Spring Travels: Builder of Mounds

On the outskirts of the modern hamlet of Natchez, Mississippi is an ancient site documented by several 17th Century French explorers and priests who visited the New World and journeyed up the mighty river to find what they referred to as "The Grand Village of the Natchez".  Modern archaeologist now believe that this site of three earthen mounds served more as a ceremonial gathering location, while the majority of the population of Natchez Indians were scattered about the region in small communities that raised squash, corn and beans.  But at the Grand Village of the Natchez, the Great Sun, paramount chief and his nobility resided in a dwelling atop the one of the mounds and another mound was topped by a temple where a fire was always kept burning in homage to the Sun.  The nobles were served the by the "stinkards" of the lower caste. 

We visited the museum that outlined the Natchez society rituals of human sacrifice of their own children and the hierarchy as observed by contemporary French accounts.  As the French settlement and fortification encroached upon the indigenous people, the Natchez turned on the French in 1730.  The French counter attached and claimed to have wiped out all of the Natchez, but there are those who claim that at least some warriors escaped and joined with the Creek and Cherokee Nations.

Ascending the "Temple Mound" at the
Grand Village of the Natchez

 A few miles up the Natchez Trace from the Grand Village is the impressive Emerald Mound. An 8 acre mound (the second largest such structure in North America) that stands above the Mississippi flood plain about 40 feet.  It took several generation of laborers working with baskets and digging tools of sticks and antlers to build such a high standing monument, beginning around 1200.  To think of the effort that went into the construction can not help but fill one with admiration for the efforts and toil of these antecedent people of the Plaquemine Culture, the mound-builders. 

The Great Sun mound (chief's dwelling) atop the south end of the 8 acre Emerald mound

Kirby and Sue climb to the Great Sun's mound at Emerald Mound
along the Natchez Trace

The view across Emerald Mound, a prehistoric ceremonial site built over generations.
From the top of the Great Sun Mound you can see the Temple Mopund on the far end of the raised Emerald Mound complex.

View across Emerald Mound from the steps ascending
The Great Sun's Mound and Dwelling

Emerald Mound from half-way up the steeply constructed slopes that
rise to a flat surface on the top of Emerald Mound