The Ancient City of Poverty Point

I have just completed the second handmade book in the 3-book series from this project!  It is a softcover book about the late (late archaic anyway), great city of Poverty Point.  It has taken WAY longer than I expected due to some technical difficulties with dyeing the covers but I now have a couple of them finished and more in the works.

Some of you may remember my endeavor to make black walnut dye from walnuts gathered at Poverty Point.  My idea was to use that dye on the covers of this book which are made from thick handmade mulberry paper.  Here they are … dyed, dried, rinsed then hanging up to dry again.

Inside the book are 11 images and 11 pages of text bound together with waxed linen thread.  I used a variation of a 4-hole Japanese binding technique described by Kojiro Ikegami who was born in 1908 and was a master bookbinding craftsman.  I know, what does Japan have to do with ancient earthen mounds in Louisiana?  But … I liked the idea of the technique being handed down to him from generations of bookbinders, then to me, across both time and space.  They are printed using carbon inks on cotton paper, measure approximately 6×9 inches and look like this:

I will be slowly making more of them which will be offered for sale on my website.  I don’t like adding commercial stuff to this blog but I don’t know of a better way to reach some of you.  Like the previous book, groundwork, this one will be offered at a lower price for a month or so to allow the followers of the project to purchase one as reasonably as I can price it.  After that, the price will go up to help support my continuing efforts with these mounds - there are exhibits to launch and educational displays to construct and more good things along the way.

Thanks to ALL of you who have stayed with this project.  Your support is much appreciated!

Thoughts on a Rainy Afternoon

I am winding down the photography part of this project.  I’m not stopping altogether but I have enough photos for my handmade books, for an exhibit, for me to study and contemplate what to do next.  There are still sites I want to visit but I can now do them leisurely, weaving them into other work that I am doing.

The first mounds book, “groundwork”, is finished.  I am nearing completion of another one about Poverty Point.  I have a local exhibit of this work scheduled for December.  So it feels like I am finally able to stop, catch my breath and look back at where I have been, what I have seen and what I have learned.

And there is one thought that has stayed with me throughout this project.  And that is the idea that this earth really is shared.  The changes that the mound builders made on the landscape are still here; they can be seen by us all these centuries later.  And while I stand on the ground that they moved and shaped and built, I know that people in the future will stand on what we leave behind.

And because of that I feel a greater responsibility, a greater awareness of our effects on the planet.  If a pile of dirt can last for 5000 years, how long will a pile of plastic water bottles last?  I know, I know, we hear dire reports of our destructive impact on the planet every day.  But whether or not I believe all of them or become alarmed by them or change my way of life because of them, I think about them even more because of this project.  I consider more seriously what effect I have on the earth that I pass over every day.  And I think more about what I want to leave behind.

Because our changes to the earth really do last.

Mound A, Poverty Point, 1700-1100 BC.

Black Walnut Stew

Yesterday I sat outside on a nice, sunny 70 degree afternoon and shelled a large tub of rotten black walnuts that had been soaking in water overnight.  Beneath the shells were hundreds, thousands of ants.

These aren’t ordinary walnuts – they were gathered from the ground beneath a black walnut tree that grows at Poverty Point (with permission from the site manager.)  And they will be cooked down into a (hopefully) thick, dark liquid that I will use as a dye on another project.

As I sat outside, cross-legged on the ground and shelled the walnuts I thought about the ancient people at Poverty Point.  They weren’t farmers so they would have gathered nuts, probably even black walnuts, and removed the husks in a similar way.  While I discarded the nuts for the squirrels and raccoons, they would have been an important part of their diet (the nuts as well as the squirrels.)  When finished, I was left with a pile of husks, the ant colony and the pot of water they had been soaking in.

I have the pot of walnuts cooking on my stove this morning.  Somewhere in the vast world of the internet someone wrote that the aroma smelled like decaying limbs and leaves and was not unpleasant.  I’m not sure that Febreze will want to replace their “Linen and Sky” scent with it, but it’s not too bad so far.  These will cook at least a day, maybe longer, until the stew reaches the desired level of deep, rich brown that I’m after.

According to a book written by Daniel Moerman called “Native American Ethnobotany” (yes, again, the internet) black walnut bark was used by the Cherokee, Chippewa and Meskwaki to make dye.  I’m not sure how this experiment will turn out but spending some time with Poverty Point walnuts and a Native American process seems like a good way to spend a now dreary March weekend.

groundwork

I knew when I embarked on this project that I wanted to make a handmade book from some of the images, one day, when I could put the camera down for a while and concentrate on it.  And that’s what I have been doing for the past few weeks.

I thought about all the sites I’ve visited and felt them trail along behind me, fluttering in the dim past, connecting me to whatever was out there before I existed.  The more I considered that idea the more an accordion book seemed suited to the way I was feeling.  So I put together a folding book of eight photographs, earthworks from northeastern Louisiana that stretch from approximately 3600 BC to AD 1650, the longest span of time for earthen mounds anywhere in the US.  The title of the book is simply groundwork.

When opened fully, the book is roughly 4 feet long with hard covers at each end.

The interior pages are printed using smooth uncoated Fabriano Artistico paper, a creamy yellow paper that feels old in my hands.  Unlike traditional coated inkjet paper, the Fabriano allows the carbon ink dots to bleed a little giving the images a soft, not quite sharp appearance.  That’s how the mounds feel to me, never fully seen and understood, always a bit mysterious.  Also, since the Fabriano paper mill was established in Italy in 1264, it seems only fitting to use their paper for this project.

There is a timeline running the length of the book starting with the period before moundbuilding began, then to Watson Brake, flowing through the earthworks, passing through me and on and on and on.  I added a bit of text at the end that reflects my connection to these sacred places and my wonder at what we are leaving behind for those who follow us.

Designing this book, making mockups, messing them up, redoing them, trying again and still finding slight imperfections no matter how careful I tried to be only serve to remind me of how fallible we are.  And that makes the continued existence of these earthworks and the artifacts recovered from them, after so many thousands of years, that much more remarkable.

I am slowly making more copies of this book and have them on my website here.  Eventually I plan on making another book about Poverty Point as well as one on Watson Brake.  They won’t be accordion books but what they will be, hmmm, I’m not quite sure.  But I’ll post them here, one day, whenever I figure that out.

Thanks again to everyone who has made this project possible.  You know who you are.

Poverty Point World Heritage Site Nomination

I received my gorgeous copy of Poverty Point’s nomination to become a World Heritage site this week.  It is an amazing book.

Chocked full of up-to-date information, graphs, pictures and tables, it is everything you have ever wanted to know about Poverty Point and then some.  It required an incredible amount of work to compile it, write it, rewrite it, design it, have it reviewed, rewrite it again and on and on.  Kudos to everyone involved but particularly to Dr. Diana Greenlee, station archaeologist, for maneuvering through the chaos of having so many people giving her input and still finding a way to create such a monumental document.

The aerial cover shot is by Susan Guice from Biloxi, MS.

How cool is that???

Pollen Coring

I went to the Poverty Point area last week to try and track down Dr. Elizabeth Scharf from the University of North Dakota.  I found her there, pulling cores from the deep muck of one of our Louisiana swamps.  She and Lisa Wright (from the Poverty Point Historic Site) were set up on a small raft in about two feet of water in a spot where you would NOT want to be in the middle of summer.  But on this February day the mosquitoes were minimal and the snakes and alligators were either absent or content to keep their distance and just watch.

The process goes something along the lines of forcing a cylindrical tube into the mud, obtaining a sample of the mud and pulling it back out , intact, only using hand-operated equipment.  There’s not much room to maneuver on the raft and I’m guessing it is not very comfortable after the first couple of hours.  They were there for four days.

But the cool part is that Dr. Scharf will take the samples back to her lab in North Dakota to determine the type of pollen that was in the area in the past.  She is specifically looking for what types of plants were growing when Poverty Point was being built around 3700 years ago.  From her previous tests she discovered that oak, pine, planertree, elm, hickory, pecan, cypress, tupelo and sweet gum have been growing in that area for the past six thousand years.  She also found that there is more tree cover here now than there was before historic settlement.  So Poverty Point was probably built in an open area with little vegetation.

She can also tell from the cores that fires were most common around 1500 years ago, even more common than during the Civil War when people were intentionally setting fires to crops and cotton.

I watched them pull a successful core, wrap it in Glad Wrap followed by standard aluminum foil then place it carefully in a section of plastic gutter.  All very low tech.  But I’m guessing the lab in North Dakota is probably slightly more sophisticated.

Looks like it is ready for the oven!  Thanks to Dr. Scharf for explaining while she worked.

Pargoud Landing

I put off going to photograph Pargoud Landing because it is in Monroe, not far from where I live and I kept thinking I could go there any time.  It wasn’t an excursion that I needed to plan (or pack a lunch) for.  But in December the clouds were right and the temperature cool and the wind brisk and it was just time to visit Pargoud.

Pargoud Landing is in a residential neighborhood that is nestled up against the confluence of the Ouachita River and Bayou Desiard.  I can get there by kayak from my backyard though I would have to go over or under a few bridges along the way.

One of the earliest references to the site was in 1787 which listed that there were originally three mounds but that two had been destroyed.  In 1909, archaeologist C.B. Moore published “Antiquities of the Ouachita Valley” and wrote about Pargoud Landing that  “the mound, evidently domiciliary, has suffered through wash of rain.  It was not dug into by us.”

It was excavated in 1935 by Ford and Freeman who noted that the site included at least two mounds.  A portion of the site was bulldozed in 1973 and skeletons and associated grave goods were exhumed by amateurs.  Really.  The site was excavated again during the summers of the mid- to late 1970s by Glen Greene from what was then Northeast Louisiana University.  A collection of artifacts is on display at the ULM Museum of Natural History and if you haven’t seen it, you should go.  Soon.

The tallest mound at the site was estimated to be approximately 28 feet tall.  It is thought to be an early Plaquemine site built around AD 1200.

So that’s the history I can glean from the articles given to me by Dr. Diana Greenlee from Poverty Point.  But every time I mention my ancient mounds project to anyone who grew up in the area around Pargoud they always tell me stories.  Riding their bicycles up and over the mound.  Sliding down it on pieces of cardboard.  They usually express remorse now that they are adults and realize that the ground they played on was sacred.

Standing on the paved road next to the large houses while the occasional golf cart putters by, it’s hard to imagine the surroundings of this mound back when it was built or even when it was first noted in 1787.  But, to me, the humble mound still makes all the fine homes seem so temporary.  They will probably crumble to the ground someday while the mound waits, patiently, to see what’s going to replace them.  Again.

Hogan Plantation

It had been over a year since I first heard of the Hogan Plantation mounds that I finally found myself turning down the dirt road that I thought, maybe, led to them.  I stopped at the first house I came to, got out of the car and knocked at the front door.  No answer.  I drove to the second house.  Same thing.  So I wrote a quick note about my project, attached a business card and tucked it into one of the mailboxes.  And waited.

About a week later I got a call from one of the landowners saying she would be delighted for me to come back and photograph the mounds.  So a couple of days later I made the return trip, arriving mid-morning on a warm November day.

I was met by Melissa Cummings, one of the owners of the site, who graciously offered to give me a guided tour of the two mounds that reside on her family’s property.  She got in her Jeep and I followed in my ancient Honda and we struck out down the dirt road, past the fallow cottonfields, around the muddy ruts, over the levee, along the edge of the thick woods then, finally, into the thick woods where the weeds grew taller than the hood of my car.  We got out.

Melissa immediately told me to be careful of the water moccasins and rattlesnakes.  She said there were also copperheads but not to worry about them since I would probably step on one before I would see it anyway.  She also mentioned ticks that carried Lyme disease as well as mosquitoes with West Nile virus.  And then she tossed me an orange vest saying there were inexperienced hunters in the woods that day and that I should make as much noise as I could.  I wished I had at least worn my boots.

We climbed to the top of Mound B which rises from a terrace of the Ouachita River and is home to a small cemetery and a simple deer stand.  Melissa got me oriented, showed me the historic gravestones and made sure I was settled into my surroundings before leaving me to explore and photograph in peace.  Or relative peace.  I decided to whistle intermittently to announce my presence, not that I really thought it was doing much good.

Mound B is approximately 20 feet tall and though it is oval-shaped now, it was probably once a rectangular platform mound.  It is surrounded by dense, tangled woods but it would have risen above a clearing when it was active during the Coles Creek period.  It has partially eroded into the floodplain of the river that meanders just south of the site.

The first known recorded account of the Hogan mounds was by a geologist in 1902.  At that time Mound B was estimated to measure 100 x 50 feet at the top.  It’s always strange for me to stand alongside history, alongside an ancient past as well as the more recent explorations of archaeologists and other scientists.  Just another speck in the long, long continuum.

On the other side of the modern levee is the sister mound, Mound A.  It is shorter, roughly 15 feet, and is conical-shaped with a flat top.  That top is roughly 35 feet across, large enough for a picnic table and nighttime hot dog roasts and ghost stories.  Unlike Mound B, it is surrounded by farmland that still has clumps of cotton mixed in with the well-turned dirt.

I spent over an hour walking the mounds, scrambling to the summits, surveying the perimeters, whistling.  But it wasn’t until I crawled up on the picnic table, stretched out on my back and gazed up at the sky that I finally felt a part of the site.  My view included trees that wouldn’t have been there during ancient times but I’m sure the November sky was the same and maybe even the wonder at the amazing gifts that can be found beneath it.

Thanks to Melissa Cummings for her gracious hospitality and Dr. Diana Greenlee for providing me with the information on the site.

The Owls of Poverty Point – in print

There is a new article in the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities magazine – Louisiana Cultural Vistas - featuring the Owls of Poverty Point.  It was written by Monroe writer, William Caverlee, and contains a blurb about this Shared Earth project.

http://www.nxtbook.com/leh/lcvwinter2012/lcvwinter2012/index.php#/42

If the above link doesn’t work for you, just google “Louisiana Cultural Vistas” and take a look at the Winter 2012 issue.

The Ghost Site

A year or so ago I was driving along Hwy. 4 in Tensas Parish when I noticed a sign that said “Bob’s Campground.”  And there was indeed a campground there with sites laid out in an orderly grid.  It was full of old campers and trailers … vintage Shastas and Prowlers, rusty Airstream knockoffs with round windows and the occasional full-scale mobile home.  And I couldn’t help but wonder … why?  Why would so many people want to camp along Hwy. 4 in Tensas Parish?  I vowed to go back one day and photograph my way to an answer.

I found myself there again a few weeks ago, along with my “Indian Mounds of Northeast Louisiana Driving Trail Guide”, and was astonished to discover an ancient mound in the rear of the campground.  There was even a driving trail sign that I had overlooked before.  “The Ghost Site Mound.”  I was ecstatic.

I called the phone number on the wooden sign and spoke with Bob Himself, Mr. Robert Brumley.  I told him I wanted to photograph the mound there and he graciously gave me permission and answered many of my questions about the place.  It turns out the campers there are mostly on yearly leases.  But why?  Ah, they are hunting camps.  I don’t hunt but find it somehow comforting that the mound is surrounded by people who, like the original inhabitants, still do.

I was greeted on my arrival by an inquisitive Basset Hound who, after getting her ears scratched and belly rubbed, was willing to tag along with me on the photo expedition.  There are 3 (possibly 5) mounds at the site but only one is really large enough to see.  It is about 11 feet tall and 118×92 feet at the base.  It has a historic cemetery on top as so many of the ancient mounds do.

I climbed to the summit and read the text chiseled into the old tombstones.  Jacob Bieller, October 30, 1824- April 11, 1851.  Joseph B. Ford, March 20, 1839 – Dec. 29, 1857.  Mr. Brumley told me a couple of the large and very heavy markers had tumbled off the mound over the years but he and his sons had hauled them back to the top and tried to replace them where they originally stood.

As I explored and photographed, a few of the campground inhabitants wandered by ferrying pots of food to a central location for cooking dinner.  I listened to their muffled conversation and laughter and watched their dogs weave their way through all the activity.  I knew that soon the aroma of spices and woodsmoke would fill the air and that later the families would sit under the night sky, tell stories and watch the firelight flicker in the darkness.  And I knew that even though the living quarters and cooking methods were vastly different, the evening would be much the same as it had been for the ancient Coles Creek culture who had lived at the base of the mound a thousand or so years before.

Thanks to Mr. Brumley and his family for caring for this ancient site and for allowing me to photograph it.

The Ghost Site Mound, AD 700-1200