Chapter II: Part 2

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.