Book Review: The Moundbuilders: Ancient Peoples of Eastern North America

The Moundbuilders: Ancient Peoples of Eastern North America by George R. Milner, Thames and Hudson, London, 2004.

I have always had an interest the the moundbuilders, and hope to travel east to visit some of the mound sites.  It is truly amazing the work that was done by ancient inhabitants of North America, and even more impressive when you consider that we only have less than ten percent of the original sites remaining as many have been covered by farms or urban growth.  

This book presents the story of the moundbuiders in a chronological order, dividing the chapters into mobile hunter groups, sedentary hunter groups, builders of burial mounds Woodland period, the chief period, villagers and lastly the Trail of Tears.

The book reports on many different sites including: Cahokia from the chief period, Hopewell sites in Ohio, including the Serpent Mound, Moundville.  There are mound ruins throughout the east extending from Florida through Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky and on to Illinois and Ohio.  The book has many pictures of artwork and pottery.  There are also sites where many arrow heads were gathered.  

The book does a very good job of describing many of the mounds as burial sites.  However, as those things on top of the mounds are now gone, it may fall fault in describing other purposes of the mounds.  There are mounds that had wood walls as evidenced by post holes.

I enjoyed this archeological study of Eastern North America.

Book Review: The Ordeal of Olive Oatman

 The Ordeal of Olive Oatman: A True Story of the American West by Margaret Rau, Morgan Reynolds Incorporated, Greensboro, North Carolina, 1997.

The story of Olive Oatman is fantastic.  I had not heard of this story until moving to Arizona and learned than the town of Oatman was named after her.  Olive Oatman, with her family was emigrating from Independence Missouri to southern California in 1851-52..  They were an offshoot Mormon family, Brewsterites, which traveled with a group who felt that Salt Lake was not the correct destination.  They traveled the Santa Fe Trail.  Even they had disagreements and the group separated.  The Oatman family, with the smaller group, made it to Tucson, where the group was further reduced as some decided to stay.  Only three families continued on.  They finally made it to Pimole amongst the Pima people.  They were invited to stay, and only the Oatmans continued on, hoping to reach the Colorado River and Fort Yuma, 150 miles to the west.  The crossed the Gila River, and finally made it to the plateau on the other side.  It was on that plateau where they were met by a group of Native Americans, thought to be Apache but later determined to be Yavapai.  After asking for tobacco and food, they finally manifested their true intentions, using clubs to bludgeon the pioneers.  They killed the parents, mother who was eight months pregnant, and six siblings of Olive.  She and her sister Mary Ann were taken captive.  Her older brother Lorenzo was clubbed, but survived.  Al the other family members were killed.  

In captivity Olive and Mary Ann were made to to slave labor, providing food for the men but also being subject to ridicule.  Mary Ann was often sick, but they were both always hungry.  A trading party from the Mohave visited the camp, and the daughter of the chief insisted they trade for the slaves.  They were eventually sold for two horses.  The Mohave lived close to the Colorado River near present day Needles.  They now received better treatment, but it was always feared they would run away.  Consequently Olive was tattooed showing marks of being a slave so she would be returned if she attempted escape.  Mary Ann became sick and died of starvation during a period where the Mohave were short of food.  Olive considered escape, but withdrew this when another slave form a different Indian Tribe escaped and was captured and tortured to death.  

However after five years in captivity, word of her existence reach fort Yuma.  There people took interest and arranged to purchase her from the Mohave.  After several failed attempts, they were finally successful.  Olive was released to Fort Yuma, but the fort had to provide a fine horse.  After being released she learned of her brother, Lorenzo still being alive.  Olive's story was published widely in the newspaper.  Lorenzo joined her in Yuma, and eventually a cousin who invited them to Oregon.  The story of Lorenzo and Olive was published in a book.  This lead to their being invited to tour the East telling their story.  During this visit Olive met a man, John Fairchild, and they married and settled in Texas.  They were childless but did adopt a child.

From this book, I learned that Olive Oatman had to part in the founding of Oatman which bears her name.  It was named in her honor.  Olive always insisted the Native Americans never violated her chastity.  After her death, in 1903 however a man claimed to be her son by the son of the chief.  He called himself John Oatman.  

Launa's or Luana's Canyon or Slaughterhouse Canyon, Kingman

 I was reading a book "Weird Arizona" by Wesley Treat and came upon the story of "La Llorona" the weeping lady.  There are several versions of the story, of a lady who murders her children, in one case to gain a lover who then leaves her because of what she has done.   In the Kingman story, the mother has two children but is jealous of them because of her husband's attention to the children (the children are his as well).  She throws the children off a cliff.  Her husband he knows of her jealousy does not accept that it is an accident and leaves her.  She then follows her children hurling herself off the cliff.  She is said to roam the canyon, moaning, between midnight and 3 a.m.  People claim to have seen her, a woman with no face, or a woman with the head of a horse.  She is also said to be looking for bones as she was denied entrance by Saint Peter until she brings the bones of her children.  

The more common story is that a miner family lived in the canyon.  They were poor and food was hard to come by, and prospecting was not working.  The lived in a wooden shack in the heart of the canyon.  The husband would leave hoping to find food, or success prospecting and to come back with supplies.  He would be gone for weeks at a time.  However eventually he left and never returned.  The family slowly started to starve.  The children would cry for food, and their cries would echo across the canyon.  Eventually the mother could not take it any more and killed the children then hacked them up, and threw their remains in a river (wash more likely).  She became more distressed herself and stayed on the bank crying until she died of starvation.  Talk of a river makes you think that the murder happened in monsoon season, or August. 

Slaughterhouse Canyon Hike