Celebration Mound that is over 50 feet high and over 2-acres on top all constructed by hand.
Enjoying the Cherry trees around Macon.
Old home in a section of Macon. There is a small neighborhood of these classic homes one street off an area with very poor homes - what a contrast!
This home has been converted into apartments. Most likely this is why there are no plants or decorations. What a shame!Tuesday 3-27-07
We ventured off toward Ocmulgee National Monument located on the eastern edge of Macon, GA. This name is pronounced oak-Mul-gee. Several names in the area have interesting pronunciations. Another is the county name in which Perry is located. We have learned that Houston County is not like the Houston in Texas. Around here it is pronounced How-ston. Of course Georgia does not have a corner on the pronunciation market as Texas has Mexia properly pronounced ma-Hay-a. But I digress –
Ocmulgee located in Georgia vs. the Okmulgee located in Oklahoma, was the location of a very large Indian civilization dating back to around 900 to 1100 AD. This was a fascinating look at the area history and organization of this Indian population. They were obviously very hardy and had great numbers as they built several earthen mounds for various functions. One was their Celebration Mound that has a two-acre flat top. This flat top is 50 feet above the surrounding ground. To build this, all the material had to be carried up in baskets. If a draw close by is the location of all the dirt used, they had to carry the baskets about 1000’ before they even began to climb to the top to dump the soil. Even with large very numbers of workers, this must have required many years.
In addition to the Celebration Mound, they also had burial, religious and ceremonial mounds. One special area was a 42’ diameter earth lodge. This may have been used as a winter temple or a year-round council house. The one entrance was aligned so that the sun shown on the center of the throne inside on the first day of spring and first day of fall.
They had to have large acreage for farming as well as the workers needed to provide food for the while Indian nation. As a group that lived in bottomlands, they raised corn, beans, squash, bumpkins, and tobacco.
It is recorded that these were not peaceful Indians, so they had to frequently fight and likely experienced losses that could have impacted the number of workers left to farm and continue building all the mounds in the area.
It appears that this civilization declined around 1100 and within 200 years there was no sign of the Mississippians. What happened to them is unknown. It is possible a new culture developed blending the Mississippians with the Woodland Indians who became known as the Lamar culture. One thing is known with certainty. The arrival of Europeans was catastrophic to the Indians bringing diseases the Indians had no immunity for, so very large numbers died. It is likely this greatly contributed to the demise of this tribe.
