Effigy Mound Art

In a similar manner the shamans-artists who constructed the effigy figures portrayed the meaning of their worldview by placing animals with specific cultural meaning in a particular sequence in a context associated with the four factors below that gave dynamic direction to the group. Consider that a Ho-Chunk Elder told me that if I wanted to know the meaning of an effigy mound “see where it is going”. I was instructed to watch birds in flight to discover their destination. “Birds fly, see where they are going. Let land animals stand up and walk and see where they are going. Follow land and water clans effigies as they enter a river or a lake”. Armed with this instruction I have identified the four factors that provide meaning to the mounds at a particular site called dynamic direction. The four dynamic factors are:

  1. The flow of a river,
  2. The contour of the terrain,
  3. The movement of the sun and moon especially at the equinox and solstices,
  4. The rise of the galatic center (the milky way) as it appears in the southwest night sky in the effigy mounds region.

When these factors are combined with the role function of the various Clans the meaning of a particular effigy or a group of effigies as they might describe specific burial and after-death issues can be discerned. In sum the process is to combine the archeological and anthropological data with the survey alignment data integrated with the spiritual beliefs of the Tribal Nations to unite the natural, cultural and spiritual worlds.

But there are dangers…………………

Development, the Enemy of the Effigy