Chapter II: Part 2

Other structures uncovered included a small circular hut framed with poles and containing a large fireplace, out of all proportion to the size of the building. This was evidently a sweathouse where steam was produced by throwing water on heated stones; but it is not known whether this common form of purification was related to their religion or merely a sanitary feature of the village life. At the west edge of the village the tribal chiefs and religious leaders were buried in great log tombs where from one to seven bodies, possibly those of wives and retainers, were deposited with masses of shell beads and other ornaments befitting their rank. Over the whole was raised a low flat-topped mound with 14 clay steps leading to the summit.

Beside their large and thriving religious center, we can reconstruct many aspects of their daily lives in which the Master Farmers were different from their predecessors. This difference is noted in their tools, weapons, and household utensils. These have survived because they were made of such durable material as stone and pottery. The many smaller projectile points now making their appearance suggest that the bow and arrow were in general use at this time. Greater range and accuracy have been advanced as possible reasons for adopting this weapon in place of the spear thrower and dart, which preceded the bow in most parts of the world. Perhaps equally important was an increase in tribal unrest and strife which made a larger quantity of relatively small and light missiles more effective in the brief skirmishes of Indian warfare than two or three of the bulkier darts. With regard to their other equipment, surprisingly few bone tools have been preserved; but this may be due to their greater use of cane, which was very effective for knives, awls, and other implements but did not last as well as bone. Evidence has also been found to show that they manufactured and used basketry and a simple twined weave type of cloth fabric.

The pottery obtained in excavation has already been studied in considerable detail because of the recognized importance of this time marker to the archeologist. It is here that we find one of the most noticeable differences between these people from the Mississippi Valley and the native Georgia tribes whose pottery had developed along very different lines for some thousand years or more. Now, in place of the many forms of surface roughening which marked the history of the latter, plain surfaces become the rule. Jar forms have rounded bottoms, are often as broad as they are tall, or broader, and show a tendency toward constricted openings. One common form has a straight sloping shoulder which turns in from the rounded body contour of the pot rather suddenly. Its slope may continue without change to the rim, but more often it will turn upward again to form a slight lip or even a short neck. These contrast with the deep jars of the preceding period in which the mouth, regardless of neck or rim treatment, tends almost to equal the largest diameter, and in which the base is conoidal, i. e., rounded to at least the suggestion of a point.

Of course the Master Farmers made other types of pottery, too. Some were open bowls, and others had an incurving rim which gracefully repeated the curve of the lower portion just below the belly. There were also deep, straight-sided jars with extremely thick walls, and big shallow bowls several feet in diameter which have been called salt pans from the belief that the type was sometimes used in the making of that substance. Actually they were probably the large family food bowl in common use also in later times. Impressions of a twined cloth fabric on the outer surfaces of the latter, some cord marking, and crude scoring or other treatment of the sides of the former were exceptions to the general rule of smooth surfaces during this period.

In place of surface decoration, however, we find another form of elaboration which is somewhat less common but equally distinctive. This is the attempt to depict some form, either natural or supernatural, in the body of the vessel or attached to it in some way as an independent figure. Small heads suggesting a fox or an owl or some night creature with big staring eyes grow out of the rim of a bowl and peer into it. The small handles which are fairly common on the straight-shouldered jars often have two little earlike knobs at the top; and knobs and bosses with more or less modeling of the body of the pot are frequently used to represent gourds or squashes or some other vegetable which is not easy to identify. One curious style of jar has a neck which is closed at the top, something like a gourd, but has an opening about an inch in diameter below this on the side. Modeling at the top suggests ears, a style of hair arrangement, or some other human or animal feature that gives rise to the name, “blank-faced effigy bottle.”

In time, other changes began to mark the village of the Master Farmers. The temples, built originally at ground level, were rebuilt occasionally; and with the leveling of the old building to make way for the new the surrounding ground surface was raised at first into a small platform. Gradually this platform was increased in height and size until the mound at the south side of the village was some 300 feet broad at the base and almost 50 feet high. The other temple mounds grew in a similar fashion but were either started later or were less important and so never achieved as great a size. The earthlodges, too, were sometimes rebuilt and often on the same site; but no attempt was made to increase their elevation. The funeral mound, however, followed the pattern of the others; and in each new layer of the seven there were fresh burials of the village leaders, and on top of each a new wooden structure which may have been connected with the preparation of the dead for their final rites. In the later stages, too, the flat summit area was surrounded by an enclosure of wooden posts.

At the northwest corner of the village lay a cultivated field which surrounded the site of one of the earlier temples. This was no ordinary field since most of these must have lain in the bottom land below the village. From its position, then, could we infer some sacred purpose, possibly to create an offering to the spirits, or by the power in its seed absorbed from the surroundings to increase the yield of the villagers’ crops? In any case, the mounds for succeeding structures were gradually raised above it; and by this act the rows were buried and thus preserved as conclusive proof of the advanced state of culture which the Master Farmers had achieved.

The construction of all these mounds and earthlodges required a large amount of material as well as innumerable man-hours of labor. Two series of great linked pits, averaging about 7 feet deep and 18 by 40 feet in area, seem to indicate that the earth was obtained immediately outside the main village limits, for they have been traced around considerable portions of its north and south borders. They do not enclose the entire area occupied by the temple mounds, though, because at least three of these mounds lie outside their confines today; others were destroyed in the construction of Fort Hawkins and the adjacent portions of East Macon a little farther to the north. It is not unlikely that the irregular ditches formed by these pits served also as a protection against raids on the village; for otherwise, why would their course have outlined the village area so closely?

All the evidence, then, points to the existence here at Ocmulgee of a town of Indians who lived in a state of culture as advanced in some respects as any to be found north of Mexico. We see a prosperous community devoted chiefly to the yearly round of activities designed to cement its relationship with the powerful unseen forces on which its well-being depended. Not too much work was required with the abundant rainfall on this fertile soil to raise the principal food supply for an entire family. The men, like all later Indians, hunted to supply the meat for their diet; but they had plenty of free time to devote to the construction and repair of the town’s several temple buildings. Here they gathered at stated intervals to go through the time-honored ritual first taught to their fathers by the very spirits themselves, those spirits which gave man the fish and the game and finally the wonderful gift of the corn plant. All of these gifts and many more must be accepted with reverence and treated according to the rules established for their proper use; otherwise the spirits would be offended, the game would disappear, and the fields would wither and die.

Of all the annual round of ceremonies the most important was that in honor of the deity whose gift of corn had the miraculous power to renew itself every year. The summer temple, then, was the scene of the year’s biggest festival when the new crop was ripe. All the fires of the village were put out; and after the men had fasted and purified themselves with the sacred drink, the new fire was lit and offered with the first of the new corn to the Master of Breath. With this act the sins of the past year were forgiven, and the town entered upon a new year with rejoicing. But ever so often the temple needed to be rebuilt, perhaps at the death of the chief priest, who may at the same time have been the chief of the town as well. This called for a mound to be built or the old one to be enlarged and raised higher as a mark of extra devotion; and every man must have given his allotment of working days to complete the project, even if several years were required before it was finished. For the new mound was proof to the divine forces of how much their gifts had been appreciated, and a plea that their favor might continue and the town prosper. Also it was proof to all the surrounding tribes of the wealth and strength of the village which was able to erect and maintain these large structures and at the same time to live in plenty and defend itself from its enemies.

Much of this reconstruction depends heavily on our knowledge of the later tribes of the Southeast and on broader analogies as well. Archeological proof does not exist for much that we have inferred. Yet we know that what we find here could not have been built by villagers living at the level of bare subsistence. Economic surplus was essential, and we know the Indians had the corn with which to create it. Strong leadership was needed to carry such large projects to completion; and with it there must have been a social and religious class system to organize the economic and priestly functions of such a community. The temple priests and their assistants and retainers would have formed a rather numerous class with high status in a society so clearly impressed with the importance of the physical expression of its religious ideas. Wealth and power may likewise have rested with a specialized warrior class which controlled the governing function of the group, or it may be that these were combined with the religious duties of the priestly class. Whatever the system employed, several hundred unusually important individuals given special burial in the Funeral Mound attest to the distinctions which existed. Class differences of this sort are the most common basis for a high degree of social and political control; and Ocmulgee is a good example of the real attainments of some American Indians along these lines.

In spite of the relatively large amount of information we have about them, however, we know surprisingly little of the ultimate fate of the Master Farmers. We do know that these first bearers of an alien culture from the Mississippi Valley did not persist very long in the area in terms of its previous history. Within 200 years the busy village was deserted, only to be visited by an occasional traveling band descended from the Early Farmers who had lived on in nearby sections. We do not know even whether the last occupants left here in a body to settle elsewhere, whether they gradually died off, whether they were absorbed into the surrounding population, or whether they were finally exterminated by neighbors who had themselves developed large settled communities capable of effective military action. Other ideas came to Georgia from the Mississippi Valley, but Ocmulgee lay silent and was passed by. Only in the last chapter of Indian history in this State was the site again reoccupied for a brief time. Here at the end, to be described in our final chapter, we find the Creek Indians once more living among the haunts of their ancestors.

Early Creeks

After the mound village at Ocmulgee was abandoned we lose the thread of Indian history in this area for about 250 years. When we pick it up again in the _Reconquest_ period, it is at a new village some 3 miles down the river. Much had happened in the meantime, though; and we are able to piece together a good bit of the story.

In the first place, it is clear that the Master Farmers had been only a small group which had settled in this one small section of Georgia; and that the Early Farmers did not leave Georgia when they gave up their settlements along the Ocmulgee. We cannot say for certain either that they even quit the valley entirely. Their distinctive pottery seems to have continued the course of development already outlined, but during the interval a variety of new influences came in from other regions to produce a number of striking changes. Noteworthy among these were the “carinated” bowl form and incised and pinched or punctate decoration around the shoulder or rim. In its extreme form the first of these may be described as a shallow bowl with flaring sides which abruptly turn inward to form a distinct shoulder and inward-sloping rim. The angle thus produced may be as sharp as 90°, and the shoulder itself may vary from abrupt to more or less gently rounded. It is this flattened rim which normally bears the broad, deep incised-line decoration in the form of scrolls alternating with nested flat-topped pyramids or with inverted chevrons, all worked into a continuous pattern similar to the Greek fret. Below the shoulder, the body of the bowl still carries the old complicated stamping, but gradually the pattern becomes less distinct and the paddle is applied several times to the same spot. It is even impossible sometimes to make out any design whatever in the overall roughening.

Another new element is to be found in a series of notches, bosses, or circular impressions which are applied just below the lip on jars or bowls with only complicated stamping, or at the point of the shoulder on “bold incised” vessels. The lip of most vessel shapes, except the carinated bowl, is thickened by folding or with an added strip of clay, and it is the lower edge of this band which is often pinched or otherwise worked to produce a notched or beaded effect. On the carinated bowls there is commonly a line of circular impressions made with the end of a piece of cane or other hollow tube situated on the point or bend of the shoulder to separate the area of incised decoration from the body stamping below. Circles of this sort are sometimes used in place of the beading around the rim.

Whether the incised decoration and the carinated bowl form came from the Florida or the Mississippi Valley area has not yet been settled. Temple mounds, however, are a definite Mississippian trait; and the Lamar village below Macon, which has given its name to the archeological period we are discussing, is typical in possessing two mounds with an adjacent open court. The larger mound is rectangular, while the smaller is circular; but the latter is most unusual in its spiral ramp which leads counterclockwise to the top in four complete traverses about the mound. Mounds showing this feature have been reported by early travelers, but this is the only one known to exist today.

The village occupied a low natural ridge of higher ground in the swamp close to the river. This position may have been chosen for its inconspicuous and defensible nature, or to be close to good farmland; but we do know that it was surrounded by a palisade of upright logs some 3,500 feet in length to protect it from enemy attacks. Within the enclosed area, the rectangular houses were grouped about the mounds and the nearby court. Their construction consisted of a framework of light posts interlaced with cane which was plastered with clay and roofed with sod or some sort of grass thatch. Some of them were raised on low dirt platforms, evidently as a protection from the periodic overflow of the river.

The life of these late prehistoric farmers was otherwise much the same as that of their predecessors who had lived on the bluffs up the river. To be sure, the region was now more thickly settled, and other villages like theirs could be reached by a short journey in almost any direction. Farming was doubtless the principal activity; and burned corncobs and beans have been found, indicating two of the important crops. Hunting, likewise, continued as a major pursuit; and the small, triangular projectile points tell us that the bow was now the favorite weapon even though large, stemmed dart or spear points were still made. Small, flat celts of triangular outline were used. Shell was extensively worked for ornament, mainly in the form of large beads, large, knobbed pins which seem to have dangled from the ears, and circular gorgets bearing designs of the Southern Cult, to be discussed presently.

Finally, smoking appears to have become so habitual that it may have been released from the religious implications which everywhere seem to accompany the use of tobacco in aboriginal America. Pipes in an astonishing variety of skillfully executed shapes, principally of clay but also in stone, have been found scattered throughout the village refuse. Human heads with great goggle eyes, bird and animal heads, boats (?), and a stylized representation of a hafted celt are common.

DeSoto probably encountered some distant towns of these people when he explored Georgia in 1540, and they were undoubtedly the ancestors of various historic Creek Indian tribes of this State. We have suggested that their culture was a mixture of very old elements in the region, such as complicated stamping, with newer ideas coming in with the Master Farmers or even later, such as temple mounds and incised decoration. We know from work in other areas that the Early Farmer bearers of the Swift Creek tradition had continued their existence uninterrupted save only in the immediate vicinity of Macon. Therefore, despite the admixture of many outside influences, we see in the reappearance here of one of their major cultural elements, the old paddled pottery surfaces, proof that the basic culture and presumably the people themselves were still the same. In effect, an actual reoccupation of the area seems indicated; and it is this fact that the museum exhibits recognize in the name “Reconquest” given to the period we are discussing.

The culture represented at the Lamar site just described, which is the type site for this archeological period, covered a very wide geographical range and lasted in some locales into the historic period. Typical Lamar pottery is found on numerous sites in regions as widely separated as Florida, Alabama, the Carolinas, and even parts of Tennessee. We know that it was made by the historic Cherokee, which accounts for the persistence of complicated stamping into historic times mentioned earlier, and possibly also by some Siouan-speaking tribes in the Carolinas, as well as by the early Creeks. While not all elements of the culture were uniformly shared in all of these areas, there can be little doubt that the material aspects of the lives of these different groups were surprisingly much alike. This may appear the more remarkable when one considers the difference in language and even the active hostility of such historic tribes as the Creek and the Cherokee. Nevertheless, one has only to consider the diversity of modern European nations sharing a single culture which we know as “Western Civilization” to realize that language, nationality, and culture are not mutually interrelated on any one-to-one basis.

Mention has been made of the Southern Cult. Briefly, this is the name given to the religious idea behind a group of frequently recurring symbols, and the paraphernalia on which they are depicted, which have been found all the way from Oklahoma and the Great Lakes to Florida and the gulf coast. These unusual articles occur in association with the platform mounds, and at some sites appear to be limited to the graves of an important class of personages who had the unique privilege of burial within the sacred structures atop the mounds.

The objects themselves appear to be symbols of office or religious vessels or regalia of diverse sorts. They include engraved circular gorgets of shell, engraved copper plaques, hafted ceremonial axes made of copper or from a single piece of stone, as well as stone axheads either so finely made or of such soft material that they could not have been put to practical use. A ceremonial atlatl looks to us more like a mace or sceptre; both this form and that of the hafted ax are reproduced in beautifully chipped flint, and these are found in association with long blades and reproductions of other elements of the cult in the same material. Vessels include conch shell cups and pottery bottles of various forms.

Of perhaps even greater importance than the physical apparatus just described are the symbols pictured on some of these specimens, and representations of these and other objects being worn or carried by god-animal beings, mythological creatures, or their impersonators. Important figures of the mythology or the religious pantheon include the eagle, ivory-billed woodpecker, and turkey; various forms of the rattlesnake, the cat or mountain lion; and the human chunkee player. These are depicted most clearly on some of the engraved copper plaques like that of the Eagle Man from the Etowah site, which is reproduced in the Ocmulgee Museum in the colors most likely to have been used in the original costume. They are also engraved on shell cups, masks, and gorgets and on pottery vessels. Among the important symbols occurring alone or as ornament on these figures are the cross, swastika, sun circle, bi-lobed arrow, forked eye, hand and eye, and death head. The figures are also shown brandishing the ceremonial atlatl, holding a long flint knife, or throwing the chunkee stone; and some wear the bi-lobed arrow as a hair ornament. The forked eye, sun circle, and other symbols are shown painted on these figures or on their regalia.

We are still uncertain as to the origin and significance of the Southern Cult, although we know that it is associated with the platform or temple mounds of the late Mississippian period, and that it very likely represents the ritual which accompanied the use of these mounds. One interesting suggestion has been made as to the motives behind its development, relating these rather closely to the effects of the introduction of corn agriculture. Populations naturally increased rapidly with the improved food supply. Good land thus becoming relatively scarce, tribes were no longer able to find suitable areas for new settlements, as our Master Farmers had done, by the simple act of moving to another region. At the same time the success of their crops grew steadily more vital to the life of the tribe, and this, in turn, led to a great elaboration in the worship of the special deities connected with them, i. e., the Southern Cult. This theory seems logical as far as it goes; but the forces which are seen at work are not of a sort likely to reverse direction. Therefore other factors would have to be introduced to account for the later decline of this religious phenomenon.

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 expressions 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.

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.

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.

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 when the Old Fields were still in Creek territory, leaves little doubt that the Ocmulgee tribe itself had once lived here. The further evidence of a stockade erected here in a pattern then common to Colonial fortifications in the Southeast, plus the quantities of trade material in the village area, make it reasonably certain that this was another center of the little recorded trading enterprise so important to England’s success in the race for colonial territory.

While it cannot be considered evidence in identifying the site, two additional bits of historic detail add interest to the part it may have played in the important events of this period. In December 1703, Col. James Moore set out upon a mission for the Carolina Assembly to destroy the Apalachee Indian settlements in west Florida. These Indians lived in agricultural communities, close to the missions where they received their religious indoctrination from the Spanish. They supplied important provisions for both St. Augustine and Havana; and their area served as a base for Spanish efforts to win over the Creek Indians to the north and so enlarge their dominion. Moore took with him 50 volunteers from Charleston, and gathering 1,000 Creek warriors on the Ocmulgee, set off southward for Florida. The raid proved highly successful and, with others like it over the following 2 years, dealt a devastating blow to Spanish colonial aims. By 1706, most of the Indian population of the area had been killed, driven away, or captured. Carolina was secure from inland attack, and Spain’s efforts to enlarge her hold in the Southeast were at an end for all time.

Returning now to Ocmulgee, we note that as late as 1828 a map of this region shows “Moore’s Trail” running down the west bank of the river from a point about 2 miles below Macon. It is not hard, then, to imagine the former governor of the colony setting off on that bold adventure. A shouting horde of excited Creek warriors assembles near the trader’s store. Moore watches as they fall in behind his sturdy band of Englishmen, and the line files past the high walls of the stockade. Following the Lower Patch down the hill, they march in the very shadow of that imposing relic of former days, the Great Temple Mound. Then a little distance down the river they reach the fording place; and crossing it, are lost to sight as they enter the woods and take up the trail to the south.

This episode, however, was merely the beginning of the Indian’s unhappy involvement in the rivalries of European nations and of the destruction of his own culture through his very eagerness to obtain the wonderful products of those nations. More and more the trader’s goods were to become a necessity to him rather than a luxury. His life shifted from that of a village farmer to that of a hunter who left his village for months at a time in search of the deer skins on which the new barter economy was based. The women folk, of course, stayed home and tended the fields; but the old ways were steadily breaking down. Moundbuilding had been given up even before the coming of the English. With the barter economy, the religious festivals connected with the farming calendar were also abandoned during the prolonged hunting season. Only the great summer harvest festival, the “busk,” or “poskita,” remained as the central element of Creek religion. Finally, after the deer had been largely hunted out and the market for skins had almost dried up, the Indian became at last a log cabin farmer, exploited, but otherwise much like any other resident of the frontier.

Two scenes in the story of the Indians at Ocmulgee remain to be described. All along the Atlantic seaboard the red man awakened at last to his peril: the land hunger of the foreigners was insatiable, and in it lay a threat to his very existence. If he could only have brought himself to forget old rivalries and have joined his ancient enemies in the common cause, perhaps they could have driven out the intruder before it became too late. Sooner or later bloody uprisings took place in most sections of the country, but the end was always the same. The old habits were too strong; cooperation could not replace hostility overnight; the Indian could not make the needed sacrifice though his life was at stake.

The Southeastern uprising was called the Yamassee War in which many of the shattered tribes of Georgia and Alabama took part. There can be little doubt that the Creeks, under the able command of their leader, Brim, were the principal actors. Under his guidance, they had at first helped the English against the better entrenched Spaniard, but now it was the Englishman himself who posed the chief threat and who must be driven out at any cost. The scheme was well planned—and came within a hair’s breadth of success. It depended on winning over the Cherokee, who from the first had befriended the Charleston colonists; and to do this Brim took the unprecedented step of sending emissaries to his old enemy. If they had agreed to forget old hatreds, the Indians could easily have massed the strength to drive the colonists into the sea. Instead, the Cherokee council voted to stand by their old friends; and the announcement of their decision was the slaughter of the Creek emissaries.

Nevertheless, the others decided to carry on without them. Their first act in 1715 was to kill off the traders scattered about the Creek Nation and to attack outlying settlements. Here, we can be sure, the trader to Ocmulgee lost his life, unless by good fortune he happened to have gone to Charleston to lay in supplies. In any case, the existence of the store must have terminated. Little more was accomplished, however; the Creek design had failed, and in 1717 the war came to an end. Ocmulgee and the other towns along the river were then too close to the English settlements at Augusta, and the Indians moved their villages back to the Chattahoochee.

About 1773 we have a vivid description of the mounds and of extensive old fields along the river, but there is no mention of Indians living anywhere near the site. It is then, however, that we first learn of the high regard of the Creeks for this spot; for here it was, according to tradition, that the confederacy was first established. In 1805 the Creeks ceded to the United States most of the lands bordering the Ocmulgee River on the cast; but in this treaty they specifically reserved for themselves about 15 square miles encompassing the site of Ocmulgee Old Fields, though allowing the Government the right to erect a military post or trading house thereon. In 1806, Fort Hawkins was built a short way to the north of the Plateau on high ground commanding the river. It was designed as a frontier outpost and factory, or trading house; and it served this end until 1817, when it was moved west to Fort Mitchell in Alabama Territory to keep up with the movement of the frontier. Once more the Indians gathered here in 1819 to receive the annual payment for their lands east of the Ocmulgee; but the city of Macon was founded only 4 years later, and in 1828 Ocmulgee Old Fields was sold to the public.

Guide to the Area

The points of interest in the area are numbered on the map (pages 26-27) as follows:

1. MUSEUM AND ADMINISTRATION BUILDING. The museum exhibits tell the story of Ocmulgee Old Fields by the use of pictures and models, with a minimum of explanatory text, to supplement the archeological materials themselves. In addition to the administrative offices of the monument, it also houses the enormous collection obtained during the excavations, and a small archeological and ethnological library. The design for the colored frieze around the outer wall of the building’s rotunda is copied from the incised decoration on a Lamar Bold Incised pottery vessel.

2. CEREMONIAL EARTHLODGE. Situated some 200 yards southwest of the museum building, this feature is a reconstruction of the winter temple which lay at the northeast edge of the Master Farmer village. It shows the original clay floor and lower parts of the building as they appeared in use about A. D. 1000. Because the building was burned, pieces of the original timbers were preserved on the old floor just as they had fallen from the roof; and for this reason the reconstruction is thought to present a very accurate picture of the original building. Because of the need to protect these irreplaceable remains the earthlodge is kept locked at all times, and is opened only to visitors accompanied by a guide.

3. CORNFIELD MOUND. A short distance northwest of the earthlodge, this mound was probably a center for religious festivals during the summer. It was built in successive stages over the rows of a cultivated field and thereby served to protect this evidence of early agriculture well into modern times. In use the mound served as the base or platform for one or more religious buildings which we might well call summer temples of the Master Farmers.

4. PREHISTORIC TRENCHES. At the north edge of the Cornfield Mound lies a portion of one of the two ditches or concentric series of linked pits which seem to have surrounded the Master Farmer village. Their principal use appears to have been defensive; but they may well have served as borrow pits connected with mound construction.

5. GREAT AND LESSER TEMPLE MOUNDS. The Great Temple Mound was the principal religious structure of the Master Farmers at Ocmulgee. As in the case of the Cornfield Mound, the buildings for which it served as a platform were doubtless used in connection with the major religious festivals of the year, those leading up to and including the great summer harvest ceremony. No clear indication of the appearance of these buildings was preserved here, but we find some evidence of a rectangular framework of small posts set at intervals. These were very likely intertwined with cane, and the whole building plastered with clay and roofed with sod or thatch. Like almost all temple mounds, this one achieved its great size through successive additions to an original structure of rather modest size.

The relation of the Lesser Temple Mound to the Great Temple Mound is not known. Its closeness to the latter suggests either that it was an auxiliary structure; or that the two were built at different periods as the demands of the religious cycle for periodic renewal of the temples and enlargement of their bases caused changes in the original plan of the area. The base of the mound lies at the level of the top of the bank above the parking area. This is the old plateau level, while the present park road at this point occupies the bed of an old railroad cut.

6. TRADING POST. The area around the Trading Post stockade and generally west of it was the site of a Creek village situated here from about 1690 to 1717. The burials are those of Creek Indians interred in the village area; and the ornaments and other articles placed with the body indicate that they had been obtained by trade with the English.

The Trading Post itself was probably an active center of Carolina’s trade with the Indians from shortly after 1690 to its destruction incident to the Yamassee War around 1715. The five-sided enclosure with two gates in its broad base side was fenced with a wall of posts possibly 12 to 20 feet in height. The ditch around four of the sides may have been to improve drainage within the compound or to provide additional protection as a sort of moat.

The Trading Path, marked at the north corner of the stockade, ran from Augusta to the Lower Creek towns along the Ocmulgee. English traders from Charleston used this old Indian trail as a highway to the Indian country. Traces of the path were found at intervals during the excavation, leading from the northeast toward the palisaded enclosure and thence toward the river.

7. FUNERAL MOUND. Important civil or religious leaders of the Master Farmer village were buried here. At the base of the mound, log tombs contained the bodies of several persons, possibly wives and retainers of the leader. Like the temple mounds, the original mound covering these graves was built over and enlarged six successive times. More burials were made in each new stage, and the flat top of each supported a building which may have been used in preparing the dead for burial. The present height of the mound approximates that of the third building stage.

OTHER MOUNDS. The Southeast, Dunlap, and McDougal Mounds, like others which are known to have been destroyed in the building of East Macon, lay outside the enclosed area of the Master Farmer village. They were doubtless the platforms for relatively minor religious structures and are not included in the interpretative scheme of the monument.

How to Reach the Monument

Ocmulgee National Monument lies east of the city of Macon, Ga., and adjacent to the city limits on that side. It may be reached from the downtown area by crossing the Ocmulgee River to its east bank and driving east either along Main Street or the Emery Highway to the entrance. By the first route the distance from the Fifth Street bridge is 1.2 miles; while it is 1.3 miles from the intersection where the highway begins just a short distance beyond the Spring Street bridge.

About Your Visit

The museum and administration building are open from 8:30 a. m. to 5 p. m. during the week, and on Sundays from 9 a. m. to 5:30 p. m. A fee of 25 cents covers admission to the museum and earthlodge but is waived for children under 12, organized educational groups, and members of the U. S. Armed Forces in recreational or educational groups sponsored by military centers, the USO, or like organizations. The exhibits are simply and clearly explained so that the services of a guide are unnecessary, but every attention is given to the particular needs of organizations and special groups when arrangements are made in advance with the superintendent. Free literature and other publications are available. Interested students are welcome to the use of the library, access to the collections, and the assistance of an archeologist. The visiting hours of the museum do not apply to the monument area, which is open at all times.

Administration

Ocmulgee National Monument is administered by the National Park Service of the United States Department of the Interior. A superintendent, whose address is Macon, Ga., is in immediate charge.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Fairbanks, Charles H. _Archeological Excavations in the Funeral Mound,
Ocmulgee National Monument, Ga._ Archeological Research Series No.
3, National Park Service, Government Printing Office, Washington,
D.C. 1956.

Griffin, James B., Editor. _Archeology of Eastern United States._
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill. 1952.

Kelly, A. R. _A Preliminary Report on Archeological Explorations at
Macon, Georgia._ Anthropological Papers, No. 1, Bureau of American
Ethnology, Bulletin 119, Government Printing Office, Washington,
D.C. 1938.

Martin, Paul S., George I. Quimby, and Donald Collier. _Indians Before
Columbus._ University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill. 1947.

Swanton, John R. _Early History of the Creek Indians and Their
Neighbors._ Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 73, Government
Printing Office, Washington, D. C. 1922.

—— _The Indians of the Southeastern United States._ Bureau of American
Ethnology, Bulletin 137, Government Printing Office. Washington,
D.C. 1946.

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
HISTORICAL HANDBOOK SERIES

FOR SALE BY THE SUPERINTENDENT OF DOCUMENTS, U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING
OFFICE, WASHINGTON 25, D. C.

Bandelier (No. 23), 35 cents
Custer Battlefield (No. 1), 20 cents
Custis-Lee Mansion (No. 6), 20 cents
Fort Laramie (No. 20), 25 cents
Fort McHenry (No. 5), 25 cents
Fort Necessity (No. 19), 25 cents
Fort Pulaski (No. 18), 25 cents
Fort Raleigh (No. 16), 20 cents
Fort Sumter (No. 12), 25 cents
Gettysburg (No. 9), 25 cents
Hopewell Village (No. 8), 25 cents
Independence (No. 17), 25 cents
Jamestown, Virginia (No. 2), 25 cents
Kings Mountain (No. 22), 25 cents
The Lincoln Museum and the House Where Lincoln Died (No. 3), 20 cents
Manassas (Bull Run) (No. 15), 20 cents
Morristown, A Military Capital of the Revolution (No. 7), 20 cents
Ocmulgee (No. 24), 25 cents
Petersburg Battlefields (No. 13), 30 cents
Saratoga (No. 4), 20 cents
Shiloh (No. 10), 25 cents
Statue of Liberty (No. 11), 25 cents
Vicksburg (No. 21), 25 cents
Yorktown (No. 14), 25 cents

Transcriber’s Notes

—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
is public-domain in the country of publication.

—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
_underscores_.

End of Project Gutenberg's Ocmulgee National Monument--Georgia, by G. D. Pope