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Feature Articles: Debra Muller, preserving the Norton Mounds, Michegan
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Submitted by Andy B on Sunday, 05 December 2004 Page Views: 3241
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 Country: United States County: Great Lakes Midwest Type: Artificial Mound
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  Debra Muller paused before unlocking the metal gate and examined dozens of tiny cloth bundles stuck in the chain link fence. To some, the colorful swatches tied with yarn are litter. To Muller and those who filled them with tobacco, sage and other sacred herbs, the pouches are spiritual offerings for their ancestors in what may be Michigan's oldest cemetery.
"We had some staff people who wanted to take them down," Muller said. "I said, 'No, leave them.' "
She swung the gate open and walked along a path toward the Norton Mounds, where indigenous people buried their dead some 2,000 years ago. She passed a corrugated tin shack housing an oil well pump -- "Disgusting," she said. "It's an eyesore." -- then proceeded into the floodplain between the Grand River and Int.-196.
"That's the expressway," she said, motioning toward the river. At least it was when a group of prehistoric people known as the Hopewells came here 1,500 years before Columbus arrived in the Americas.
They built large, earthen mounds along the river to inter their dead with pottery, tools, jewelry and other items. At one time, as many as 35 mounds were on this site. Today, 13 survive, making them perhaps the best preserved Hopwellian mounds in North America and earning them the designation of a National Historic Landmark.
Yet few West Michigan residents, if they are even aware of the Norton Mounds, appreciate their significance.
More: The Grand Rapids Press
More on the Norton Mounds here and here.
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Callanish, Gerald Ponting |
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