Star Mounds: Legacy of a Native American Mystery w/ Ross Hamilton

Interview with Ross Hamilton on Star Mounds: Legacy of a Native American Mystery

Would you share some of the Native American stories that demonstrate the knowledge of the Universe known by indigenous people and how they revolved around these earthworks?

Ross Hamilton: One of the opening stories in Star Mounds is that of Grandmother Spider. It is possibly one the oldest and best preserved among several tribal traditions, including the Cherokee and Shawnee. In the story, the Animals (mánitous) are each and all in need of the light, and the world is in a twilight stage. They have been brought up to the surface after having been inside the Mother Earth for a very long time. The story describes many of the animals’ journey in seeking the light of the Sun (the true light of their inner selves), and how each fails to bring back the light from the Sun people’s lodge some distance away. Finally, Grandmother Spider declares that she herself will go, but only after she carefully bundles each animal spirit in her special gossamer so each mánitou will not want for anything while she is away. When she returns, she has a spark of the true light and places it in each bundle. After that, she mounts to heaven (the Sky World) and connects the stars together so that each group of stars complements the Animal figures on the Earth, reflecting the old spiritual law “as above, so below” reflected in the teachings of the Lakota People.

The story of Grandmother Spider is heavily pregnant with meaning, and as I’ve attempted to explain, these stories, some of them perhaps thousands of years old, have become fragmented and relieved of much of their original detail. The two-eyed spider was apparently symbolic of geometric and architectural erudition among initiates of certain secret Native societies. If we see Grandmother as a symbol for a grand medicine society of architects, surveyors, astronomers, and builders, we may begin to glean the story of how the collection of earthworks in the Ohio Valley were all at one time under the creative aegis of such a secret social order. CONTINUE..

To continue much more of this wonderful interview and to see the slide show of the Star Mounds please click this link to continue.

http://www.examiner.com/article/ross-hamilton-on-star-mounds-legacy-of-a-native-american-mystery