Ocmulgee National Monument 8

Ocmulgee National Monument 8

Various explanations have been advanced to account for the actual origin

of the Southern Cult, where it first appears, and from what source or

sources its several elements were drawn to enrich the ceremonial life of

the temple mound builders. Suggestions of Middle American origins have

thus far failed to receive any but the vaguest support from the existing

evidence. Agreement appears to be general, on the other hand, that many

of the basic elements from which it could have been formed are contained

in Hopewell. The emphasis on large marine shells and on copper is shared

by both; and acquisition from Hopewell of the method for supplying these

scarce or remotely situated materials might well have encouraged an

interest in expanding and beautifying the ceremonial apparatus. The

artistic skills of the older culture, too, might possibly have passed

into the hands of a new school of artists who sought to express with

them the religious ideas or mythology of their own people. The

techniques of the two art styles are basically similar, and the Southern

Cult closely approaches both the technical proficiency and the facility

of __EXPRESSION__ which are so characteristic of Hopewell. The connection

appears to stop there, however; for aside from one or two isolated

designs occurring on Florida Hopewellian pottery, nothing has been found

from which the Southern Cult designs could reasonably be thought to have

developed.

 

The earliest __EXPRESSION__s of the Southern Cult to appear in the Macon

area occur in the Master Farmer period. The eagle effigy platform of the

ceremonial earthlodge seems to portray the spotted eagle of the Southern

Cult and, in any case, a distinct representation of the forked eye,

probably the earliest use of this symbol on record. A ceremonial ax from

the vicinity of the Funeral Mound is also typical, while the more

Hopewellian traits such as undecorated shell cups and gorgets and cut

animal jaws (unique, however, in their copper-plating) may be thought to

argue for origins from this direction. It was during the interval while

Ocmulgee was abandoned that this religious idea must have reached its

fullest and most elaborate __EXPRESSION__; and this period probably

corresponds to that of the occupation of the Etowah site in north

Georgia, where much of the spectacular material was found. By the time

the Lamar village was occupied, however, the vigor of this form of

religious __EXPRESSION__ seems to have been already on the wane. Engraved

shell gorgets occur, but only in the simpler designs; perhaps the hafted

ax form of pipe could be considered a Southern Cult object or at least

to show its influence. Possibly more complete excavation would reveal

additional and more distinctive paraphernalia.

 

 

 

 

Ocmulgee Old Fields

 

 

After the Spanish exploration of Georgia in 1540, about 150 years

elapsed before the Ocmulgee tribe of the Creek Nation settled at a place

which we can now identify with reasonable certainty. This site in later

years was known as Ocmulgee Old Fields, for the evidence of ancient

cultivation can often be detected long after the signs of dwellings

themselves have disappeared. Needless to say, this was the last Indian

village of any importance to occupy the area now included in Ocmulgee

National Monument.

 

The recognition of this village site was partly brought about by the

intensive study of an interesting feature of Colonial construction

disclosed early in the excavations. This consisted of a ditch about 1

foot wide by 2 in depth which outlined a curiously shaped area on the

Macon Plateau some 200 yards north of the Great Temple Mound. Presumably

the footing ditch for a palisade, it enclosed a space shaped like the

gable end of a house with very low walls and a steep roof. The base

side, facing northwest, was about 140 feet long and was interrupted at

two points, suggesting a large central entrance gate with a smaller

postern 18 feet to the left. Surrounding the enclosure on all but its

long base side was a broad, shallow ditch which may have served as a

moat. It might, though, have been used instead to improve the drainage

of the stockade; for excavation showed that this lay close to old

springs which had once issued from the adjacent high ground. Finally,

the remains of a wide beaten trail from the northeast, worn a foot or

two into the old land surface, were found to terminate before the

entrance. This path had been traced at intervals across the plateau for

about half a mile, and was picked up again beyond the enclosed area

leading off down the hill toward the river.

 

Inside the stockade, rectangular blackened areas in the soil indicated

what appeared to be the decayed remains of several log buildings, while

mixed with the usual debris of an Indian village site were numerous

articles of European manufacture. Both here and at other points, chiefly

concentrated on the southwest corner of the Macon Plateau, excavation

revealed iron axes, clay pipes, trade beads, brass and copper bells,

knives, swords, bullets, flints, pistols, and muskets. All indications

pointed to a large and thriving Indian community situated generally at

the western edge of the old Master Farmer village site, and plentifully

supplied with English trade materials. The fact that a small fortified

structure existed in the midst of this community at once suggests the

very trading post from which these goods were obtained.

 

Returning, now, to the Early Creeks, we left them sharing in the

development of a distinctive material culture which characterized, with

minor differences, a large portion of the Southeast. When we encounter

their descendants on the site of Ocmulgee Old Fields, however, we find a

mixture of old elements and new; and it is often difficult to say what

part of the changes we observe was due to European contacts and what a

normal continuation of the development which had gone before.

 

[Illustration: Excavation of Trading Post stockade. Darkened soil,

indicating position of log wall footing, emphasized to show gates (right

half of long wall, top of picture).]

 

The remains of this period were found thickly scattered about the

Funeral Mound, between the latter and the Great Temple Mound, and about

the area of the Trading Post itself, as we shall term the fortified

enclosure, anticipating further discussion. They consisted of burials,

pits filled with refuse, oval patterns of post molds indicating small

house sites (although these were found only in and around the stockaded

enclosure), and refuse of all sorts scattered about on the general level

of the occupation. The burials were made both within the main village

area and about the Funeral Mound, where the signs of habitation may have

been destroyed by plowing. Usually the dead were buried in a flexed

position shortly after death, and were not subsequently moved. This was

true, also, of the earlier Lamar occupation, but in marked contrast to

the Master Farmer custom of secondary burial, or the reinterment of

bones already once buried or otherwise put away.

 

[Illustration: Beads, gun cocks, flints, lead shot, knives, pipes, brass

bells, and other trade goods show contact between Creeks and English.]

 

The pottery of these historic Creeks shows that they had finally given

up the ancient habit of complicated stamping. This seems all the more

curious when we reflect that their neighbors and enemies, the Cherokee,

retained this idea, as previously mentioned, until they finally gave up

pottery entirely. In place of it, the Creeks roughened many of their

pots by brushing or stippling the surface, probably with a handful of

small twigs or pine needles. The carinated bowl form was retained,

however, along with deeper jars and other more common shapes of former

times; and on its shoulder appeared a weak, thin incising, often hardly

more than a series of crude scratches. Still, the interlocking scroll

seems to have continued as one of the basic design ideas; but it was

crudely executed, as were the hatched elements of parallel lines which

were no longer carefully integrated with the remainder of the design.

One gains the feeling that the potter was striving for the same general

effect, but was no longer interested in achieving the precision of

pattern and boldness of line on which that effect originally depended.

The lower parts of these bowls are now smooth, and many vessels are made

without either decoration or roughening.

 

[Illustration: Creek pottery continued some of the more characteristic

older shapes, but the decoration was only a rough imitation of earlier

designs.]

 

Other artifacts suggest the increasing reliance on European goods

supplied by the traders, which we know had already begun to destroy the

rude but effective and self-sufficient culture of the Indians. A highly

prized musket cost a man 25 deer skins; but once he had it, with bullets

at 40 to the skin and powder 1 skin to the pound, he could kill more

deer and would have little need to make arrow heads of flint. Another 4

skins would purchase an ax, 4 more a hoe; and again he had better, more

lasting tools without the work of making them and constantly replacing

them. Small wonder that stone tools and weapons become less frequent,

and that flint chipping itself, within a few generations, had become a

lost art.

 

While the Trading Post site has not yet been studied in detail, one gets

the impression that stone tools are actually less numerous. Projectile

points are mostly of small size, often very narrow triangles less than

an inch in length. European materials like gun flints and bottle glass

are used for scrapers. Glass trade heads are mixed with those made from

the central core of the big marine whelk, commonly called "conch." Sheet

copper is used for decorative cuff-like arm bands; frequently it is

rolled into small cone-shaped janglers which were probably sewn to

clothing in clusters to replace the old deer hoof rattles.

 

The Indian trade was the most effective weapon of the English in their

contest with Spain and France for control of the southern frontier.

Indirect evidence points to the establishment of a trading post in this

vicinity about 1690 by the Charleston traders. Apparently lured by the

prospect of English goods, a number of the principal Creek villages had

moved about this time from the Chattahoochee, close to the Spanish

settlements in west Florida, to the Altamaha and its western fork, the

Ocmulgee. No direct reference to the position of the Ocmulgee town

during this period has yet been found, though in 1675 and again after

1717 it was reported on the Chattahoochee. Nevertheless, the Ocmulgee

are listed among Creek towns in this vicinity, and the river appears to

be called by this name as early as 1704-5.

 

Early maps show the site of Macon to be occupied by the Hitchiti, a

tribe of the Creek nation whose speech was older in Georgia than the

Muskogean of the true Creeks. The Ocmulgee also spoke Hitchiti, and a

Creek legend, recorded much later, states that the Hitchiti were the

"first to settle at the site of Okmulgi town, an ancient capital of the

Creek confederacy." Legend also named the Ocmulgee fields as the first

town where the Creeks "sat down ... or established themselves, after

their emigration from the west." This identification, made at a time