OHIO STATEWIDE FILES OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List Issue 154 *********************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ *********************************************************************** OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 00 : Issue 154 Today's Topics: #1 Fw: Bio History -- Know Your Ohio ["Maggie Stewart" To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <18aa01bfb598$42e19640$0300a8c0@local.net> Subject: Fw: Bio History -- Know Your Ohio -- Ohio's American Natives--Part 1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley ***************************************************** Historical Collections of Ohio Know Your Ohio By Darlene E. Kelley ****************************************************** Ohio's American Natives -- Part 1-- Mound Builders-- Southwestern Ohio was the land of the long past. People have lived among the shadows of its forests for thousnds of years. The first of these ancient peoples to inhabit the Miami Valley came during the ice age, and very likely lived in caves. After these people came the Mound Builders, a apt description of them as they left behind thousands of mounds rising skyward. Some of these have managed to have survived the ravages of time and man. Man being the most destructive of all. Butler County was said to have contained over 250 mounds and enclosures, and puts its county second in the state, next to Ross, for the number of earthworks discovered. The Great Butler Mound overlooks Middletown, rising some 45 feet on a 500-foot circular base. From its ancient people, communication could have been by smoke signals with other groups around the Kinder Mound, atop Pennyroyal Hill at Franklin, as well as with those around the great Miamisburg Mound in Montgomery County. The Adena Mound at Miamisburg reaches almost 70 feet into the sky, covering about 3 acres at the base and is considered the second most important example of the mound builders art in the nation. The largest of all the earthworks is in Warren County and called now Fort Ancient. Fort Ancient is now a State Park and has students from all over the world come to study there and try to unraval its mysteries. This has intrigued Archaeologists since it was first mapped in 1810. Located high above the east Bank of the Little Miami River, it commands a view of the entire surrounding area. It had besides a fort, a village site, and also served as a ceremonial center. While built by the Hopewell people it later became the home of the Fort Ancient Culture. Thousands of years ago these people worked without beasts of burden, building their mounds with their own hands and muscles. They communicated without a written language, drawing many pictures on stone, which have been found. They selected sites along the Miami River and its tributaries for the same reasons that the white man later made their settlements. Settling on the broad alluvial terraces ot the river bottoms, as they wanted to be near the river, for it was the one great natural highway. The river furnished these people with fish and in the valley they found game and fruits, usually building their largest works where the terraces were the widest. In the level bottomlands and on the terraces, they cultivated the fertile soil. To protect themselves and their lands against other tribes, they built fortifications upon the bluffs or hilltops. Little is known to what became of this primative race, although some speculate that they became the ancestors of the Indians. A study of the skulls found, shows them to be descended from the Mongolians. They probably came from Asia across the Bering Sea. Men who have studied the Mound Builders say they first came to Ohio 10,000 years ago and lived over 5,000 years. They made many things.They made tools of copper, and fine flint arrows. Pottery was carefully constructed with the addition of granulated stone and shells to the clay to prevent shrinking and cracking. They made matting by weaving or plaiting rushes and grass. They wove cloth from course plant fibers. Their cloth looked much like our burlap. They also used wood, pearls, and bones to make bracelets, necklaces, and beads. Serpent Mound at Peebles, Ohio-- The Serpent Mound is an embankment of earth resembling a snake nearly a quarter of a mile long, and is the largest and finest serpent mound in North America. Who built the mound, and why they constructed it, remains a mystery. The Mound represents a gigantic snake uncoiling in seven deep curves along a bluff overlooking Ohio Brush Creek; the oval embankment near the end of the bluff probably representing the open mouth of the serpent as it strikes. Serpents are prominent in the religious beliefs of many peoples as symbols of evil forces or benevolent deities. To some ancient societies, they represented eternity because their habit of shedding their skins seemed a renewal of life. The feathered serpent was important in the art and religion of the ancient Maya of Mexico. In eastern North America, snakes figured in American Indian mythology and religious beliefs. Traditionally, some Native Americans used snake teeth and flesh in rituals to cure illness, and they wore rattlesnakes to assume the power of the reptile and frighten their opponents in games. They also tattooed their bodies with serpent images and engraved them into their ornaments. The Hopi of Arizona still perform the snake dance as a rain prayer. The serpent undoubtedly symbolized a significant religious of mystical principal for the builders of the Serpent Mound because of the time and effort that must have been spent constructing it. However, the details of that belief are unknown, they carefully planned the effigy, by first outlining its form with stones or clay mixed with ashes and then covering it with basket loads of earth. It was not built over any burials or remnants of living areas, nor were there any artifacts found in it to identify which prehistoric culture constructed it. Nearby, however, there are several conical buriel mounds built by the prehistoric Adena Indians some time between 800 B.C. and A.D. 1. Later, around A.D. 1000, the Fort Ancient Indians established a small habitation site on the south side of the proximity of the conical mounds, the serpent possibly may be the handiwork of the Fort Ancient people. Continuing investigations should shed new light eventually on the Mound's origins. Recently researchers are studinging the possibility that the effigy may have been laid out in alignment with various astronomical observations. Serpent Mound has stirred the curiosity of many laymen and scientists for more than a century. Some people speculate that the serpent is shown in the process of swallowing an egg, the oval earthwork. Another interpretation has the snake striking at a frog that has leaped away as it ejects an egg, again the oval earthwork. Still other ideas suggests that the oval symbolizes the heart of the reptile or its conventional head and eye. Archaeologists now believe that the oval wall represents a snake's mouth, open to its fullest extent, as it strikes its prey. Among the people who were interested in keeping the Mound from destruction was Frederick Ward Putnam of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. After visiting the site in 1885 and seeing that it was being gradually destroyed by plowing. Putnam raised funds to purchase the mound in the name of the University for use as a public park. Beginning in1886, Putnam spent three years excavating the effigy and nearby conical mounds, then restoring them to their original forms. In 1900, Harvard University turned the site over to the Ohio Historical Society, which has maintained it as a state memorial ever since. Serpent Mound is located within an unusual geological area known as the Serpent Mound cryptoexplosion structure. This is an area nearly five miles in diameter containing extremely faulted and folded bedrock. Such faulting is uncommon in the normally flat-layered rocks of Ohio. A meteorite strike or a volcanic explosion are among early theories used to explain the area's unusual geology, but the site contains no volcanic material or meteorite debris. Current thinking favors an origin caused by an explosion of gas generated deep within the earth that escaped along a zone of weakness in the rock layers--- What ever it was, still is a mystery . ****************************************************** Con't in part 2-- ______________________________ ------------------------------ X-Message: #2 Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 02:56:18 -0400 From: "Maggie Stewart" To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <18ac01bfb598$445c0140$0300a8c0@local.net> Subject: Fw: Bio History -- Know Your Ohio -- Ohio's American Natives --Pt 3. Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley ****************************************************** Historical Collections of Ohio Know Your Ohio by Darlene E. Kelley ****************************************************** Ohio's American Natives-- Part 3. The Whittlesey People-- The Whittlesey people were the latest prehistoric residents of Northeast Ohio. Their culture was the culmination of almost 12,000 years of prehistoric occupation which began with the arrival of the Paleo- Indians at the close of the ice age. In contrast to these earliest inhabitants, the Whittlesey people were farmers, who grew corn (maize), beans, and squash in small fields that they carved from the native forest of the area. These crops were supplemented by a variety of wild plant and animal foods derived from hunting, gathering, and fishing. The farming lifestyle required that people stay put for at least the growing season, in village settlements located not only in the Chargrin Valley, but also along the Cuyahoga and Grand Rivers and even the shores of Lake Erie. One of the sites is at what was known as Tuttle Hill, located just a few miles south of downtown Cleveland. This was an aboriginal earthwork which had been identified by Colonel Charles Whttlesey, an accomplished geologist and amateur archaeologist and writer. No eathworks have been found that Whittlsey had described, but it is believed that Tuttle Hill had once been fortified in such maner, as warfare was common during this period. Larger settlements are also been located in the Cuyahoga Valley. There is a site in Independence, Ohio. which shows of a long term occupation by this agricultural population. Thousands of artifacts have been found to support this theory. This is called the South Park site, and was probably occupied periodically over several centuries, beginning as early as AD 1000 and concluding around AD1600 with a year round occupation of 100-200 people. At least one complete post mold pattern of a rectangular house measuring 40 feet by 15 feet was uncovered at this site. The structure resembled the well known Iroquoian long houses of New York State. Charred fragments of bulrush mats and bits of birch bark fround in trash pits may be remnants of materials use to recover the bent-pole framework of such houses. and perhaps to line the sides of maize storage pits. Analysis of plant and animal remains have provided one of the most complete lists of Whittlesey foods. Generous helpings of maize. hickory nuts, and black walnuts, were supplimented with lesser amounts of cultivated beans, squash, wild grapes, plums, blackberries, hazelnuts, butternuts, acorns, and even some wild sunflower seeds. Animal bones revealed that the white-tailed deer, elk, and black bear provided the bulk of available meat. Other skeletal remains included some of the smaller mammals, various fish, game birds, and assorted turtles, frogs, and snakes. Even freshwater clams inhanced a significant part of the Whittlesey diet. Of course, some of these animals may have been collected for use in the making of tools and other items. Artifacts collected from these sites contained assortments of bone, shell, and antler tools. Hollowed out antler tines were used for substitutes for stone arrow tips, and broken bones and sharp spines from catfish were used to punch holes in leather or other materials. Cut and split bones of all shapes and sizes were drilled, ground, or polished for using as eyed sewing needles, fishhooks, pins, an gaming pieces of uncertain functions. When most people think of prehistoric Indian tools, they envision stone arrowheads of all shapes and sizes, but during this Archaic Period in northeastern Ohio, which lasted from 8500 BC until 1000 BC, prehistoric peoples made a wide variety of large flint spear points and knives. But by the time of the Whittlesey People, however, the typical stone projectile point was a small trianglular artifact that served as a true arrowhead. With the possible exception of stone tool debris, the most common kind of prehistoric artifact recovered from Whittlesey sites was the pottery sherd. Pottery sherds served as sensitive indicators of time and place during the later prehistoric period. Whittlesey potters often decorated their vessels with intricate designs. The kinds of materials ( temper ) mixed into the clay paste of the vessel, be it stone grit or burned and crushed shell, tell a story about cultural relationships and time. Shell-tempored vessels appeared in the Great Lakes region no later than AD 1000 and their presence in Northeast Ohio points to long distance cultural contacts that reached to the Ohio River Valley (Fort Ancient Tradition) and perhaps as far away as the central Mississippi Valley. Within this time span, Whittlesey Tradition, sites can be identified as early ( grit-tempored pottery with cord marked surfaces) or late, ( shell tempored vessels with plain surfaces ) based on the predominanant style and composition of the pot sherds found there. If the Whittlesey people were anything like their historically recorded neighbors, the Huron of Georgian Bay, the cook pot was likely the central focus of household activity. It usually contained a thin soup made from grund maize with the addition of venison or fish and perhaaps some squash, beans, or wild plant food. The large cooking vessel boiled and steamed all day long to provide sustenance for any family member, including dog, who wanted to partake. Thick encrustations of burned food residue on the insides of their pottery sherds indicate simular practices. Their ceramics reveals close cultural relationships with another people, the Sandusky Tradition, who lived to the west along the Lake Erie shore as far as Toledo. These two groups probably traded in food and material goods as well as had some direct social interacton, for example, feasts, marriages, and burial ceremonies. There is no evidence, however, that the Whittlesey people were the direct ancestors of any Native American groups that resettled northern Ohio in the mid 18th century. Furthermore, the tribal identity of the Whittlesey Tradition remains a mystery.---- As inhabitants of the Eastern Woodlands for thousands of years, they undoubtedly made wooden tools as well. Unfortunately, these did not survive the years to endure the scrutiny of today's archaeologists. What has survived--- stone, bone, antler, and ceramic remains--- tells us a vivid, though incomplete, story about a people who are now gone. Although we do not know the true identity of the peole of the Whittlesey Tradition, archaeologists will continue working to reconstruct details of their rich lifeway as it once existed along the shores and rivers of Northeast Ohio. ****************************************************** ______________________________ ------------------------------ X-Message: #3 Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 03:06:00 -0400 From: "Maggie Stewart" To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <18ad01bfb598$4534ae00$0300a8c0@local.net> Subject: Fw: Bio History -- Know Your Ohio -- Ohio's Huron or Wyandot Natives. Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley ***************************************************** Historical Collections of Ohio Know your Ohio by Darlene E. Kelley ***************************************************** Ohio's Huron and Wyandot Indians -- part 1. Most people do not realize that Huron and Wyandot are the same people. Originally, more that a dozen of the Iroquoian-speakng tribes in southern Ontario referred themselves collectively as Wendat meaning " island people" or "dwellers on a peninsula." Rendered variously as:Guyandot, Guyandotte, Quendat, Wyandot, and Wyandotte. The French, however, called the members of a four-tribe confederacy the Huron, a detrogatory name derived from their word "hure" maning rough or ruffian. This has persisted a their usual name in Canada. When they were living in Ohio after 1701, French and Canadians continued to use Huron, but the English and Americans referred to them as Wyandot. Currently, most groups prefer Wyandot rather than Huron. Also called Aragaritka (Iroquois), Hatindia Sointen (Lorette Huron), Marian (Christian Huron), Oenronroron (Iroquois), Telamatenon (Delaware " Coming out of a mountain or cave"), and Thastchetci (Onondaga). Their lanuage being Iroquoian. Quendake ( called Huronia by the French ) was the original homeland of the Huron occuping a fairly compact area of central Ontario between the southern end of Georgian Bay and Lake Simcoe. After the dispersal of the Huron by the Iroquois in 1650, one group relocated to Lorette ( just north of Quebec ) where it has remained ever since. The remaining Huron ( merged with Tionontati, Eries, and Neutrals ) spent the next 50 years wandering as refugees through Wisconsin, Minnesota, and upper Michigan. By 1701 they had moved into the Ohio Valley between present day Detroit and Cleveland where they were known as the Wyandot. Theu remained there until they were removed to Kansas during the 1840's. Only one group of Wyandot managed to remain in the Great Lakes, when a small band of the Canadian Wyandot in southwest Ontario was given a reserve near Amherstburg. For the Wyandot relocated to Kansas, problems began with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) which opened their lands to white settlement. The majority opted for citizenship and allotmnt and are currently have state recognition as the Wyandot of Kansas. Most still live in the vicinity of Kasas City, Kansas. The more traditional Wyandot left Kansas for northeast Oklahoma after the Civil War to become the Wyandotte Tribe of Oklahoma. Culture-- The Huron Confederacy was the first of the great Iroquian confederations in the region, and as such, probably the inspiration for the later formation of the Iroquois League. As early as 1400, the Attignawantan and Attigneenongnahac had entered into an alliance and it is believed that sometime after the formation of the Iroquois League, the Laurentian Iroquois living along the St Lawrence River between Montreal and Quebec, were forced to move west. Two groups of them, the Arendahronon (1560 ) and the Tahonaenrat (1570) joined the Huron Confederacy. As the most numerous group, the Attignawantan usually dominated the other members. The purpose of the Confederacy was simular to that of the Iroquois League; prevent blood fueds and fighting between its members. With a capital at the village of Ossossane, each tribe sent representatives to a council whose purpose was to resolve internal disputes and decide matters of common concern regarding peace, war, and trade with outsiders. Otherwise each member tribe retained control of its own territory and was free to pursue its separate interests. In like manner, each of the Huron villages managed its own internal affairs. These villages varied in size, but the larger ones were usually fortified and had populations well over 1,000. Fortification and large size probably resulted from the region's constant warfare, but the densely populated villages and large communal bark covered longhouses ( sometimes 200' long) made the Huron vulnerable to European epidemics. In most ways, the Huron lifestyle closely resembled that of the Iroquois. Beginning around 1100, the Iroquian people in this region began large scale agriculture. A dramatic increase in population followed which, unfortunately, was accompanied by a simular increase of warfare. The Huron diet relied heavily on agriculture ( corn at first, with beans, squash, and tobbacco added later). It was supplimented by hunting, fishing, and gathering. Villages had to be relocated every 20 years or so as the fertility of local soil declined. Social organization began with extended families and a matriliniel clan sytem. Rather than the patrilineal descent of Europeans. Huron clam membership was determined by the mother-although it was possible to switch clans through adoption.The original Huron clan names have been lost, but they were grouped into three phratries ( clan groupings for ceremonial and social purposes ) correspnding roughly to names of the member tribes; Bear, Cord, and Rock. After fifty years of wandering to escape the Iroquois, the Tionontati constituted the largest single group of the Wyandot. Two of the three Wyandot phratries (Wolf and Deer) belonged to them. Only the Bear clan of the Turtle phratry was Huron. By 1750 the Wyandot had ten clans in three groups; Turtle ( Big Turtle, Hawk, Prairie Turtle. Small Turtle); Deer ( Bear, Beaver,Deer, Porcupine, Snake); and Wolf ( one clan of the same name). The Wyandot were governed by a council made up by chiefs of each clan. One member of the council was elected head chief, although by custom, he was usually the chief from either the Bear or Deer clan. Unlike the Iroquois, the Huron women did not directly own all property. The farmland was owned by the matrilineal clans. Unique to the Huron was the " Feast of the Dead." Held every 10-12 years, the remains of all who had did since the last ceremony were disinterred and reburied in a communial buriel pit. Only then were their souls able to go to the " land beyond where the sun sets." Huron justice could be harsh. Convicted murderers were often tied to their victim's corpse and allowed to starve. In later times offenders were shot by firing squad. One critical difference between the Iroquois and Huron was the birchbark canoe. Iroquois constucted their canoes from elm-wood ( which made them heavy), and as a result , they usually preferred to travel on foot, but the Huron, surrounded by a network of rivers and lakes, used their canoes to travel great distances and trade their agricultural surplus with other tribes, including the Iroquois. It was to this advantage in transport and trade which first aroused the interest of the French in the Huron. The fur trade, reinforced later by Jesuit missions, blossomed into a political and cultural alliance that endured beyond the defeat and dispersal of the Huron by the Iroquois. The Huron did disappear in 1649, but survived to become the Wyandot. Allied with Ottawa, they became the "eldest Children" of Onontio ( French Governor of Canada ) and the cornerstone of the French Alliance with the Great Lakes Alogonquin. Within this organization, the Wyandot were regarded as something akin to a "founding father" with important links, through their adopted Huron relatives, to the Iroquois League. Even after the French defeat in 1763, the Wyandot commanded a respect and influence among the Great lakes and Ohio Valley tribes, far greater than the number of their warriors would have suggested. By 1728, 80% of the beaver traded on the Albany market was coming from the French allies. The French were aware of what was happening, and in 1730 they urged the Wyandot to leave Detroit and move to Montreal to keep them away from the Iroquois and British. The Wyandot decided to stay near Detroit, but some groups moved south into Ohio and settled along the southern shore of Lake Erie and the Sandusky plains setting the stage for a century of war for control of Ohio. At the time, Ohio was empty--- no one lived there, and because of this, it was especially attractive, not only for its rich farmland, but hunting since there had been virtualy no human habitation for the previous 50 years. The Iroquois claimed it by right of their conquest of the Erie, Shawnee, Kickapoo, and several tribes whose names have been lost because they disappeared during the Beaver wars before the European contact. The League also claimed Kentucky and the entire Ohio Valley west to the Illinois River for the same reason. This was simple enough, but the next part may be confusing! The British also claimed Ohio since the Iroquois had been placed undr their protection by the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) which ended the King William's war between Britain and France. It would take some time before the the Iroquois ( or anyone else) could understand how an agreement sgned in Europe between European Kings gave the British a right to Iroquois land. Meanwhile, there were rival claims by Virginia and Pennsylvania to the British claim to the Iroquois claim. The French claim was less complicated; exploration of the area during the 1660's and their military defeat of the Iroquois. Their was no mention of any claim of the native allies of the French who did the actual fighting. ***************************************************** To be continued in part 2-- -------------------------------- End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V00 Issue #154 *******************************************