Indian mounds in Minneapolis

Indian Mounds in Minneapolis

April 15, 2007

In a recent class on the effigy mounds of Wisconsin someone asked how people spot Indian mounds in the landscape.. and recognize it as a mound and not some natural feature. As I drove across Wisconsin I was thinking about that.. and how hard it would be now to spot mounds. We underestimate the degree to which modern earth-moving equipment has shaped the landscape.

Passing through the middle of Wisconsin I saw nothing that I could recognize as part of the Native American past.. even though early American travelers seem to always be aware of the presence of traces of that past. Now those traces are invisible, yet there is no missing the massive earthworks of our own civilization.. just look at any overpass:

Everything there is a product of earth-moving equipment. It is no wonder that with our acclimation to this kind of thing in our landscape we have difficulty spotting mounds constructed by Native Americans.

Before I left Minneapolis (to get home to Emily and Rory!) I wanted to visit the Indian Mounds Park.. which happens to offer a great view of the Mississippi River:

That water is on its way to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. From north to south this river cuts through our country. I have seen this river flowing through St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans.. and somehow the river seems more itself further south.. but there it is way up north.. flowing through twin cities that I do not at all associate with the Mississippi.

This bluff overlooking the river appealed to Native Americans.. and they constructed some impressive burial mounds here:

These mounds seem so insignificant now.. up against the earthworks of a large modern city. They are always a welcome site for me because they remind me of the changeableness of national narratives.. there is another story possible for the land on which I live.

The different narratives sometimes leap dramatically into view. It is funny how even the mention of Indian Mounds can elicit a religious response. I am sure whoever did this is pretty thoughtless.. and this hardly stands for a general "Christian" response.. but it makes for a symbolically rich photo. It makes me think that one use for message-graffiti is to correct perceived affronts to popular versions of the past. Monuments that repeat the standard nationalist or religious interpretations of the past will tend to be sacrosanct, while outsider views will tend to attract corrective graffiti. Contradictory versions of the past thus emerge into visibility.

Driving to Minneapolis along the "ribbon of highway" (as Woody Guthrie calls it) I listened several times to Smile by Brian Wilson. The beauty of these songs can be overwhelming. One line stood out for me: