a religious ceremony though it may quite
possibly have served as a popular pastime as well.
Pottery was slow at first to change from its more obvious Woodland
characteristics but new shapes foreshadowing most of those of the fully
developed (Old Village) cultural phase practically replaced the
conical-based elongated pot early in the period. Cord-roughening and
grit-tempering disappeared in the classic Cahokia period, and a fine
polished blackware and a painted pottery were added to the smooth
utilitarian ware. An excellent “dull gray” ware with smooth gray to
brown surfaces was of more common occurrence. It appears to differ from
the fine ware only in its partially oxidized surfaces probably due to
poorly controlled firing methods.[14]
[Illustration: Fig. 23. The chunkey game in foreground. Man hunting
with bow and arrow in background. Middle Mississippi period. (J.C.)]
There were probably two or more social classes among the Middle phase
people as there were among Hopewellians, Natchez and Polynesians.[15]
The fine polished black and painted wares may have been marks of
distinction between the highest and lower classes since it is much less
common. In Hopewellian times, it is probable that both the fine ware and
the specialized forms (which were usually of the highest quality) were
reserved for the highest caste. In the Mississippi period, the shallow
bowl, the cup or beaker, and the plate of dull gray ware seem to have
been wide-spread in the village and may indicate a general improvement
of living conditions among the lower social classes since Hopewellian
times.
[Illustration: Fig. 24. Pottery shapes, Middle Mississippi period.
A, “bean pot”; B, angular-shouldered pot or olla; C, common pot or
olla; D, shallow bowl; E, water bottle; F, effigy bowl; G, plate.]
Advances in the economy were obviously present in the fully developed
Middle phase. The Union County flint “mines” and workshops were
intensively worked. Trade with the Lake Superior, lower Atlantic and
Gulf Coast regions was resumed. Chief imports of raw materials were
copper and marine shells, Busycon, Marginella, Oliva and Olivella. Art,
while possibly as highly developed as Hopewellian, resulted in a far
smaller number of art objects in fewer durable media. Intaglio rock
carvings (chiefly in southern Illinois) of geometric designs, human
hands, ceremonial paraphernalia, animal outlines, and, in a few
instances, painted hollowed-out animal silhouettes can probably be
ascribed to this period on the basis of the symbols employed. Dwellings
or cabins were relatively substantial structures and the extent of
village remains indicate a large general population as compared to
earlier times in the state. Trade and art suggest leisure and wealth or
surplus available for exchange or to support officials and others in
non-food productive pursuits. This prosperity was possibly due to newly
discovered methods of intensive cultivation of maize and possibly to a
greater diversity of crops than ever before.
[Illustration: Fig. 25. Carved stone pipe (fragmentary) from
Kingston Lake Site (Cahokia subculture, Middle Mississippi period).
Owned by Donald Wray. Right-hand figure shows the pipe
reconstructed.]
Territorially the tribe probably consisted of a number of villages and
the surrounding country. Each tribe may have had a chief village or
capital that was also a religious center with tribal (public) buildings
and a temple. Archaeological and historical evidence shows that these
buildings, presumably temples and the dwellings of tribal chiefs and the
high priests, were erected on the flat tops of rectangular earthen
mounds or pyramids, which were grouped around a plaza of ceremonial
square. Here the tribe gathered for religious and political ceremonies
and for important funerals. Intertribal negotiations and chunkey games
were probably also staged on or near the plaza.
Pipes, either of stone or pottery, were generally of the “equal-armed”
type (where stem length is about equal to bowl height). In numerous
instances, a short projection resembling the stem in shape but shorter,
extends beyond the bowl away from the smoker. Massive effigy pipes of
stone were widespread but not numerous. Some were excellently carved.
From their construction, it is obvious that they were made to be smoked
through a reed or hollow wooden stem called in later times the calumet.
These together probably constituted a form of ceremonial pipe that
served as a safe conduct between tribes, as a bond and signature at
peace- and treaty-making ceremonies, and to present tobacco smoke as
incense to the gods in religious rituals.
Priests and possibly tribal chiefs were interred in the flat tops of
mounds (e.g. the Powell Mound) near temple or cabin. Generally, however,
the dead were buried in cemeteries. In some instances, bodies were laid
on the surface above a “full” cemetery and covered with earth brought
from outside. Continuing this practice eventually produced a mound (e.g.
Dickson Mound near Lewistown). Possibly the burial mounds at Cahokia
were reserved for the socially prominent while the lower classes were
interred in the cemeteries nearby. The dead, especially important
personages were attired in their finest apparel, insignia and personal
ornaments. Beside them in the grave were placed their weapons, favorite
chunkey stones, food and water in pottery vessels with shell spoons or a
dipper.
[Illustration: Fig. 26. Interior view of Dickson Mound (in Dickson
Mounds State Park near Lewistown, Illinois), showing pottery and
other artifacts as originally placed with the dead. Cahokia
subculture, Middle Mississippi phase.]
Chief villages were large religious centers often protected by an
encircling palisade or clay wall reinforced with vertical posts or logs.
Remains of defensive walls can still be readily traced by a trained eye
at the Kincaid (Massac County) and Lynn (Union County) villages.
Exploration of the Aztalan village (Wisconsin) yielded remains of a
reinforced clay wall surmounted at regular intervals with towers of like
construction. The Cahokia village seems to have been without
fortifications.
[Illustration: Fig. 27. Reconstruction of Kincaid Village
(Cumberland subculture, Middle Mississippi period) near Metropolis,
Illinois. (Diorama by Arthur Sieving.)]
Smaller villages occasionally had one or two small flat-topped mounds
which doubtless served as bases for the cabins of the Village Chief and
possibly War Chief. Other Middle phase villages had no mounds or
fortifications.
Cabins were of three or more types. In Illinois, two kinds had
rectangular floor outlines and may have developed from the earlier
Baumer square dwelling and the Lewis house. One of these types prevalent
at Kincaid, as determined from charred remains, had a thatched gable
roof supported on four corner posts with their lower ends sunk in the
ground. Walls were made of clay daubed on a latticework of cane (with
foliage) interlacing vertical wall posts, the interior covered with
split cane mats. The rafters, corner and wall posts, and wall plates
were of poles or small logs lashed together and held in place by braided
ropes. Floors do not appear to have been depressed below surrounding
ground level. A larger more substantial structure, presumably a temple,
on a Kincaid mound (Mx^o9) had thick walls of clay mixed with grass, but
otherwise resembled the dwelling just described. The clay floor and wall
surfaces were smooth. Fire basins of puddled clay within the building
may have been the remains of altars.
Cabins in Fulton County (Fout’s Village) and at Cahokia were rectangular
in floor plan but wall posts were probably bent over to be joined with
corresponding opposite members to form an arched or vaulted roof, the
precursor perhaps of the “barrel-shaped” Illini cabins reported by
French explorers. Floors were sunk somewhat below the ground level.
Remains of cabins with circular floors occur also at Cahokia and in
Fulton County.
[Illustration: Fig. 28. Petroglyphs from southern Illinois sites
probably made by Middle Mississippian peoples. All figures are
hollowed out or _intaglio_. (Photographs by Irvin Peithmann.)]
[Illustration: Back wall of rock shelter near Gorham, Illinois.]
[Illustration: Figure of buffalo calf painted yellow over entire
depressed area. The outlines were chalked in for the purpose of
photographing.]
Walls and wall posts of the Fulton County cabins appear in some
instances to be formed of bundles of small branches or cane set in
trenches possibly a foot deep. There is no evidence of the
wattle-and-daub structure. Walls may have been covered with mats, or
with rectangles of bark. Roofs were probably thatched.
Possibly the Cahokia subculture peoples constituted a single tribe, a
small nation, or a confederation of tribes. At its most powerful period,
the Cahokia settlement was perhaps the capital and religious center. The
region south of a line joining the mouths of the Kaskaskia and Wabash
rivers at one time probably belonged to another tribe or subtribe whose
chief village was the Kincaid community in Pope and Massac counties and
who, linguistically and culturally, were closely related to peoples in
Tennessee and Kentucky and at the Angel site in Indiana.
Archaeologically speaking, the Middle Mississippi contrasts sharply with
the Hopewellian culture. Certain artifacts are readily distinguishable
and easily identified with the craftsman’s cultures. Actually the
Mississippians differ from the Hopewellians chiefly in having
substantial cabins, athletic games and the bow and arrow.
Remains of Hopewellian dwellings are rare, but the three or four found
up to now are characterized by round or oval floor plans outlined with
post holes of three to four inches in diameter. These seem to indicate
hemispherical wigwams. No further evidence of wall or roof structure has
been recovered. The rarity of these dwellings certainly suggests a less
permanent dwelling than the Mississippi cabin. However, it will be
remembered that some peoples pattern their tombs upon their dwellings.
The upper caste Hopewellians built rectangular burial chambers which
were walled up with logs laid one on another and roofed over with
half-logs or bark. Similar log house surface structures would seldom
leave discernible remains on decay. It is possible, though by no means
certain, that the Hopewellians of highest caste, and perhaps of the
other castes, built log cabins for dwellings.
The evidence for playing of athletic games in Hopewellian is very late
and scanty. The only tangible indication are the rings, “pulleys” and a
stone discoidal found with a skeleton in the Rutherford Mound. (See M.
L. Fowler, _The Rutherford Mound_, Scientific Papers Series, Vol. VII,
No. 1, Springfield, Ill. 1957, pp. 31-33). The rings of pottery and of
cannel coal (or jet) seem too fragile for actual playing pieces and may
rather be trophies or prizes, replicas of similar pieces made of wood.
Such wooden pieces may have been used in games throughout middle and
late Hopewellian times.
[Illustration: Fig. 29. (Photographs by Irvin Peithmann.)]
[Illustration: View of a stream-side flint mine and workshop (in
field alongside) near Cobden, Illinois.]
[Illustration: Close-up showing spherical or “ball-flint” nodules
from stream banks similar to those worked up by Middle
Mississippians and others in adjacent workshop.]
The bow and arrow, at least, seems to be a decided improvement over the
spear. It constituted a repeating weapon. Ammunition could be carried in
the belt or on the back in a quiver without unduly hampering the bowman.
On the other hand, it was useless in hand-to-hand fighting and a spear
or dagger was needed to supplement it. Moreover, the spear with a
thrower was a more accurate weapon than the bow, unless the arrows were
carefully made and balanced. The bow never seems to have wholly replaced
the spear which continued to be a favorite weapon down into the European
contact period.
The improvements that distinguish the Mississippians above the
Hopewellians may be more apparent than real in the first two instances
and, in the third, may represent a significant rather than a fundamental
advance. Looking at the two periods from the broader cultural viewpoint,
they appear to have many cultural features in common. The Middle
Mississippians probably added new food and fibre plants to those of
earlier periods, and perhaps increased production by improved, more
intensive methods of cultivation. Their staple crops like those of the
Hopewellians were corn, beans and tobacco.
The technologies or methods of making the necessary tools in the two
cultures varied but little. Art was revived or rather re-developed in
the Mississippian period but fewer media are employed. In artistic
skill, imagination and productiveness perhaps the Hopewellians had an
edge on the later people.
Trade and travel, though resumed to distant sections of the continent,
does not appear so widespread or general as in the Hopewellian period. A
formalized religion with colorful ceremonies seems to have revitalized
the life of the people but possibly no more effectively than in the
earlier period.
There was no significant improvement in labor, power or transportation;
all were still accomplished wholly by human effort without the aid of
draft animals. Traveling by boat was known and probably used by both
cultures.
Comparing the two peoples with other plant growers having no domestic
food-draft animals, it seems apparent that each had an effective
political organization, a formalized vital religion with true priests
(not “self-appointed” shamans) and a system of moral values and tenets
that “church” and “state” were organized to maintain. All in all, from
the broader cultural standpoint, they were amazingly alike.
UNDER-DEVELOPED NEIGHBORS—THE UPPER MISSISSIPPIANS (1100?-1600 A.D.)
Less advanced Mississippi tribes with customs showing some admixture of
Woodland cultural elements living contemporaneously in Missouri, Iowa,
Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio, encircled the Middle phase peoples on the
east, north and west. Known generally now as the Upper phase peoples
their sole representative in Illinois was the people of the Langford
subculture, who dwelt around the southern end of Lake Michigan as well
as in adjacent parts of Indiana and Michigan. The type station is the
Fisher Village and Mounds near Joliet which were ably investigated by
Mr. George Langford, Sr. some years ago.[16]
They built no flat-topped pyramids and left little, if any, evidence of
their religious practices. Their art, as exhibited by pottery, personal
ornaments or weapons was not of a high order. There is no evidence that
they played the chunkey game. Some copper hatchets and ornaments were in
use, but these appear to be of Middle Mississippi workmanship and may
have been trade articles.
On the positive side, they buried their dead in dome-shaped earthen
mounds, usually in the extended position, frequently with food (in clay
pots with shell spoons), weapons (arrows and tomahawks or hafted celts),
personal ornaments and various utilitarian implements. Dwellings had
subsurface circular floors and were doubtless dome-shaped
(hemispherical). The bow and arrow were in common use with arrowheads
primarily of slender simple triangular shape, very rarely with side
notches. Implements, weapons and ornaments were chiefly of chipped
flint, ground or polished stone, river clam shells, bone and animal
teeth. Copper was rarely employed.
[Illustration: Fig. 30. Characteristic pottery from the Langford
subculture, Upper Mississippi phase, (Fisher Site near Channahon,
Illinois). (Photograph by George Langford, Chicago Natural History
Museum.)]
Pots were generally of the globular or flattened globular shape (olla or
jar), tempered with grit (early) and shell (later), and decorated with
geometric designs in broad lines and dots, drawn (“trailed”) or
impressed on the shoulder region with a blunt tool (such as an antler
tine). Lips of vessels were usually pressure-notched and surfaces
cord-roughened. Loop handles on the jars were common.
Numerous examples of flat stone tablets associated with a number of
short solid antler cylinders lead one to suspect that a game of chance
of some sort was played and that gambling was probably indulged in.
Other than pottery and personal adornment, the only art practiced was
the cutting of mussel shell into handled spoons and outlines of fish and
other objects. Apparently there was no urge for fine workmanship.
It is highly probable that these Upper Mississippians were plant growers
who hunted to secure their meat. The extent of village remains and the
evidence of semi-permanent dwellings point to this type of economy even
though no grain or seeds of any kind were found in the site. Shell hoes
of the common type were used. The dog was the only domesticated animal.
[Illustration: Fig. 31. Effigy fish and a decorated spoon
(fragmentary) made of mussel shells. Langford subculture, Upper
Mississippi phase (Fisher site). (Photograph by George Langford,
Chicago Natural History Museum.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 32. Stone tablet and gaming pieces from the
Langford subcultural period, Upper Mississippi phase (Fisher site).
(Photograph by George Langford, Chicago Natural History Museum.)]
Apparently most of their needs were supplied by their own efforts and
from local sources. There is no evidence of any trade, except possibly
of a very limited kind with near neighbors to the west.
The evidence for the residence around the southern lake shores is based
chiefly on the occurrence of the Fisher pottery type. This area after
1760 was occupied by the Miami tribe who may possibly have been the
builders of the Fisher Mounds.
THE ILLINOIS OR ILLINI[17] (1550?-1833 A.D.)
The Illinois or Illini Indians are, so far as is now known, the next
group to occupy the state following the Middle Mississippians. At the
time of Marquette and Jolliet’s voyage in 1673, six tribes comprised the
Illinois Confederacy, Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Michigamea, Peoria, Moingwena,
and Tamaroa[18]. The tribes spoke the same or mutually intelligible
dialects of the Algonkian language.
Some time before 1650, possibly a century or more, the Illinois
Confederacy seems to have been a powerful nation but in the latter half
of the 17th century this was a tradition rather than fact. The
Confederacy appears to have engaged in no united action after 1650.
The Illini at that time were in the plant-raising stage of culture and
possessed only the dog as a domesticated animal. Like many other
plant-raisers, the families deserted the village for the hunt after the
corn was hilled and again after the harvest.
Dress
Men went naked in summer except for mocassins. At times a breech cloth
was worn; in winter buffalo skin robes were added and belts, leg bands
and leggings on occasion.
Women when working apparently wore only a girdle (breech cloth), at
other times a wrap-around skirt of skin with a belt passing over one
shoulder and under the opposite arm. The skirt dates back to Hopewellian
times and was used during the Mississippi period in Indiana and probably
in Illinois. The bosom was covered with a deerskin wrap. Hair was worn
long and fastened behind the head.
Economy
Labor was divided between the men and the women (and children). Men did
the hunting, fighting and made the weapons. The women (and children) did
the other work—the housework, planting and harvesting the crops,
dressing deer and buffalo skins, making twine from bast, weaving cloth
and, on the hunt, carrying the house parts and setting up the camp.
Buffalo meat was preserved by drying and smoking it over a fire in the
hunting camp. Vegetable foods, corn, beans and squash were dried or
parched and buried in containers or in lined pits in the ground and
covered over. Watermelons, muskmelons (?), gourds and tobacco were also
grown. Wild strawberries, paw paws, pecans, lotus roots, wild tubers,
grapes and plums formed part of their diet.
The winter buffalo hunt usually took place a long way from the village.
The hunting units each consisted of several families under a rigid
police system and regulation to prevent the herd from being stampeded by
an over-eager family before all were amply provided with meat.
Violations of hunting regulations were punished by destruction of the
offender’s property to which no resistance was ever attempted. The group
surrounded the herd, at times encircling it with fires made at intervals
near which the hunters stood and killed the stampeding animals. At times
as many as 120 buffalo were killed in a day. The women cut out the
tongues, skinned the animals, and, peeling off the sides of meat, dried
and smoked them on wooden grates over a slow fire. The smoked sides were
carried back to the village on the back, or when practicable in dugout
boats. Carcasses and bones were left on the hunting grounds. Other
animals were stalked by one or two hunters. Dog meat was considered a
great delicacy.
Fish were caught in nets, by hook and line, speared or shot with bow and
arrow. They were dried for preservation. Maple trees were tapped late in
the winter, the sap caught in bark containers and made into a maple
drink or reduced by boiling to syrup and sugar. Corn was ground into
meal and baked into bread, or prepared as hominy.
Vessels and utensils were made of wood or clay, ladles from a section of
the buffalo skull. Fire was produced by the hand drill in the usual
manner.
The cabin type seems to have varied at different periods or in different
tribes. In early times, cabins had rectangular floors and vaulted
(barrel-shaped) roofs. They were roofed and floored with “double-mats”
of flat rushes and were impervious to wind or rain. Occasionally they
were erected on low mounds (two feet high) to keep the floors dry. Large
cabins of the vaulted type had four fires, with one or two families at a
fire.
Bark-covered hemispherical huts or wigwams may have been used on hunting
trips. They were apparently common in some villages in 1723.
Overland travel was on foot. On streams the dugout boat was propelled by
pole and possibly by paddle. Large boats were 40 to 50 feet long,
capable of carrying 40 to 50 men. While dugouts were admirably suited
for travel and trade between the Illini tribes along the Illinois and
Mississippi rivers, they were, on account of their weight and
unwieldiness in portaging, generally useless in raids against enemies.
[Illustration: Fig. 33. Native Illini artifacts. A, Indian-made gun
flint; B, C, D, chipped flint arrowheads; E, flint scraper; F,
grooved abrader of sandstone; G, expanded base drill (grip only,
point broken off); H, I, polished stone pendants. From Illini
village site near mouth of Kaskaskia River, Randolph County.]
Marriage Customs and the Family
An Illini man, desiring to get married, sent presents to the girl’s
parents. If the suitor was acceptable, the parents kept the gift and
took the bride to the man’s hut the following evening. Apparently there
was no wedding ceremony.
Women had somewhat lower social status than their husbands. Wives did
not eat with their husbands. A man was permitted two or more wives and
often married two sisters. Children were well-treated. Infants were
bound to a cradle board that the mother carried around. The cradle was
pointed at the lower end and was stuck in the ground when the woman
wanted to rest. Divorce was accomplished by a simple agreement to
separate.
Political Organization
The explorers and writers to whom we are indebted for our knowledge of
Illini social and religious organization were, unfortunately, casual and
untrained observers who, on the whole, held the Indian and his customs
in contempt. Important activities were often dismissed with meaningless
generalizations, or omitted entirely, as if generally known.
Consequently great gaps are left in the information that has come down
to us.
From the various accounts, the impression is given that the Illini
tribes (and possibly before the 17th century, the Confederacy) had a
political government (rather than _family social control_) with formally
appointed officers or civil chiefs. The Confederacy had one or more
coats-of-arms (“totems”) that may have been recognized abroad as
symbolic of the Illini (as was customary among the Natchez and other
southeastern Indians). It had a Grand Chief, chosen in some manner not
now known, from one of the constituent tribes. At one period “Prince
Tamaroa” of the Tamaroas held the post, later Chief Ducoigne of the
Kaskaskias. Whether or not the Confederacy acted as a nation after 1600
is doubtful. Each tribe had its own head chief and coat-of-arms, and the
French appear to have treated directly with the tribal heads in matters
of importance. Judging from other Indian Confederations, the individual
tribe had probably retained its full powers, and concerted action by the
Confederacy was possible only by unanimous consent.
Like most peoples in the simple plant-raising status, the tribe dealt as
a state with other similar units in intertribal affairs. These included
alliances and treaties of peace. Ambassadors or tribal representatives
were sent from Illini tribes to their neighbors. On such occasions, the
calumet was carried and served as a safe conduct.[19] Tribal
representatives met approaching strangers (and presumably the
ambassadors of another tribe), raising the highly adorned calumet (and
pipe) toward the sun as they advanced. Smoking the calumet—by the
contracting tribal agents at the conclusion of an agreement—corresponded
to our signatures and seals at the end of a written treaty.
Each village probably had a chief, whose power (it was sometimes
reported) was little. However, the chiefs wore, as badges of office, red
scarfs woven of bear and buffalo hair. Their faces were painted red. The
village men (or possibly the important men) met before the village
chief’s cabin or in a large hut built especially for gatherings to
deliberate on political or religious matters. The entire village often
seems to have been in audience.
If there were social classes among the Illini, no mention is made of it
in early reports. Men acquired prestige mainly through skillful hunting
or success in fighting. The leader in a raid had to recompense the
families of any followers killed in the fighting.
With so little description of the village and tribal assemblies and the
chiefs in deliberation and judgment, it is difficult to determine the
exact status of political organization of the tribe and its officers. It
may well be that the powers of the chiefs immediately after European
contact were small, and that in order to deal with the agency of a
European state, the Illini found it necessary (as did the Delaware
tribes) to grant greater authority and responsibility to their political
leaders. It is probably also true that the chiefs would, under pressure
from the whites, be reluctant to take responsibility for an unpopular
concession and would declare that only the tribal council or assemblage
could confirm the agreement under consideration. In any case, the Illini
were on the threshold of true political control if they had not actually
adopted it.
Raids
The tribe in historic times seems to have been the war-making group.
Raiding parties tried to sneak undetected into enemy country and conceal
themselves. From their hiding place, they fell suddenly on small
unsuspecting enemy bodies, scalping men, killing women and children, and
slipping away again with a few prisoners if practicable. Back in the
village, captive warriors were bound to a frame of green wood, suspended
over a slow fire, and tortured until death released them. Warriors hung
the scalps taken upon their cabins as evidence of their prowess. The
Illini claimed not to have tortured or burned captives until their men
had been taken and so treated by Iroquois raiding parties. On the war
path warriors carried bundles containing objects sacred to their
guardian spirits and invoked them frequently to obtain victory.
Bows and arrows in quivers, hatchets or tomahawks, clubs, and
“arrowproof” shields consisting of several layers of buffalo hide were
carried on raids. The bow and arrow was considered superior to the gun
because it could “fire” more rapidly.
Trade
Earlier in the European period, the Illini furnished Canadians with
skins of beaver, raccoon, deer, bear and buffalo, but in 1776 the French
(in Illinois) compelled them “to devote themselves to producing oil,
tallow and meat which they traded with them.” (Deliette Memoir. See
Pease in Bibliography under ILLINI.) The Indians traded for porcupine
quills with more northern neighbors. After the European came, Illini
trade was probably overwhelmingly with the whites, exchanging native
products of the forest for coveted guns, iron knives, hatchets, brass
kettles, cloth, glass beads and alcoholic liquors.
[Illustration: Fig. 34. A, B, common forms of Illini pipes
(restored) of red Minnesota pipestone, Illinois State Museum
collections: A, “Siouan”; B, Micmac; C, stone effigy-head type, (A.
J. Throop collection). All from village near mouth of Kaskaskia
River, Randolph County. (B.B.)]
Religion
The religion of the early historic Illini was apparently a complex one.
The sun was evidently a powerful deity from whom the calumet pipe had
perhaps been supposedly received. A special calumet, apparently sacred
to the sun, was revered as a palladium (like the Hebraic Ark of the
Covenant) on which rested the safety of the nation. A special official
had responsibility for its safe keeping. The smoke of the pipe was
offered to the sun whenever the Illini prayed for rain, fine weather, or
some other aid. Whether the Grand Manitou (Great Spirit), whom the
French thought was the Supreme God of the Illini, was identical with the
sun is not known though it seems probable.
In addition to the above gods, the Illini believed in numerous spirits
and in reincarnation. A young man sought to secure a spirit as his
superhuman helper or guardian for life. He fasted and prayed to the
spirit to come to him in a vision. If successful (as he usually was),
the spirit appeared to him in a dream and gave him instructions for a
ritual by which he kept in contact with his protector. The objects
needed for the ritual he collected on awakening and preserved them
thereafter in a roll of painted matting. When calling upon his spirit
protector, the bundle was opened and the rite performed, chiefly prayers
and smoke offerings from a pipe blown toward the bundle.
It seems probable that there were true priests who were appointed by
regular procedure and who received their power by virtue of their
installation into office. The priests, we are told, painted themselves
all over with clay on which designs were drawn. Their faces were painted
with red, white, blue, yellow, green and black colors. The “high priest”
wore a bonnet or crown of feathers and a pair of horns, possibly young
deer or buffalo.
Medicine men also seem to have existed, persons who sought power from
spirits to use in behalf of others for private gain or a livelihood.
Possibly they were interested on the side in black magic or witchcraft,
an anti-social activity.
Dancing, probably singing, and supplication, together with the
inevitable smoke offerings from a ceremonial pipe doubtless formed a
large part of public worship for which the whole community assembled.
Details of the Illini ceremonies and their meanings are not known.
The French priests severely denounced native religious customs and
“juggleries” of the Illini. The Peoria chiefs and priests resented this
and resisted Christian attempts to convert the tribe (1693).
Funeral and burial customs seem to have been generally similar to those
of other plant-raising peoples. All dead were treated with respect,
decked in their best apparel, painted in preparation for burial. A dance
was performed in honor of the deceased. A skin stretched over a large
pot formed a drum which was beaten with a single stick as accompaniment
for the dance. The participants were rewarded with presents at the
conclusion of the dance. The gifts to be distributed were displayed in
full view of the dancers and the duration of the dance was determined by
their relative richness. An important personage was given special
consideration and the whole community probably attended the funeral.
Corn and a pot to boil it in were placed beside the dead. Friends
standing around the grave threw into it bracelets, pendants and “pieces
of earthenware” (pots?). The graves of chiefs were marked by a painted
wooden post taller than the markers for ordinary people. Illini chiefs
and persons of distinction as a signal honor were placed in tree-tops in
a coffin made of bark. The tribe danced and sang for twenty-four hours
during the funeral of a distinguished man.
[Illustration: Fig. 35. Illini arrowshaft “wrench” or straightener
of bison (?) rib engraved with figure of bison and cross-hatched
triangles from Illinois village near mouth of Kaskaskia River,
Randolph County.]
Art
Men tattooed their “whole bodies.” They painted themselves in solid
colors and with designs in red, black, yellow, blue, and other colors.
The body was adorned with native jewelry, the nose and ears were pierced
for ornaments, and feathers of many colors were worn attached to the
scalp lock. Moccasins were decorated with porcupine quill embroidery.
Men clipped or shaved most of the head, leaving the scalp lock and four
other tufts of long hair, two on each side, one in front of and behind
each ear. After European trade goods were available, glass beads and
cloth were obtainable in considerable quantities and largely replaced
native dress materials and ornaments.
The Illini played lacrosse, an athletic game. The straw-and-bean game
was a game of chance in which the players each took a number of straws
from a bundle. The straws in each hand were discarded by sixes, the
number left determining the winner of the round. Beans were used as
counters. The Illini made wagers as to the outcome, even putting up
their sisters as stakes in the game.
[Illustration: Fig. 36. Shapes of Illini pots (Middle Mississippi
ware) reconstructed from sherds found in association with other
native and European objects on the Illini village site near mouth of
Kaskaskia River, Randolph County. (B.B.)]
Archaeology of the Illini
Two village sites of the Illini have been investigated by the Illinois
State Museum, one near Utica, LaSalle County (jointly with the
University of Chicago) and one in Randolph County near the mouth of the
Kaskaskia River. This last site was occupied for over a century by
descendants of the Kaskaskias and other Illini tribes. Except for a
small area where Archaic artifacts are found, it is a “pure” site.
The Illini tools, weapons and ornaments of native make were the usual
chipped flint triangular arrowheads, simple flint drills and scrapers,
rough stone hammers and abrading stones, small ground stone pendants,
polished stone “Micmac” or “keel-based” pipe bowls (many of catlinite),
the long-stemmed L-shaped catlinite pipes (sometimes called “Siouan”),
and cut and engraved bone ornaments. An arrowshaft straightener carries
an etching of a buffalo cow. Pottery is rare, but the pieces found in
association with European trade goods are characteristically Middle
Mississippian.
[Illustration: Fig. 37. European trade goods and artifacts made from
European materials. All from Illini village near mouth of Kaskaskia
River, Randolph County. A, conical arrowhead of sheet copper; B,
chipped glass arrowhead; C, brass arrowhead; D, hammer of flintlock
gun; E, iron blade of clasp knife; F, an iron scissor-blade; G, part
of a jew’s-harp.]
The Illini made artifacts from fragments of European materials, iron
spear- and arrowheads, brass and chipped glass arrowheads, brass
pendants, and beads of broken porcelain.
European trade materials far exceed in number the native products.
Usually they are fragmentary (except for colored glass beads of many
kinds): parts of copper and brass kettles, iron handles, gun hammers and
other parts, lead balls and the molds for making them, molds for casting
crosses and ornaments, iron spoons, kitchen and clasp knife blades of
iron, “Dutch” white pottery pipes, scissors, jew’s-harps, bottles for
wine and olive oil, brass buttons and finger rings.
The Illini seem to have cast lead into musket balls and chipped gun
flints into shape but beyond that made no attempt to learn machine-age
technologies. For firearms, gunpowder, iron knives and hatchets they
were wholly dependent on the white invaders, a great disadvantage in
event of hostilities and one that eventually cost them ownership of
their ancient homelands.
THE INDIANS LEAVE ILLINOIS
For historic tribes of the state other than the Illini little is known
of their archaeology. Culturally it is almost a certainty that all were,
soon after contact, largely disorganized due to partial economic
dependence, European diseases and the alcohol trade, to diminishing
game, loss of other resources, and to military pressures from white
governments and contiguous Indian groups.
Only the broad outlines of the movements of the historic tribes that
lived, hunted, or made forays in Illinois need to be noted here. The
Iroquois, Winnebago and Chickasaw made no attempts to permanently occupy
Illinois territory as a result of their raids.
The Illini came under French influence after 1673 and leaned heavily on
their military support. At times the Illini warriors fought bravely
alongside the French, but generally they had little stomach for fighting
even in their own defense. They shifted their settlements frequently
after the Iroquois attack of 1680 and later under repeated pressure by
the Sauk, Fox, Kickapoo and Potawatomi, who invaded and occupied the
northern part of Illini territory.
Due to their dwindling courage and lack of incentive, more perhaps than
to their losses in enemy raids, the Illini tribes decreased rapidly in
numbers and importance. When they were removed to the west of the
Mississippi in 1832, the population of the once great Illini Confederacy
totalled little more than one hundred persons.
Even before this, the Miami had been pushed out of Illinois due to
inroads of the Kickapoo and Potawatomi. The Shawnee, too, probably
abandoned their permanent settlements in southern Illinois early in the
contact period though these lower counties may have still been
considered their territory. Other groups did not settle or hunt there
and the Shawnee did establish some villages there (e.g. Shawneetown)
briefly in the eighteenth century. Bands of Shawnee continued to hunt in
this region until 1828 or later.
The Sauk, Fox, Kickapoo and Potawatomi did not long enjoy the territory
they had wrested from the Illini and Miami. Immediately after the Black
Hawk War in 1832, steps were taken to move all Indians from the state.
By the Treaty of Chicago, the Indians gave up all their lands in
Illinois, and in 1837 the last bands (Potawatomi) crossed to the western
bank of the Mississippi. No land is reserved today in this state for
Indians. Its former resident tribes now live in reservations in Iowa,
Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and in the state of Coahuila in Mexico.
SUMMARY OF ILLINOIS PREHISTORY
The archaeology of Illinois in its present position seems to indicate
that the state did not at any time form a distinct single culture or
subculture but that it was rather the meeting place of many, due
possibly to the rivers that enclose, lead to and intersect its
territory. It was at one and the same time a part of one or more
widespread patterns or phases and a patchwork of subcultures that
extended into neighboring states. There was a tendency for the cultures
of the northern four-fifths of the state (roughly north of a line
joining East St. Louis with Evansville, Indiana) to be more like the
adjacent regions, while those of the remaining counties were more
closely related to those of Kentucky, Tennessee, southern Indiana and
Missouri and rather readily distinguishable from those of their northern
neighbors.
There are few instances when it appears probable that a part of the
state was invaded by a people of a distinctly differing culture. The
Paleo-Indian Big Game Hunters presumably found in Illinois virgin
country without previous human occupants. The Baumerians probably
entered Illinois from south of the Ohio and expelled or absorbed the
conservative Terminal Archaics. Possibly Mortonians intruded into the
Black Sand-Red Ocre culture of Illinois from the northwest. Less
plausibly, the Stone Vault Grave people may have pushed their way into
Adams County from the Gasconade River region of Missouri.
The emphasis in this paper has been placed perhaps on the change of
cultures. To keep one from getting an erroneous impression of cultural
stability, it should be said that, in the writer’s opinion, a culture
and subculture contained in greater or smaller areas change gradually
through a process of invention here and there and through interchanges
of improvements back and forth over a long time. When the change is
sufficient to be noted as a “new” culture, the various cultural elements
or features are apt to be widely distributed over much the same area.
Thus, Baumer seems to have existed for a time alongside Terminal Archaic
but finally spread through the southern counties; Hopewellian may have
persisted in Calhoun County for a century or more after its collapse to
the north and east; and the Final phase may have lingered on in remote
portions of the state until Cahokia was past the height of its glory. In
general, perhaps it could be said that the southern fifth and the
remaining four-fifths of the state were out of step with each other most
of the time.
As previously noted, some of the Paleo-Indian families, upon the retreat
of the last glacier, settled in Illinois as they did in the neighboring
states, adapted themselves to the changed surroundings, and in so doing
developed the Archaic culture or way of life. This phase developed
through a series of subcultures though not necessarily identical
sequences in all the states or even within Illinois. In southern
Illinois, Terminal Archaic seems to have persisted until about 2000 B.C.
while in the north, it apparently had developed into Initial (early)
Woodland a few centuries earlier. The Baumer subculture, probably
arising from the Archaic of Tennessee, appears to have been carried by
its bearers into southeastern Illinois along the Tennessee and
Cumberland rivers. Although widespread in the Mississippi Valley, the
Archaic population was thinly scattered.
In northern Illinois and in Wisconsin the Black Sand-Red Ochre culture
seems to have developed from the native Terminal Archaic (and Old
Copper) possibly around 2500 B.C. The Morton (Central Basin) people
appear to have had their cultural roots outside the state and to have
combined with the native groups (Black Sand-Red Ochre) they found in the
northern counties. Average populational distribution was still low with
the small settlements perhaps somewhat more numerous though no more
populous than during Archaic times. The early Woodland peoples differed
from their predecessors mainly in being pottery-makers. In southern
Illinois only they practiced storage of acorns and hickory nuts
extensively.
About 500 B.C. in northern Illinois the Morton people more or less
contemporaneously with similarly advanced peoples in Iowa, Wisconsin,
Indiana, Michigan and Ohio, passed into the Hopewellian civilization
which was erected on the cultivation of maize, beans, squash and
tobacco, and the technologies of the earlier Woodland period. In
southern Illinois Baumer developed into the Crab Orchard culture whose
people traded with the more northern Hopewellians, intermarried with
them and finally adopted the Hopewellian way of life about 100 B.C.
A century or two later, Hopewellian in the north of Illinois began to
deteriorate and eventually broke up into a number of small subcultures,
obviously closely related but still distinguishable archaeologically.
The same disintegration of Hopewellian took place in southern Illinois a
few centuries later, and by 400 or 450 B.C. Hopewellian had disappeared
from all Illinois except possibly in Calhoun County in the west, while
south of the Ohio River it still continued to spread and flourish in
Mississippi and Louisiana for some centuries.
In Illinois a period of decadence set in for the next few centuries
(possibly 250 to 1000 A.D.). The larger settlements or settlement
clusters dwindled to mere hamlets, whose remains are scarcely
distinguishable from the early Woodland artifacts except that the
tobacco pipe is present. Though they must still have retained a
tradition of plant-raising, they seem to have avoided it and reverted to
a pure hunting-collecting economy. Even in southern Illinois the storage
of food seems to have played an insignificant role. Nevertheless
throughout this cultural recession, certain trends occur in all the six
Final Woodland subcultures which foreshadow later developments in the
Middle (Mississippi) Phase.
[Illustration: Fig. 38. The Stream of Culture. The archaeological
cultures within Illinois are included within the two heavy lines,
openings in which indicate cultural extensions beyond or intrusions
into the state. Vertical positions indicate sequences in a general
way. (Drawing by Jeanne McCarty.)]
About 1000 A.D. or possibly a little earlier, the Final Woodland
developed into an early Protomississippi (Protomiss) and, at last,
(possibly 1000 to 1100 A.D.) into the full-blown Middle Phase
civilization. The Cahokia subculture appears to be primarily, though not
exclusively, Illinoisian while the Cumberland development in the
southeast of the state was shared more generously with adjacent Indiana,
Kentucky and Tennessee. Judging by the distribution of stone box (cist)
graves, the Cumberland subculture seems to have expanded westward at the
expense of the Cahokia peoples to envelope most of the southern counties
from Monroe to White. (Another interpretation might be that the grave
type of their eastern Cumberland neighbors was adopted by the
Cahokians.) The Crable Village, possibly a late Cahokian settlement,
yields artifacts suggesting cultural influences brought in from Iowa,
Missouri and possibly Arkansas. It is probable that the culture came to
an end in Illinois by 1500 or 1550. This fact coupled with the pottery
evidence makes it highly probable (though possibly not conclusive) that
the disorganized Illini Confederacy embraced the tribes whose members
were the descendants of the people of the great Middle Phase
civilization in Illinois.
More or less contemporaneous with the Middle Phase culture were the
so-called Upper Phase peoples of Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and
Indiana. These were represented in Illinois by the Fisher peoples of the
Langford subculture known chiefly from sites along the Illinois,
Kankakee and Des Plaines rivers in northeastern Illinois and (chiefly on
a pottery basis) in northwestern Indiana and southern Michigan.
Beset by enemies on the east, south, north and northwest, with their
traditions of former greatness fading, the demoralized Illini tribes
welcomed the protection of French soldiers. Their own resourcefulness,
courage, pride, and confidence in themselves and their culture continued
to deteriorate, their numbers to diminish under the softening influence
of alcohol and the persistent assaults of the ruder more aggressive
Winnebago, Sauk, Fox, Potawatomi and Kickapoo tribes invading Illinois
from the north until they were reduced by 1833 to a mere handful of a
hundred odd men, women and children. The demands on the part of citizens
of the United States for Illinois lands was brought to a head by the
scare of the Black Hawk War, and the Illini, their traditional Indian
friends and enemies, were transferred to new territory west of the
Mississippi. Thus ended the aboriginal occupation of Illinois that had
endured for at least 10,000 years.
GLOSSARY
ADVANCED PHASE: The earliest pottery-making cultures of Woodland in
southern Illinois. The peoples seem to have been storers of acorns
and hickory nuts. It is sometimes called early Woodland.
AMERINDIAN: The American Indian of Mongolian racial stock so named to
distinguish him from the Asiatic Indian who is of the white or
Caucasian race.
ANTHROPOLOGY: The study of man and his cultural activities.
ARCHAEOLOGY: The division of anthropology that studies peoples of the
past through the remains of their works that are found in the
ground.
ARCHAIC (SUBCULTURE): An archaeological subdivision of the Lithic
Pattern characterized by broad-bladed barbed spearheads,
spearthrower weights and “bannerstones,” small camps, and a
hunting-collecting economy (without plant-raising or food-storage).
ARROWHEADS: Projectile points less than three inches long presumed to
have been used to tip arrows.
ART: A form of human endeavor in which the individual or artist, with
more or less skill, tries to produce an object or activity of such a
nature that it is esthetically satisfying in some sense both to
himself and to his group generally.
ARTIFACTS: Any object made by man, or a natural object modified by man,
in order to satisfy a cultural need. (Only the names and uses of
artifacts that are not self-explanatory appear in the glossary).
ATLATL: See SPEARTHROWER.
ASSEMBLAGE: In this paper assemblage refers to the selected significant
artifact types of an archaeological unit. In a more general sense,
it signifies the aggregate of artifacts found at a particular site,
or in a deposit belonging to a single culture at the site.
AX: Refers in this paper to the grooved ground stone head resembling the
modern steel ax in general form and presumably used for chopping in
a somewhat similar manner.
AZTALAN: The site of a Middle Phase fortified village with mounds in
Jefferson County, Wisconsin, in the Cahokia Subculture. It was
investigated by the Milwaukee Public Museum. See S. A. Barrett in
Bibliography.
BARB: A projection or shoulder near the base of the blade of a spear,
dart or arrowhead that serves to retain it in a wound and to
stimulate bleeding. One of a number of “backward” projections on a
harpoon that serves a similar purpose.
BAST: The inner bark (phloem) of a tree.
BREECH CLOTH or CLOUT: An article of clothing consisting of a narrow
band or fold of cloth or skin that passes around the waist and
between the legs.
BURIAL MOUND: Any man-made hill or knoll erected primarily to enclose
the dead.
CACHE: A deposit of a large number of artifacts in a grave or, in
general, a number of artifacts found together in the earth.
CALUMET: See note, page 48.
CELT: An ungrooved stone or copper hatchet head.
CHIEF: An official selected and formally installed in office by some
social process who exercises civil authority by virtue of office.
CHIPPING: See Flaking.
CHOPPER: Generally any tool used for chopping, hewing, or hacking.
Specifically, a chipped flint tool roughly hatchet shaped. Some hand
choppers have the edge of the blade paralleling the longer axis of
the piece.
CHUNKEY STONE: A polished stone disk that was used as a bowl in various
types of games.
CIVILIZATION: See note, page 26.
CLASSIC: The term used in this paper to designate the phase to which the
Hopewellian Civilization of the Woodland pattern belongs.
CLOVIS POINT: A type of leaf-shaped spearhead with a longitudinal groove
(channel or fluting) generally extending one fourth to one half the
length of the piece from its base toward its tip.
CLUB: An adaptation of a stick for a weapon or a tool for hurling
(throwing stick) or battering (war club). The war club is often
weighted with a stone head for greater effectiveness. It differs
from the tomahawk in that it has no cutting edge.
CONCHOIDAL FRACTURE: The property of flint and certain other stones when
struck with a hammer of chipping away in flakes which leave concave
or shell-like scars or hollows. By suitable control methods, tool
and weapon heads of desired types can be produced.
CONOIDAL or CONICAL BASE: The characteristic pointed base of Woodland
pots.
CRAB ORCHARD: A division of the Baumer subculture.
CULTURE: Culture as used in this paper has one of two meanings, each
readily understood in its context. In a general sense, it means the
significant beliefs, customary activities and social prohibitions
peculiar to man (together with the man-made tools, weapons and other
material objects that he finds or has found necessary) that modify,
limit or enhance in some manner, most of his discernible natural
activities due to his physical animal inheritance and organization.
Culture in a specific sense refers to the significant cultural
features of the group or period under consideration, the way of
life. See FEATURE, CULTURAL.
CUMBERLAND: A subculture of the Middle (Mississippi) Phase that
flourished in southern Illinois, western Kentucky and Tennessee,
archaeologically known as Gordon-Fewkes or Tennessee-Cumberland.
DAGGER: A long sharp-pointed blade of flint (or a copper pin) presumably
hafted with a wooden handle, used as a hunting knife or in
hand-to-hand fighting.
DARTHEADS: Medium-sized weapon heads (2½ to 4 inches long) presumably
used to tip lances or javelins.
DICKSON MOUND: A burial mound near Lewistown in Fulton County where some
three hundred skeletons together with their grave offerings have
been exposed to view. It is now a State Park and open to visitors.
DIGGING STICK: A conveniently-shaped stick used by primitive peoples in
collecting tubers and roots and small animals, digging storage pits,
and for preparing the soil for planting. Antler was sometimes shaped
and presumably employed in like manner.
DIGGING TOOL: Any implement employed by primitive peoples in digging—a
digging stick, a shell hoe, or a chipped flint hoe.
DOMESTICATION: The breeding and rearing of plants and animals under
man’s control and for his needs.
DRIFT (rarely drifter): A blunt tool of antler or bone presumably held
in the hand and pressed against a flint to flake it, or one held
against the flint piece and struck with a hammer for a like purpose.
DUGOUT: A boat made by hollowing out a log with fire and tools and
shaping its exterior suitably for water travel.
ECONOMIC ASPECT: That division of primitive culture concerned primarily
with securing and preparing food, shelter, clothing, and raw
materials for tools, weapons and other material devices, and the
technologies involved. This required considerable knowledge of
natural resources, properties of materials, and lay of the land and
permits freer direct creative intellectual effort than does any
other aspect.
ECONOMY: The chief means of securing food and other basic physical
requirements of man, as a hunting-collecting economy.
EFFIGY: Any artifact resembling in outline, in relief, or in the round
some living organism or mythical being.
EFFIGY MOUND: A mound of earth in low relief shaped in outline form to
resemble an animal or some geometric or other conventionalized form.
They are often found in groups together with conical and elongated
or linear mounds in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois.
EFFIGY POT: A pottery vessel made in the form of an animal, human being,
or a part of one, or having conventionalized bird or animal head and
tail projecting from opposite sides of rim or mouth (generally of
shallow bowls), occurring most commonly in the Middle (Mississippi)
Phase.
EXTENDED: As applied to burials, a skeleton lying at full length usually
on its side or back.
FAMILY, EXTENDED: A man, his wife or wives, their descendants in the
male or female line as custom dictates, and their families who
consider themselves as a distinct social unit usually with an
acknowledged leader or headman. The extended family usually lives in
a local settlement or a limited territory.
FAMILY, SIMPLE: A man, his wife or wives and their unmarried children.
FAMILY-TYPE SOCIAL CONTROL: The manner of maintaining peace, order, and
obedience to elders and to custom in tribes and local groups in the
Self-Domestication Stage secured by early and strict indoctrination
of the young in the family and through public opinion (social
approval and disapproval) rather than by force and political
agencies.
FEATHER CLOTH: Robes or blankets made by attaching overlapping feathers
to the outer surface of a textile or netting to simulate a bird
skin.
FEATURE, CULTURAL: Any type of cultural organization (or institution)
within a tribe or independent cultural unit such as marriage, the
family division of labor, social control, political governing
agency, Sacred Tradition (“mythology”), etc.
FERTILITY RITES: The religious ceremonies performed in a primitive tribe
for the purpose of insuring its welfare, the continuance of an
abundant supply of food animals and other natural resources on which
it depends, and possibly with expressions of gratitude for past
benefits.
FESTIVALS: The term applied to the religious ceremonies of plant-raising
peoples that relate to planting and the harvesting of crops.
FINAL PHASE: The decadent Woodland culture, archaeologically known as
late Woodland, is characteristic of much of Illinois in the interval
between the fall of Hopewellian and the rise of Mississippi.
FLAKER (DRIFT): A flint-working tool either used alone with simple
pressure or as a punch struck by a stone hammer (indirect
percussion).
FLAKING or CHIPPING: The method of working flint into tools and weapons
by direct hammer blows, indirect percussion or by pressure with a
flaker.
FLEXED: As applied to burials, a skeleton (generally lying on its side)
with knees drawn up to or near chest, arms close to side or with
hand(s) near head.
FLINT: In this paper, any stone that flakes with a conchoidal fracture
that was so used by Amerindians to make chipped tools and weapons.
FOLSOM POINT: A flint spearhead having the faces of the blade hollowed
out by chipping (channeling or fluting) except for a narrow strip
paralleling each edge including the tip (see Figure 3, page 11).
FOOD-DRAFT ANIMALS: The large mammals (especially the ox) that were
domesticated by man and besides providing him with a continuously
available supply of meat, served as a beast of burden or to draw a
wheeled vehicle, to drag the plough, and as a source of energy to
turn the mill. Animals were not generally so used in North America.
FOOD-STORERS: Those peoples who by virtue of native ingenuity and some
special natural resource in their region were enabled to store up
sufficient food supplies to last them for several months.
FORMALIZED RELIGION: The forms of prayer, worship, devotion and ritual
and the organization of priests, etc. by which plant-raising tribes
carry on their assumed relationships with the world of the unknown
agents of natural forces.
GORGET: (pronounced gor´-jet) A large flat artifact, possibly at times
an insigne, of stone, shell, copper or bone worn on the chest.
GRAVE GOODS: The jewelry, insignia, weapons or implements of a dead
tribesman together with offerings that may have been placed in his
grave by friends or relatives, including vessels containing food and
water. Also called beigaben, funeral offerings, grave furniture,
etc.
GRINDING: The process by which a stone, bone, shell or metal artifact
was shaped by rubbing with sand and water or against a piece of
sandstone (abrader).
GRINDING STONE: A large flat or slightly hollowed stone on which seeds,
berries, or nuts were crushed or ground by a smaller hand stone
(muller or pestle).
GUARDIAN SPIRIT: Among primitive peoples, a being from the invisible
spirit world who appeared to a person in a dream and was believed to
serve the dreamer thereafter as his personal protector.
HAMLET: The name used in this paper for local settlements of Archaic and
Initial Woodland sites. They probably had populations of less than
one hundred persons.
HAMMERSTONE: A stone hammer. Any native or modified cobblestone used as
a hammer.
HATCHET: A ground stone or copper celt head. Tomahawk or hafted hatchet.
HOUSEHOLD: A man, his wife, and children, married and unmarried together
with slaves and others, if any, who customarily in their culture
live under one shelter or roof.
INDIRECT PERCUSSION: The use of a punch with a hammer, especially in the
chipping of stone.
INITIAL PHASE: The earliest pottery-making cultures of Woodland in
northern Illinois, archaeologically known as early Woodland.
INITIATION RITES: Puberty rites. As used in this paper, the ceremonies
by which a boy on “becoming of age” is admitted to adult membership
in the tribe. Somewhat simpler rites are performed for girls also in
some tribes.
INSIGNE: (Plural _insignia_) Any artifact worn by primitive people as a
symbol of rank or class, birth (in a particular family), office,
priesthood, or of individual prowess.
INSTITUTIONS: See Social Structure.
JEWELRY: Any object other than insignia, paint, or clothing worn by
primitive man as personal adornment.
KINCAID COMMUNITY: The site of a Middle Phase village, mounds,
fortifications and other cultural remains in Pope and Massac
counties, Illinois, on the Ohio River a few miles above Paducah,
Kentucky.
LAKE BAIKAL: A large inland lake in the south of Siberia. Pottery from
the surrounding region resembles generalized Woodland ware,
especially that of the Initial Phase.
LINEAGE: The social group (including dead persons) whose members are
descended from some certain or mythical ancestor, either male or
female as the custom prevails, and which considers itself a distinct
social unit. (See also Extended Family.)
LITHIC: A term employed in this paper as embracing cultures roughly
equivalent to those of the Self-Domestication Stage, but without
pottery.
MANA: Superhuman power that primitive man believed to reside in certain
inanimate objects, in certain persons at times and in spirits, that
under suitable conditions could be transferred either wholly or in
part to other objects or persons. Improperly handled it was a source
of grave danger.
MIDDLE PHASE: The archaeological term for the highest development of the
Mississippi pattern in the United States. In Illinois it is
represented by the Cahokia and Cumberland subcultures.
MISSISSIPPI: The major archaeological pattern that succeeded the earlier
Woodland in most of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains
and High Plains and that was still in existence in some parts of
this country as late as 1700 A.D. It is characterized by relatively
intensive plant-raising, political government, walled villages,
temples (or sacred groves) and a priesthood, semi- to permanent
dwellings, pottery of varied shapes, with globular bodies and
secondary features, the bow and arrow.
MODOC ROCK SHELTER: An ancient settlement of Archaic peoples in Randolph
County, Illinois, dating from 8000 to 2100 B.C. See Bibliography
under Deuel, and Fowler and Winters.
MOUND: Any rise or hill of earth and/or stone that resulted from some
activity of man, such as refuse mound, shell mound, burial mound,
temple mound, etc. See BURIAL, EFFIGY, TEMPLE.
MOUND BUILDERS: A term having little significance, meaning any group
that erected mounds. In American archaeology it sometimes refers
specifically to Hopewellians, to Mississippians or to both.
MYTHOLOGY: See SACRED TRADITION.
OBSIDIAN: Volcanic glass, a material imported by Hopewellians possibly
from Wyoming. Rare in Illinois.
PALEO-INDIAN (See Clovis and Folsom): Hunters of big game who roamed
over North America in glacial times.
PATTERN: The largest archaeological unit in the McKern Classification
System.
PECKING: The process (other than chipping) by which a stone artifact was
brought to general shape by breaking off small particles with a
stone hammer.
PEOPLE: The term “people” as used in this paper does not refer to a
physical type but simply to cultural groups unless specifically
stated to the contrary.
PERIOD: Unless otherwise specifically stated, the word applies to a
cultural level regardless of time and place.
PHASE: The major division of the pattern as used in the McKern
Classification System.
PLANT-RAISING: The economy or cultural status of a cultural group who
grew food (and fibre) plants but were without domesticated
food-draft animals.
POLITICAL ORGANIZATION: A formalized social means of controlling the
members of a nation or tribe and compelling compliance with
established customs or laws with defined customary or lawful
penalties for violations together with the machinery for determining
equity, rights, or damages in non-criminal disputes through
governmental agencies such as officers (chiefs) and official bodies
(councils) regularly selected for these purposes.
POLISHING: A process by which the surface of a ground stone artifact was
brought to a high degree of smoothness and gloss by rubbing with
fine earth and water. It is readily distinguishable from polish due
to wear in digging.
PRIEST: Any person selected in a regular and customary manner for
religious office who by virtue of installation into that office and
acceptance of the duties is (believed to be) invested with the power
to communicate and intercede with members of the spirit world, a god
or gods or in certain instances to act for them on behalf of his
group.
PRIMITIVE PEOPLE: Refers to any people in the Self-Domestication Stage
and to the simple plant-growers of the Farming Period.
PROTOCULTURAL: A stage presumed to have existed prior to man’s discovery
of the principle of conchoidal fracturing of flint, when he used
native sticks and stones as tools, and sometimes by haphazard
breaking of these secured new forms more suitable for his purposes.
PROTOMISS: An abbreviated form for Protomississippi, the earliest known
subculture of the Middle (Mississippi) Phase in southwestern
Illinois. Dillinger is the type site.
RELIGION: The set of beliefs (Sacred Tradition), rules (tabus), and
activities (including rituals) that govern the life of a society
with regard to those superhuman forces with which the individual
feels himself surrounded and which neither he nor his group by
themselves can control. Religious practice includes prayers or
requests for the continuance of well-being and life’s necessities,
thanksgiving for past blessings, and a belief in the necessity of
right conduct of the individuals in their daily living. In all known
primitive religions, a belief in some form exists of spirit beings
and/or gods with superhuman powers. See FORMALIZED RELIGION.
ROCK SHELTER: An overhanging rock ledge facing away from the prevailing
wind that afforded protection to a primitive family from the
elements and wild animals.
ROUGH STONE: This term refers to stone used as it occurs in nature with
virtually no artificial modification other than that resulting from
use such as a common hammerstone, an unworked abrader, or a grinding
stone. The stone may have a relatively smooth surface due to natural
causes.
SACRED TRADITION: The term used here to signify the embodiment of the
significant (effective) beliefs and rules that governed the behavior
and activities of a primitive tribe in matters relating to the
unseen world of spirits (or gods) and unknown forces, which were
handed down from generation to generation. It is usually included in
the inept term “mythology” which may also contain tales and legends
that serve for mere entertainment.
SELF-DOMESTICATION STAGE: The earliest stage of true human culture which
began presumably with the discovery of controlled flint chipping and
the invention of flint tool types. During this stage, man is enabled
to secure a fairly constant food supply by hunting and collecting,
keeps his young under parental care and control for several years
and learns to accommodate himself more or less peaceably to his
family and to fellow tribesmen during brief periods of religious and
social gatherings.
SHAMAN: A person who by virtue of dreams or visions believes he can
communicate with spirits, obtain from them superhuman powers for the
benefit of his social group and tribe and who has demonstrated these
abilities over a greater or longer time to the satisfaction of his
fellows.
SHELLS, MARINE: Shells from the ocean or Gulf of Mexico, raw materials
secured by traders or through exchange for other goods. The most
common marine shells found in Illinois cultures are the _Cassis
madagascarensis_ (Hopewellian), the Busycon or Fulgar (Middle
Mississippi and Hopewellian), _Marginella_ (Initial Woodland,
Hopewellian and Middle Mississippi), _Oliva_ (Middle Mississippi),
and _Olivella_ (Hopewellian).
SOCIAL ASPECT: That division of primitive culture that is concerned
preeminently with preserving and stabilizing fundamental customs,
with the maintenance of peace and order within its primary social
units, and to this end, in the organization, functioning and
continuation of such units.
SOCIAL CONTROL: Any general social means by which a social or political
group preserves peace and order within itself and group protection
against outsiders (see Family-type and Political Agency).
SOCIAL STRUCTURE: The persisting system of significant relationships in
a society that prevails without regard to the particular individuals
involved.
SPEARHEADS: Projectile points 3 to 6 or 6½ inches long presumed to have
been used to tip spears.
SPEARTHROWER (ATLATL): A short stick by which increased leverage is
obtained in hurling a spear. It gives greater range and an accuracy
comparable to the bow at shorter distances.
SPEARTHROWER WEIGHT: A weight secured to the spearthrower for
controlling it and increasing the speed of the spear.
SPEAR, THRUSTING: A long spear that is fitted with a long, narrow head
generally without barbs or shoulders, that can be easily withdrawn
from a wound. It is primarily for use in the hand, not for throwing.
SPECIALIZATION (CRAFT): An occupation in which a man or household of a
primitive community engages primarily to the considerable exclusion
of the general economic pursuits or the remainder of his group. It
should not be confused with the production of a highly skilled
craftsman.
SPECIALIZATION (OF TOOLS): Applies to numerous variations in the forms
derived from a general artifact type presumably to accomplish better
and more easily certain special requirements of construction or
manufacture.
STAGE (CULTURAL): One of the major periods into which cultures may be
divided by virtue of its degree of development which depends
primarily on the fundamental invention that ushered it in.
SPIRITUAL ASPECT: That division of primitive culture concerned primarily
with tribal values, religion, recreation and the arts.
STATUS (CULTURAL): A subdivision of a stage. A substage.
STONE: Unless otherwise noted any kind of stone generally used by
primitive peoples for pecking, grinding and polishing into weapons,
tools, etc., for example, granite, greenstone, gneiss, shale,
limestone, basalt.
STONE VAULT GRAVE: A type of burial mound consisting chiefly of flat
stones enclosing a walled-up tomb chamber, the whole covered with
earth. In Illinois known at present only from Adams County.
STONE VAULT SUBCULTURE: A division of Final Woodland Phase that is
characterized by stone vault graves.
SUBCULTURE: Any archaeological grouping smaller than a phase.
SUBSTAGE or STATUS: A subdivision of a _Stage_ that develops as the
result of a significant invention, discovery of a special resource,
or some other condition of the surroundings.
TECHNOLOGY: The processes by which any artifact is produced.
TEEPEE: A conical framework of poles covered with bark, skins, brush,
mats, etc. used as a shelter or hut by primitive peoples.
TEMPERING: Foreign material such as sand, crushed limestone, plant
fibers, crushed shell, etc. mixed with the clay in pottery-making to
render the vessel less likely to crack in firing.
TEMPLE MOUND: A rectangular pyramid with a flat top on which a temple
was built. Similar mounds were used for council and chief’s houses
among historic Mississippi peoples. Flat-topped pyramidal mounds are
characteristic of the important Middle Mississippi sites in
Illinois.
THERMAL MAXIMUM: A time interval (roughly between 5000 and 2000 B.C.) in
which the climate was warmer and drier than at present.
TOMAHAWK: A hafted hatchet of stone or metal used in fighting.
TOTEM: An animal, plant or inanimate object that is regarded as the
symbol of a social or political group.
TUMPLINE: A sling or pack strap that rests on the forehead, passes over
the shoulders, and is used for carrying a load on the back.
TURKEY-TAIL: A large spearhead, broadly oval in the middle and
double-pointed with notches near one end.
TYPE STATION(S): The site (or sites) that at present seem, to the
author, to give the fullest view of life in a subculture, including
as far as possible a village (or camp) and burial site.
WAR (ARCHAIC): The blood feud. In the Archaic period, this was the
method of interfamily or intergroup retaliation for murder or other
serious injury to one family or local group by a member of another.
It was carried on by alternate sneak raids between the local
settlements involved, with the object of killing one or more members
of the group attacked, (destroying property), and escaping without
loss.
WAR (PLANT-RAISERS): Hostilities between plant-raising tribes were
pursued by sneak raids having for their objectives the surprise and
attack of villages, the ambush of enemy parties, and the capture of
prisoners. (Murder, black magic, and other crimes committed within
the tribe were generally dealt with by socio-judicial custom).
WATTLE AND DAUB: A framework of posts, interlaced with branches and
twigs and plastered over with clay for house and fortification walls
common in Middle Phase and probably in other periods.
WIGWAM: As used here, a roughly hemispherical hut having a framework of
poles set in the ground with their tops arched over and secured
together, the whole covered over with leafy branches, skins, bark,
mats or thatch.
WINDBREAK: A vertical or inclined framework of poles covered with
branches and leaves, skins, bark, etc. erected by primitive peoples
as a shelter against wind, sun, and storm.
WOODLAND: One of the major archaeological patterns of the eastern,
southern and central United States, characterized by plant-raising
(except possibly in its Initial Phase), by elongated globular clay
pots (with cord-roughened exteriors, pointed bottoms, and incised
line and punctate decoration), hamlets or small villages (except in
the Classic Phase), with flint spearheads (but no arrowheads except
in Final Phase).
WRAP-AROUND-SKIRT: A rectangular piece of clothing made of skin, fur, or
cloth worn by Hopewellian and Middle Mississippi women. It was
wrapped around the body from the waist to the knees or below and was
secured at the top by a belt or other means.
YUMA POINTS: Chipped spearheads of various general shapes including
leaf-shaped forms, without channeling.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ADVANCED (WOODLAND) PHASE
1951 Cole, F. C. et al in _The Baumer Focus_, in KINCAID, A
PREHISTORIC ILLINOIS METROPOLIS, pp. 184-210, University of
Chicago, Chicago (Baumer Subculture).
1951 Maxwell, Moreau S. _The Woodland Cultures in Southern
Illinois_, pp. 232-243. Beloit College, Beloit, Wisconsin
(Baumer Subculture).
1951 _Ibid._, pp. 78-183 (Crab Orchard Subculture).
Tennessee
1922 Harrington, M. R. _Cherokee and Earliest Remains on Upper
Tennessee River_, INDIAN NOTES AND MONOGRAPHS, No. 24, New York
(Round Grave People or Baumer Subculture).
1952 Kneberg, Madeline. _The Tennessee Area_ in Griffin, Ed.,
ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE EASTERN UNITED STATES, p. 192 and Fig. 102.,
University of Chicago, Chicago (Round Grave, Upper Valley or
Baumer).
ARCHAIC PHASE
1950 Deuel, Thorne. _Man’s Venture in Culture_, STORY OF ILLINOIS
SERIES, No. 6, pp. 5-12, Illinois State Museum, Springfield.
1957 Deuel, Thorne, _The Modoc Shelter_, REPORT OF INVESTIGATIONS,
No. 7, Springfield, revised and reprinted from _Natural
History_, October, 1957, pp. 400-405 (Simple and Medial).
1956 Fowler, Melvin L. and Winters, Howard. _Modoc Rock Shelter,
Preliminary Report_, REPORT OF INVESTIGATIONS, No. 4, Illinois
State Museum, Springfield. (Simple and Medial).
1957 Fowler, Melvin L. _Ferry Site, Hardin County, Illinois_,
SCIENTIFIC PAPERS SERIES, Vol. VIII, No. 1, Illinois State
Museum, Springfield. (Terminal Subculture).
1950 Titterington, P. F. _Some Non-Pottery Sites in the St. Louis
Area_ in ILLINOIS STATE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL, N.S. Vol. I,
pp. 19-31 (Terminal Subculture).
Tennessee
1947 Lewis, T. M. N. and Kneberg, Madeline. _The Archaic Horizon in
Western Tennessee_, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (Eva
focus or subculture).
United States generally
1957 Wormington, H. M. _Ancient Man in North America_, POPULAR
SERIES, No. 4, 4th Edition, revised, Denver (Archaic and
Paleo-Indian Assemblages).
CLASSIC (HOPEWELLIAN) PHASE
1937 Cole, F. C. and Deuel, Thorne. _Rediscovering Illinois_, pp.
130-191. University of Chicago, Chicago.
1952 Deuel, Thorne, Ed. _Hopewellian Communities_, SCIENTIFIC PAPERS
SERIES, Vol. V, Illinois State Museum, Springfield.
1957 Fowler, Melvin L. _Rutherford Mound, Hardin County, Illinois_,
SCIENTIFIC PAPERS SERIES, Vol. VII, No. 1, Illinois State
Museum, Springfield.
MIDDLE (MISSISSIPPI) PHASE
Cahokia Subculture
1937 Cole, F. C. and Deuel, Thorne. _Rediscovering Illinois_, pp.
75-94, 111-125, 127, University of Chicago, Chicago.
1928 Moorehead, W. K. _The Cahokia Mounds_, University of Illinois,
BULLETIN, Vol. 26, No. 4, Urbana.
1939 Simpson, A. M. _The Kingston Village Site_, Peoria Academy of
Science, Peoria. (Privately printed.)
1952 Smith, Hale G. _The Crable Site, Fulton County, Illinois_,
ANTHROPOLOGY PAPERS No. 7, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
1938 Titterington, P. F. _The Cahokia Mound Group and Its Village
Site Materials_, St. Louis. (Privately printed.)
Cahokia Subculture (Wisconsin)
1933 Barrett, S. A. _Ancient Aztalan_, BULL. PUBLIC MUSEUM OF
MILWAUKEE, Vol. 13.
Cumberland Subculture
1951 Cole, F. C. et al. _Kincaid, A Prehistoric Illinois
Metropolis_, pp. 29-164, 293-366, University of Chicago,
Chicago.
Cumberland Subculture (Tennessee)
1928 Myer, William, Ed. _Two Prehistoric Villages in Middle
Tennessee_, 41st ANNUAL REPORT, BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY,
pp. 485-614, Washington.
Cumberland Subculture (Kentucky)
1929 Webb, William S. and Funkhouser, W. D. _The Williams Site in
Christian County, Kentucky_, UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY REPORTS IN
ANTHROPOLOGY AND ARCHAEOLOGY, Vol. I, No. 1, pp. 5-23 followed
by 36 figs., Lexington.
PALEO-INDIAN PHASE
1954 Kleine, Harold K. _A Remarkable Paleo-Indian Site in Alabama_
in TEN YEARS OF THE TENNESSEE ARCHAEOLOGIST, Lewis and Kneberg,
Ed., reprinted from TENNESSEE ARCHAEOLOGIST, 1954.
1951 Smail, William. _Some Early Projectile Points from the St.
Louis Area_, in ILLINOIS STATE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL, N. S.,
Vol. II, No. 1, pp. 11-16.
1957 Wormington, H. M. _Ancient Man in North America_, POPULAR
SERIES, No. 4, 4th Edition, revised, Denver.
UPPER (MISSISSIPPI) PHASE
1927 Langford, George, Sr. _The Fisher Mound Group, Successive
Aboriginal Occupations near the Mouth of the Illinois River_,
in AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Vol. XXIX, No. 3, pp. 153-206,
Menasha.
FINAL WOODLAND
Bluff Subculture
1935 Titterington, P. F. _Certain Bluff Mounds of Western Jersey
County, Illinois_ in AMERICAN ANTIQUITY, Vol. I, No. 1, pp.
6-46.
1943 Titterington, P. F. _The Jersey County, Illinois, Bluff
Culture_, in AMERICAN ANTIQUITY, Vol. IX, No. 2, pp. 240-245.
Effigy Mound Subculture (Wisconsin)
1932 Barrett, S. A. and Skinner, Alanson. _Certain Mound and Village
Sites of Shawano and Oconto Counties, Wisconsin_, BULL. PUBLIC
MUSEUM OF MILWAUKEE, Vol. 10, No. 5, Milwaukee.
1928 McKern, W. C. _The Neal and McClaughry Mound Groups_, BULL.
PUBLIC MUSEUM OF MILWAUKEE, Vol. 3, No. 3, Milwaukee.
1933 Nash, Philleo. _The Excavation of the Ross Mound Group I_,
BULL. PUBLIC MUSEUM OF MILWAUKEE, Vol. 16, No. 1.
1956 Rowe, Chandler. _The Effigy Mound Culture of Wisconsin_,
MILWAUKEE PUBLIC MUSEUM PUBLICATIONS IN ANTHROPOLOGY, No. 3.
Lewis Subculture
1951 Cole, F. C. et al. _The Lewis Focus_ in KINCAID, A PREHISTORIC
ILLINOIS METROPOLIS, pp. 165-183, University of Chicago,
Chicago.
Raymond Subculture
1952 Maxwell, Moreau S. _Archaeology of the Lower Ohio Valley_ in
Griffin, Ed., COLE ANNIVERSARY VOLUME, ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE
EASTERN UNITED STATES, pp. 186-187 and Fig. 100, University of
Chicago, Chicago.
1951 Maxwell, Moreau S. _The Woodland Cultures in Southern
Illinois_, pp. 78-172, 194-211, Beloit College, Beloit,
Wisconsin.
Stone Vault Subculture
1935 Thurber, O. D. _New Type of Burial Mound Near Quincy_ in
TRANSACTIONS ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE, Springfield,
Vol. XXVIII, No. 2, pp. 67-68.
1910 Fowke, Gerard. _Antiquities of Central and Southeastern
Missouri_, BULL. BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY, No. 37,
Washington.
Tampico Subculture
1937 Cole, F. C. and Deuel, Thorne. _Rediscovering Illinois_, pp.
191-198, University of Chicago, Chicago.
ILLINI TRIBES
1934 Pease, Theodore Calvin and Werner, Raymond C. THE FRENCH
FOUNDATIONS, 1680-1693 (_Memoirs of De Gannes_ by Sieur
Deliette) pp. 302-395, Springfield, Illinois.
1958 Temple, Wayne C. _Historic Tribes, Part 2 of Indian Villages of
the Illinois Country_ by Sara J. Tucker and Wayne Temple,
SCIENTIFIC PAPERS SERIES, Vol. II, Illinois State Museum,
Springfield.
INITIAL (WOODLAND) PHASE
1937 Cole, F. C. and Deuel, Thorne. _Rediscovering Illinois_ (Red
Ochre, pp. 57-69; Black Sand, pp. 69-75, 136-149; Morton, pp.
39-46, 126, 128-130; 102-104, 106-108), University of Chicago,
Chicago.
CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL UNITS
ARCHAEOLOGICAL UNITS
ARTIFACTS[20]
RECONSTRUCTION OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL FEATURES
RECONSTRUCTION OF RELIGIOUS, ARTISTIC, AND RECREATIONAL FEATURES
PALEO-INDIAN PHASE 50,000(?)-8000 B.C.(?)
Narrow leaf-shaped spearheads
Folsom points
Clovis points
Stone hammer (?)
Flint scrapers (?)
Personal ornaments (?)
Thrusting weapons
Simple family (?)
Lineage in male line (?)
Big game hunting
Roving habits following herd
Temporary camps
Energy sources for labor, travel and transportation wholly human
Religion based on spirits, mana and on the chief game species hunted
(?)
ARCHAIC PHASE 8000-2500 B.C.
Stone hammers, rough or pitted
Broad barbed flint spearheads
Flint dartheads
Flint scrapers
Flint awls
Chipped choppers
Spearthrower (atlatl) weights
Grooved stone axes (ground)
Ground stone celts
Chipped flint digging tools (hoes)
Small area settlement sites in the open
Rock shelters
Post holes in line
Necklaces and pendants
Plummets
Copper tools
Dog bones
Bone-awls
Whet- or abrading stones
Bannerstones (with cylindrical hole)
Flexed burials in Medial and Terminal subculture
Projectile weapon
Hunting of deer and small mammals and collecting edible plants, clams,
etc.
Technologies: flint-chipping, pecking, grinding and polishing of
stone, grinding and polishing bone, boring bone and stone with
flint drills and with tube, sand and water, making string
(from hides and [?] plant-fibers), weaving (?), basket-making
(?)
Dog the only domesticated animal
Marriage
Family
Extended family or lineage
“Independent” local groups
Windbreaks or flimsy shelters
Family hunting territory
Rotating hamlet
Non-political tribe
“Family-type” social control
Puberty rites (Initiation ceremonies)
Tribal elders and temporary headmen
Insignia possibly as social acceptance of personal achievement, or as
family crest
Belief in friendly and ancestral spirits, in mana and in revelation by
vision or dream
Sacred tradition (“mythology”)
The shaman—intercessor with spirits and healer of sick—magic medicines
Fertility ceremonies—to insure abundant game and to perpetuate sacred
traditions
Recreational activities and creative arts practiced chiefly in
connection with religious ceremonies
Funeral rites for all deceased tribal members
Socially important persons on death given special care and preparation
for burial, and possibly buried in a specially selected place
Mourning period for dead
Food and grave offerings left especially for important dead
INITIAL (WOODLAND) PHASE 1500-500 B.C.
Elongated globular pots with pointed (conoidal) bases
Copper ornaments
Burial mounds and cemeteries
Probably very similar to Archaic
Copper breastplate or gorgets
Socially important persons buried in mounds (?)
Very similar to Archaic
Dog graves in burial mounds
ADVANCED (WOODLAND) PHASE 1000(?)-100(?) B.C.
Numerous storage pits containing acorn and hickory nut remains
Medium-sized settlement sites
Post holes outlining a square area
Post holes outlining a circular or oval area
Flat-bottomed flaring-walled Woodland pots (“flower pots”)
Polished stone gorgets
Burials in settlement sites
Storage of acorns, nuts and seeds
Larger population concentrations of perhaps a 100 or 150 persons
Semi- to permanent log dwellings, logs upright
Possibly insignia or badges of leadership or individual prowess
Religion probably transitional between Archaic and plant-raising types
CLASSIC (WOODLAND) PHASE [HOPEWELLIAN] 500 B.C.-500 A.D.
Chipped limonite hoes
Charred maize kernels and cobs (and in Ohio, beans and squash seeds)
Cloth and feather cloth remains
Basketry, matting and colored textile impressions
Marine shell vessels
Tortoise shell dishes
River mussel shell spoons with “handles”
Excellent polished black and painted pottery with occasional variation
of form—shallow bowls, beakers, effigy and globular shapes
A coarser duty Woodland ware with elongated bodies and pointed or
flattened bases
Large areas with village refuse and numerous mounds
Post holes outlining an oval or circular area (rare)
Pottery statuettes showing dress and ornaments worn
Jewelry of copper, silver, meteoric iron, cut and polished shell
beads, small marine shells, bears teeth sometimes set with
copper, pearls or colorful stones, etc.
Ear ornaments of copper, etc.
Marine shells from south Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of United States
Mica from North Carolina
Obsidian from Wyoming (?)
Copper from Lake Superior region
Galena from northwestern Illinois
Native pearls from river clams
Gorgets of stone, shell and copper (breastplates)
Pearls and ground shell beads distributed over the torso of skeleton
Deer antlers near human skull in grave
Cut maxillaries (more rarely mandibles) of bear or man on skeletons as
if worn as pendants
_Cassis madagascarensis_ shell vessels
Copper hatchets and adzes etc.
Platform type tobacco pipes
Medium to large “dome-shaped” burial mounds enclosing
Log (rarely stone) tomb chambers
Bundle burials and ossuaries in mounds with central tomb (northern
Illinois)
Cemeteries near mounds (southern Illinois)
Bodies buried generally in extended position rarely flexed and often
accompanied by pots, weapons and artistic products
“Pipes of Pan”
Beautifully chipped broad spearheads of special subtypes
Effigy dagger with sheath made from bears’ teeth
Planting-raising economy supplemented by hunting and collecting
Crops: Maize, beans, squash, tobacco
Weaving of cloth, basket- and mat-making
Clothing: Wrap-around-skirt for women, breech cloth for men,
supplemented by robes in cold weather, feather cloth robes in
ceremonies. Mocassins for women and probably for men.
Large villages (or clusters of villages) as well as small settlements
The wigwam (for lower classes?)
Possibly log cabin dwellings for highest social class, logs laid
horizontal as in tomb chambers
Rise of wealth, rich and extensive trade
Dug-out boats (?)
Two or three social classes seem to be indicated by burial customs
Chiefs—a political form of government, with some of the clans,
possibly bear, wolverine and bobcat, predominant in certain
areas
A tribe organized either politically or into clans with subsidiary
districts or villages and political or clan chiefs.
Chiefs may have worn deer antler headdresses.
Chiefs probably wore feather headdresses, feather cloth robes, mantles
embroidered with pearls shells and cut shell beads, and other
insignia of office.
Tomb chambers probably for chiefs with relatives and retainers slain
to accompany them
Chief person in tomb sometimes woman (May indicate matrilineal descent
or simply ranking woman of highest caste)
Maxillary (jaw) pendants worn maybe as trophies of war and hunt, or to
indicate clan of a chief (?)
Doubtless the pipe served (as it did later) as a safe conduct to
visiting officials, travellers and traders, and a signature
and seal to important agreements whether economic, political
or intertribal
Probably a formalized religion based on the chief food plant, maize
Regularly appointed priests
The priest probably wore feather robes and insignia of rank and
position
Religion probably included ceremonies connected with plant- or
maize-raising
Deities or gods with special powers related to food-raising, etc.
The spring or planting festival
The green corn or first fruits festival
The harvest festival and perhaps minor festivals revolving about the
deer
High-ranking priests were probably of the highest caste and their
bodies given special care on death, elaborate funeral
ceremonies and burial in the tomb chambers of mounds, with
tribal mourning
Beautiful pipes either with or without long wooden items probably
figured largely in the religious ceremonies
Shamans probably still practiced the healing art (and black magic).
They probably used herbals instead of mineral medicines
High development of art in pottery, ceramic, copper and stone
sculpture, in engraving on bone in personal adornment and
technological expertness
FINAL (WOODLAND) PHASE 200(?)-1000 A.D.
Boatstones and bar “amulets”
L-shaped pipe, long-stemmed
Crude flint arrowheads
Flexed and semi-flexed skeletons in mound graves and tomb chambers
Except for above, much like Initial Phase
Spear and spearthrower still the chief weapon, weights tied (?) to
spearthrower
Small hamlets
Bow and arrow known but as yet ineffective as a practical weapon
Otherwise very similar to Initial Phase
Religion probably with shamans rather than priests and a mixture of
Initial and Classic Phase religious beliefs and practices and
superstitions
Some considerable sanctity probably still attached to tobacco, tobacco
smoke and the pipe
Shamans undoubtedly still practiced the healing arts (as well as black
magic) and possibly simple religious rites
MIDDLE (MISSISSIPPI) PHASE 1000-1500 A.D.
Hoes of chipped flint and numerous digging tools
Charred maize kernels and cobs
Large settlement areas with flat-topped pyramidal mounds, with cabin
remains on summits, surrounded by palisade remains in low
ridges of earth
Post holes and/or trenches outlining rectangular house floors. Fired
clay from wattle and daub structure, burned house with charred
thatch, timbers, rafters, mats, etc.
Fire pits or fireplaces within house
Fine polished black and painted wares with globular and flattened
globular bodies, in many shapes—water bottles, shallow bowls,
beakers, ollas or jars and effigy forms
An excellent, dull-gray service ware with similar varieties of shapes
An excellent storage ware of medium to large size, chiefly globular in
form
Busycon, marginella, olivella shells from south Atlantic and Gulf
Coasts
Copper from Lake Superior region
Busycon dippers and drinking cups
L-shaped pipe (“equal armed” and and medium long-stemmed varieties)
Massive effigy stone pipes
Skeletons, in extended positions, (distributed) in single and multiple
graves throughout mounds and in cemeteries
Pottery Vessels, weapon heads, jewelry, and polished stone discoidals,
etc. associated with skeletons
Shell gorgets engraved with realistic and conventional designs
Repoussee copper eagle gorgets or plaques
Copper sheeted ornaments and jewelry of pottery, bone, shell, wood and
leather
Polished stone disks or “wheels”
Ground and squared astragalus bone of deer and elk
Intensive maize growing with other crops supplemented by hunting
Repeating weapon (bow and arrows)
Energy sources for labor and transportation still entirely human
The finer pottery and burials in mounds and cemeteries may reflect
class differences. The extension of the pottery shapes from
the fine black ware to the less decorative service ware may
indicate an improvement of lower class conditions over those
in Hopewellian times
Clothing much like Hopewellian in general styles
Large villages, small cities and small villages
Large centers or cities had temples and tribal officers’ cabins on
flat-topped mounds, and were protected by palisades and/or mud
walls
Dwellings semi- to permanent, with rectangular floors, vaulted or
gabled roofs of thatch, walls consisting of vertical posts,
wattle and daub construction, covered inside and out with
mats, sometimes possibly bark-covered. Cabin remains numerous.
Dug-out boats (?)
Wealth considerable. Trade in fewer materials than in Hopewellian
Two or three social classes present in population as in Hopewellian
Probably a political government with tribal and war chiefs and village
chiefs. Head tribal chief may have been chief priest also, or
a member of his family may have filled later office. War chief
probably also member of ruling caste (as among Natchez). Other
war chiefs probably of other classes, rank based on their past
deeds
Tribal and war chief. In some villages, village chief possibly had
dwellings on pyramid tops
Headdresses, probably with feathers, and regalia, including
feather-cloth robes were probably worn on tribal occasions of
importance
Calumet pipe doubtless served as safe conduct to travellers and
visiting officials, as seal and signature to important
agreements. Effigy stone pipes may have been Middle Phase
calumet pipe since it had to be smoked with a stem
War parties still of simple or no organization except leader and
followers, object to take prisoners but not territory
Religious ceremonial centers or cities existed to which outlying
smaller village populations journeyed for religious festivals
Priesthood with appropriate dress and regalia
Temples or sacred groves for worship
Religion with deities having special powers relating to maize-growing.
Veneration or worship of ancestors
Spring, first fruits, and harvest festivals
Tobacco smoke, tobacco pipes used in ceremonies as incense offerings
Athletic games form part of ceremonies
Shamans still exist but chiefly for healing, etc. as among
Hopewellians
High-ranking officials and priests buried in graves in mounds. Usual
preparation of body, burial, mourning periods, elaborated
proportionately to the rank of the deceased.
Art well developed
Games of chance were probably known and played
UPPER PHASE 1100(?)-1600 A.D.
Note: These are fringe groups in relation to Middle and Lower phases,
living in more wooded regions perhaps, where game was
especially abundant and topography less favorable to
plant-raising by a backward culture and where the social
impetus for high cultural development was largely lacking
Artifacts are a mixture of Woodland and Mississippi types
Generally a single pottery ware with both elongated and globular pots
is characteristic and there is little other specialization of
form
A hunting-collecting economy with plant-raising probably in
garden-like plots
Large and small villages
A social development similar to but simpler than the Middle Phase,
probably a combination of Woodland and Mississippi elements
A religion based on plant-raising but probably with considerable
emphasis on chief animals hunted.
Sacred groves and shrines, possibly temples in some of larger villages
No pyramidal mounds
Dead buried in mounds and in cemeteries
CONTACT PHASE (ILLINI) 1673-1833 A.D.
Note: The artifacts of all tribes in the historic period probably
became gradually much the same regardless of their prior
cultural status due to deterioration of native technology and
trading of furs for European tools, weapons, cloth, etc.
Arrowheads of chipped flint, and native-made of European copper, brass
or iron
Numerous trade articles such as glass beads, gun parts, copper or
brass kettles, bottles for wine, olives, etc. and other
objects of European production
Native stone molds and cast lead balls (for guns) and native chipped
gun flints
Rectangular L-shaped (“Siouan type”) pipes of catlinite and other
stone. Micmac pipes after 1700.
Bow and arrows preferred in war because they could be discharged more
rapidly than gun could be loaded and fired. Guns and
ammunition often not available
Little knowledge of proper care of guns, and no attempt to manufacture
guns and powder, or iron knives, copper kettles, etc.
Society largely disorganized, prestige of chiefs largely a matter of
personal prowess and reputation with some regard for earlier
methods of appointment and succession.
Religion practiced by a fraction of tribe but falling into dispute
without adequate substitute
Probably appointment and succession of priests more or less regular
and based on earlier customs.
FOOTNOTES
[5]All dates, even those determined by radiocarbon methods, should be
taken as only roughly approximate.
[6]These dates and those given hereafter refer to the earliest and
latest sites known in Illinois for the cultures under consideration.
Although supported by radiocarbon dating methods, they are only
approximate. Undoubtedly also cultures in one area disappeared while
they continued to flourish in another part of the state or in other
states.
[7]Generally speaking, each succeeding higher culture in the area made
most of the tool and weapon types of their predecessors, adding
certain improvements and sometimes new types. The Archaic people
used flint scrapers, chipped flint choppers, and native cobblestone
hammers as had the Paleo-Indians. The narrow-bladed spearheads were
occasionally made but the fluting or channel is practically always
lacking. Polished stone forms, possibly the spearthrower, were new
inventions in Archaic times.
[8]In the page that follows a tentative reconstruction of the less
tangible customs of these people will be presented, based on a study
of several tribes now or recently in the Archaic status. The Archaic
culture as used in this paper refers to those tribes who lived
mainly by hunting, supplemented to a degree by collecting native
edible plant foods. They are distinguished here from other peoples
of the Stone Age or non-farming stage—from Big Game Hunters on the
one hand (none of whom exist today) and on the other, from Food
Stores, who were able by one means or another to store food over one
or more seasons and so establish more or less fixed homes. The
peoples recently living in the Archaic status include the native
tribes of Central and Coastal Australia, the Tasmanians, the Andaman
Island tribes, the Terra del Fuegians, the African Bushmen and a
number of others.
[9]The Initial Woodland in Illinois is usually considered to consist of
three cultural divisions or units, the Black Sand, the Red Ochre and
the Morton. The only known Red Ochre sites are mounds which
undoubtedly are the burial places of important personages of a
cultural group whose campsites and artifact assemblages have not as
yet been identified as such. The graves yield a number of artifact
types that are identical with those found in Black Sand villages. It
is possible the Red Ochre mounds belong to the Black Sand people and
that the mounds and special burial customs may have been continued
into or adopted by the Morton cultural group and served still later
as a framework for the highly elaborated Hopewellian funeral
practices.
[10]The narrow-bladed leaf-shaped spearhead, well-chipped and without
fluting, reminiscent of the general Yuma, Folsom and Clovis shape,
are found in the Red Ochre subculture and are worthy of note. This
type appears rarely in campsites but occurs in relatively large
numbers in mounds. Profuse amounts of red ochre are found in graves
as in Terminal Archaic (Titterington focus) in western Illinois.
Copper ornaments may indicate Wisconsin (Old Copper Culture)
influence.
[11]The Poole village (Pike County) is dated 550 B.C. and the Wilson
Mound (White County) about 89 B.C. The Poole village appears to have
been occupied from 550 B.C. to 200 A.D.
[12]Civilization, as used in this paper, signifies exhaustive
exploitation of the natural resources and accompanying significant
elaborations of the social and spiritual aspects (as exemplified by
ceremonies, regalia, insignia, art and extensive architectural
structures), accomplished by means of specialization of the existing
tools and technologies, with or without fundamental inventive
developments. Artisans of the Initial and Final Woodland cultures
seem to have practiced all the crafts employed by Hopewellians but
failed to produce the beautiful chipped spearheads, “pipes of pan”,
excellent sculpture in stone and pottery, etching in bone, the
extensive earthworks and the mounds with timbered burial chambers.
Perhaps some additional stimuli—the introduction of maize or the
intensification of its cultivation, a satisfying new religion with
stirring ceremonies together with intergroup competition—gave the
spiritual impetus that produced the Hopewellian fluorescence.
[13]Specialization was foreshadowed in the Red Ochre culture but the
small total of grave offerings discovered to date fail to
demonstrate any greater leisure than occurs at favorable times among
any simple hunting people.
[14]An early subculture termed Old Village preceding the generally known
Middle Mississippi (Trappist or Bean Pot) period has been proposed
on the strength of stratification at the Cahokia village near East
St. Louis. Although this appears logically sound, the evidence has
not been published and no pure Old Village site has yet been found
and reported upon.
[15]Except where noted as based directly on archaeological evidence, the
broad cultural features suggested in the rest of this section, are
inferred from similar customs found generally among tribes in the
plant-raising status without food-draft animals. The results were
derived by the writer from a study of anthropological reports of the
following tribes or groups of tribes: Polynesians, Delawares,
Natchez (and their neighbors) and the western Pueblo Indians. The
Pueblos, in their social, political and religious customs and
institutions have been for seven hundred years in a transitional
status between the Archaic hunters (or possibly “food storers”) and
a “fully-developed” plant-raising stage.
[16]The archaeological evidence for this section is chiefly from _The
Fisher Mound Group_, etc. by George Langford in the AMERICAN
ANTHROPOLOGY, Vol. XXIX, No. 3, pp. 153-205 (July-September, 1927).
[17]These Indians called themselves Ilini (pronounced Il´-i-nee) or
Illini signifying “man,” in the plural Illiniwek, “the men.” The
French dropped the -iwek and substituted their own ending whence the
name Illinois by which they were generally known thereafter. In this
booklet Illini will be generally used to designate these tribes,
their culture and language to avoid confusion with other tribes who,
like the Sauk, Fox, Kickapoo, Potawatomi, and Miami, have occupied
parts of the state and are sometimes called Illinois Indians.
[18]Information given on historic tribes is from notes and manuscript
assembled by Dr. Wayne C. Temple.
[19]The term _calumet_, originally applied to the stem of the tobacco
pipe, is now generally used to designate the pipe and stem. “It is
fashioned from a red stone, polished like marble, and bored in such
a manner that one end serves as a receptacle for the tobacco, while
the other fits into the stem; this is a stick two feet long, as
thick as an ordinary cane, and bored through the middle. It is
ornamented with the heads and necks of various birds, whose plumage
is very beautiful. To these they also add large feathers—red, green,
and other colors—wherewith the whole is adorned. They have a great
regard for it....” (R. G. Thwaites, ed., _The Jesuit Relations_,
Vol. LIX, p. 131.) The war calumet differed from that of peace and
was decorated with red feathers. See Fig. 34, A.
[20]Artifact types having once appeared are likely to appear again in
subsequent culture even though rare or even lacking in some
intervening assemblages (e.g. necklaces of anculosa beads of
similarly ground [snail] shells found from Medial Archaic through
Middle Phase; grooved axes from Medial Archaic to Mississippi but
rare or lacking in most subcultures and cultures except Archaic and
Initial Woodland). On account of unwieldiness of complete
accumulative lists only new artifact types when they first appear
will be recorded here. Exceptions: 1) the name of an artifact
entered as probably present (indicated by a following ?) will be
repeated in the first subsequent culture in which definite evidence
for it has been reported and 2) when an artifact once reported
assumes a new form or presumably takes on a new significance (e.g.
Archaic hoe becomes a tool of the plant-raisers in Classic and
Middle Phases), it will appear again in the text.
STORY OF ILLINOIS SERIES.
No. 1. Story of Illinois: Indian and Pioneer, by V. S. Eifert.
No. 2. Mammals of Illinois Today and Yesterday, by V. S. Eifert.
No. 3. Exploring for Mushrooms, by V. S. Eifert.
No. 4. Flowers that Bloom in the Spring, by V. S. Eifert.
No. 5. Invitation to Birds, by V. S. Eifert.
No. 6. Man’s Venture in Culture, by Thorne Deuel.
No. 7. The Past Speaks to You, by Ann Livesay.
No. 8. Common Insects of Illinois, by A. Gilbert Wright.
No. 9. American Indian ways of Life, by Thorne Deuel.
No. 10. Amphibians of Illinois, by Paul W. Parmalee.
No. 11. The Fossils of Illinois, by Carlton Condit.
_Cost:_ 25c each; 20c each in lots of 25 or more
_Address all enquiries to the_ Museum Director,
Illinois State Museum, Springfield, Illinois
(80513—6-58)
Transcriber’s Notes
—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
is public-domain in the country of publication.
—Silently corrected a few palpable typos.
—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
_underscores_.
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