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| MOUNDBUILDERS OF BURLINGTON WISCONSIN BACK TO MOUND BUILDERS HOME PAGE THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE MOUND BUILDERS source [The Lenape] discovered that the country east of the Mississippi was inhabited by a very powerful white, red haired nation who had many large towns built on the great rivers flowing through their land. Those people (as I was told) called themselves TALLIGEW or T-ALLEGWI. They are said to have been remarkably tall and stout, and there were GIANTS AMONG THEM, people of a much larger size than the tallest of the Lenape. (Moundbuilders of Ancient America, by Robert Silverberg So the Hopewell Indians called themselves TALLEGWI. This is, of course, the same ancient TELL or TALO root which is found in Finnish TALOSSA, the TALAYOTIC culture of the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean off the east coast of Spain, and the BEAKER (Canaanite/Pictish) cultures of Toulouse, France. (See our article, Unraveling the Origins of the Mysterious Olmec!). Notes R. Ben Madison: "If any more proof were needed, it is this: The same Lenape legend refers to these Talossans both as Tallegwi and as Alligewi, with or without the initial T. This is a fundamental Berber phenomenon: in Morroccan Berber, for example, the name of the ethnic group is Amazigh, while the name of the language is Tamazight. The T functions as an article or gender marker. The SAME grammatical feature appears to be at work among the Hopewell: ALLIGEWI = Amazigh; TALLEGWI = Tamazight. This alternation, with and without the initial T, only makes sense in one human language, and that is Berber" (The Berber Project. Second (Revised) Edition. 1997. P. 19). When the migrating Lenni Lenape reached the Mississippi River, they "sent a message to the Talegas, requesting permission to settle in their neighborhood as friends and allies." The Red Record goes on to describe what happened next: The Talega king denied this request, but promised to permit the Lenape to pass through his lands to find homes farther east. Peacefully, the Lenape began to cross the Mississippi. But when the Talega King saw how numerous the Lenape were, he became frightened, and ordered his warriors to attack. Talega war canoes swept across the river as armored Talega regiments massacred the Lenape who had already crossed. Enraged by this treachery, the Lenape vowed to "Conquer or die!" and joined with their Iroquois allies in an epic war of vengeance. Led by Sharp One (IV:55), the Lenape forces stormed across the Mississippi, defeating the Talegas, and besieging and capturing many of the Talega towns. -- Pp. 107-108. After a long and difficult struggle, Talega resistance was crushed (V:57-59). The Red Record shows that four sachems [chiefs] came and went before the final victory (V:55-59). The war between the Lenape-Iroquois allies and the Talega must have been fierce, with the final sieges of the Talega Wars among the largest battles ever fought in ancient America. Formidable earthworks from this period can be found throughout the Ohio Valley. One such stronghold, Fort Ancient, had palisaded walls 13 feet high and 5 miles long, and could hold up to 10,000 people. -- P. 111. As we have seen, both Iroquois and Algonquian Indian legends tell of wars against the Mound-builders -- whom they called "the Snakes" (Serpents represent Wisdom) It is on record that an elderly Indian informant in the mid-19th century recalled that the "First Dispersion" of his people -- the Mound-builders -- began in the eastern United States, near the Alleghany mountains of Pennsylvania ("Oral Literature and Archaeology," by Robert J. Salzer. The Wisconsin Archaeologist (1993). P. 101); this refers to the breakup of the Hopewell "interaction sphere." The Lenni Lenape also recalled (in The Red Record) in the late 18th century that "many hundreds of years ago" their ancestors indeed went to war with the Mound-builders in what is now Michigan, which would have to be Hopewell country. Missionary John Heckwelder recounted this bit of Lenape oral history in 1819 -- which describes the breakup of the Hopewell "interaction sphere": Having thus united their forces the Lenape and Mengwe [Iroquois] declared war against the Alligewi [Tallegwi], and great battles were fought in which many warriors fell on both sides....No quarter was given, so that the Alligewi at last, finding that their destruction was inevitable if they persisted in their obstinacy, abandoned the country to the conquerors and fled down the Mississippi River, from whence they never returned. -- Mound Builders of Ancient America, 54f). This is, without doubt, an accurate account of wars against the Hopewell by the Algonquians and Iroquois -- both of whom were invading the American Midwest at this time. Especially interesting is the fact that the Hopewell fled south, down the Mississippi River, and never returned. Also, they fled to the far Southwest. In the Southwest we find a very similar culture again with a mysterious past . Could they have taken flight and re-located in the land of their cousins at Pueblo Bonito. If they did, then the story of the Mound Builders in Burlington WI may be even more of intrique than originally thought and linking the Mississippian culture to Chaco Canyon. See Chaco Canyon The people of Chaco Canyon , the hub of the Anasazi world., archaeologists realized from the architure had am INTIMATE KNOWLEDGE OF THE SUN AND THE STARS. The great kiva at Casa Rinconada in Chaco Canyon has a main doorway that faces celestial north. "This is the fixed point in the nighttime sky round which all stars seem to revolve. Four huge wooden pillars once defined the cardinal directions, symbolizing the four trees that Earth people once climbed to reach their homeland" . At solstice sunrise the rays of the sun enter to the right of the doorway and shine into a niche in the northeast wall -- marking the northernmost journey of the sun. The semi-circular plaza was surrounded by more than 800 rooms at the town's peak, all within easy reach of the sacred kivas that were the heart of the settlement. Archaelogist Stephen Lekson of the Natioanl Park Service tells about nine major Chacoan "Great Houses" that had been erected -- each a massive undertaking--estimating that each room required 40 beams, each from a separate pine or fir tree growing in a forest nearly 40 miles away -- to say nothing of tons of stone and clay! In the early 1900s some of the pioneer archaeologists who excavated at Pueblo Bonito noticed what appeared to be the remains of tracks converging on Chaco Canyon from the outside. "It is only in the past twenty years," writes Brian Fagan, "that AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHS and SATELLITE IMAGERY have revealed the full extent of the web of more than 400 miles of unpaved PREHISTORIC ROADWAYS that link Chaco to over thirty outlying settlements. The Chacoans had no wheeled carts or draft animals, yet they constructed wide roads across the desert, shallow tracks up to 40 ft wide, cut a few inches into the soil, sometimes marked by shallow banks or even low stone walls. The highways run straight for many miles, some of them 40 to 60 miles long, connecting as many as half-a-dozen settlements to one another and to Chaco" In its own way, the Chaco road system is as imposing as that of the South American Incas. We are yet unsure as to the purpose of the roads, being that they seem to lead no where. In Arizona we can find literally hundreds of towns that were built in these rocky canyons. Even today these stuctures of stone and adobe give testimony about the level of cultural development attained by these inhabitants. The most well-known of these towns is Casa Grandes, located in the San Miguel River Valley in Chihuahua, Mexico -- where hundreds of these huts can still be found. They are also located in the Gila River basin in Arizona. The Gila River flows from the eastern mountains of the Southwest into the mighty Colorado River -- through a mesquite-studded desert landscape. The summers are intensely hot in this semi-arid country, but the banks of the Gila were a veritable oasis, with fertile soil and abundant wildlife. In this area University of Arizona archaeologist Emil Haury excavated the MOUNDS known as Snaketown -- so-called after the Pima Indian name of Skoaquik: "Place of Snakes." This is extemely important because the snake was central to the ritual and artistic functions of the Mound-builders of the Mississippi Valley, and was also the name ("the Snakes") given to the Tallegewi by the Lenni Lenape! Not only do we see a connection of the 'snake' with the inhabitants of the southwest but again the building of waterways. Snaketown, or Skoaquik, was an important lowland town occupied for many centuries, for the entire span of time the Anasazi people lived at Mesa Verde in Colorado. According to Brian Fagan, "Snaketown prospered because the HOHOKAM were masters of desert irrigation. They dug a 3-mile CANAL to water fields near the Gila River, a canal so efficient it remained in use for the entire lifetime of the settlement" (Kingdoms of Gold, Kingdoms of Jade, p. 211).The same type of systems are used today in Arizona. The Apache also validates the tradition of an exodus from the Northeast . The Apaches still relate in their stories and legends how these migrating tribes were forced to flee to the south from their homeland in the Northeast. I would like to note here that when the Mormon were forced to leave this area in Wisconsin, Joseph Smith and his followers followed the same tradition , migrating to the southwest and settling near this area as well as in Utah. Another note I feel I need to add to this is that it is my belief that the Hopi Indians are the keepers of the 'lost knowledge' of this ancient race of Mound Builders and religiously keep these secrets yet today. MOUND BUILDERS OF WISCONSIN CONNECTED TO CHACO CANYON In the first half of the nineteenth century, Euro-American explorers traveled westward along Wisconsin’s rivers and trails. As they paddled and walked they encountered areas where the earth was sculpted into birds, animals and even people. Euro-American explorers had found burial mounds in other areas before, but they had never seen anything like the effigy mounds. Amazed, but unsure what to make of their discovery, they drew maps and wrote reports for newspapers, scientific journals and even Congress. Soon the Wisconsin Territory had become famous for its mysterious effigies. “As the years passed, Euro-American farmers and settlers took up residence in Wisconsin. Many mounds were plowed away by farmers who saw them only as nuisances. Some were carted away by gardeners and bridge-builders who wanted to use the earth they were made of for fill. People dug into the mounds out of curiosity, or in the hopes of finding valuable objects to sell. Other mounds were simply in the way— in the path of roads, railroads, houses and quarries. Perhaps as many as 20,000 mounds once existed in Wisconsin. Now less than 5,000 remain. For Native Americans, the mounds are eternally sacred places and connect us to the land and the supernatural, bring harmony to an unsettled world. MOUND BUILDERS PRE-EXISTED THE NATIVE AMERICANS THAT WE KNOW TODAY. Although the popular belief today links the mounds to Native American Indians , evidence disproves this theory. The evidence we have , that was not destroyed or hidden, suggests that language of the Mound Builders may have been Berber derived, but we find no evidence showing us that such a language was ever spoken by HISTORIC Indians in this region. This area was overrun by TWO WAVES of invaders from the Northwest. Both the Siouans (Iroquois) and the Lenni Lenape (Algonquians) remember how they drove out "the Snakes," -- the Mound-building inhabitants of the country. George E. Hyde discusses this in his book Indians of the Woodlands. There is no real link between any American Indian language and Berber...EXCEPT ONE... IN THE DESERT SOUTHWEST -- HOKAN . Attempts to link Hokan to other American Indian language families (especially Siouan) have all failed, and the vast majority of American Indian language specialists today maintain that Hokan is not genetically related to any other family of languages in the New World, and that any similarities are due either to coincidence or borrowing (Ruhlen 1991, 214ff). -- The Berber Project, p. 20. The term "Hokan" unites as genetically related a number of North American Indian linguistic stocks, scattered over a large area and previously considered distinct. Speakers of the Hokan languages are spread throughout California, Arizona, New Mexico, Baja California, Texas and northern Mexico; with outlying groups in southern Mexico, El Savador, Nicaragua, Honduras and Columbia. None of the Hokan languages are well known, but some of the important ones include Achomawi, Karok, Chimariko, Pomo, Yana, Diegueno, Washo, Tonkawa, Havasupai and Maricopa. CONTINUED |
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| Photo of the Honey Creek Mounds I took in April 2005. Mary Sutherland @2005 Many of the Wisconsin Mounds are now lost to farm land and urban development , but still around the Burlington and Honey Creek area, you can still find hundreds of pristine mounds. |
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