What's In a Name?
By Alexis Voisard
Ohio is home to more than 70 ancient Native American burial mounds, and photoed above is the mound known as the Williamson Mound. Located in my hometown of Cedarville, Ohio, I probably grew up learning more about Native American culture than most children my age. I have Native American heritage on my grandmother's side. She's told us many stories about our connections, and even claims we are related to Pocahontas. But I'm so far removed that I don't identify myself as having a Native American Identity, but other members in my family are more closely rooted in their Native American heritage, especially my cousin who's married to a Native American man. With my family connections, I've always held a high respect for this mound in particular, and I've gone on adventures in the summer as a child to tour all the vast mounds in Ohio.
This particular photo of the Williamson Mound is dated 1932, but the mound’s history is ancient. Archeological evidence indicates that the mound was built by the Adena culture more than 2,000 years ago. Mystery surrounds the significance of these mounds, but evidence also points to this mound used as a burial ground, and it’s height of over 40 feet indicates that it took a long time to build. The Adena culture was a complex society which lived and traded extensively in the Ohio River and Mississippi River regions of the Midwest. This mound is located near Massie Creek, which is further evidence that it was built by the Adena people because the photo above indicates the close proximity of the mounds to water sources. They thrived off many Ohio resources, including wildlife such as deer, oak, beaver, and turkey, and they typically lived in small settlements along rivers. The burial mounds reveal their affinity for working with the earth, evident in archeological findings of their pottery. The Adena culture did not bury pottery with their dead, but mounds were strategically planned and built in a perfect oval form in layers across long periods of time.
Despite the overwhelming mystery of these mounds, no scientific excavations have been performed on the Williamson Mound. As such, the mound as a burial ground is the most common narrative, with one source touting the mound was “built by Mysterious Mound Builders of old, who surely constructed it as a watchtower from which to observe enemies from afar” (R.S. Dillis, History of Greene County, Together with Historic Notes on the Northwest, and the State of Ohio). This novel in particular was published in 1881, and does not mention Native American relations until 81 pages later, primarily detailing Joliet and Marquette’s voyages across the Northwest Territory (then considered Ohio). After Chapter IX titled “The Indians”, the following chapters are entitled, “The war for the fur trade”, “The war for the empire”, and “General Clark’s conquest of the Illinois--The Revolutionary War”. I don’t even need to read the novel to understand the image they attempt to portray of Native Americans. Which is precisely why I’ve entitled this overarching Place History as “What’s In A Name?”. My narrative will explore recent discoveries I’ve made on my own of this mound that I’ve known my whole life, but never understood the complexity of its name and connections to its surrounding community until now. The same author also kindly ignores native agency when describing the establishment of Cedarville Township, who viewed the area’s abundance of forestry, rich soil, and lime as suitable and necessary resources to dominate and obtain.
The 1932 photo is captioned "After Reconditioning", and I've struggled finding exactly what the term means, but it most likely refers to environmental restoration to the area. Protected burial mounds in Ohio have varying degrees of overgrowth and maintenance methods. It’s difficult to discern but it looks like there is a fence or line of stakes surrounding the mound, indicating a particular divide from the rest of the environment. The Adena culture most likely cleared the area of trees and undergrowth since the surrounding area is divided between a field and a heavily forested area. The Adena culture made stone tools and axes which most likely aided in their development of this particular area. The fields currently around the mound are invested in mass agriculture methods that fuel Ohio’s economy, but the area is protected by Greene County and the Ohio State Parks Department. The restoration work from this photo confirms plans to protect the area in the following year in 1933, designated by the following plaque a few hundred feet away from the mound.
The 1932 photo is captioned "After Reconditioning", and I've struggled finding exactly what the term means, but it most likely refers to environmental restoration to the area. Protected burial mounds in Ohio have varying degrees of overgrowth and maintenance methods. It’s difficult to discern but it looks like there is a fence or line of stakes surrounding the mound, indicating a particular divide from the rest of the environment. The Adena culture most likely cleared the area of trees and undergrowth since the surrounding area is divided between a field and a heavily forested area. The Adena culture made stone tools and axes which most likely aided in their development of this particular area. The fields currently around the mound are invested in mass agriculture methods that fuel Ohio’s economy, but the area is protected by Greene County and the Ohio State Parks Department. The restoration work from this photo confirms plans to protect the area in the following year in 1933, designated by the following plaque a few hundred feet away from the mound.
With narratives such as those of R.S. Dillis, it is amazing that this mound has remained largely unaffected by human and environmental disturbances, but this picture doesn’t show the path that has been carved into the mound’s surface. Once there were stairs leading to the top of the mound. Several mounds in Ohio, like the Shrum Mound in Columbus for example, have carved dirt paths, while mounds like the Miamisburg Mound have stone stairs leading to the top of the mound. Curiously enough, the Williamson mound once had stairs, but they’ve been recently removed, leading confusion to many park visitors whether or not to use the dirt path that remains to walk to the top of the mound. While the mound has formally been protected for nearly a century, some could argue that the human disturbances are tremendous based on the carved path to the top of the mound with no path available to walk around the mound.
I invited you to read the following narrative which explores my personal history with the mound and my journey to discover its importance and, primarily, the ultimate irony it has in my hometown community.
I invited you to read the following narrative which explores my personal history with the mound and my journey to discover its importance and, primarily, the ultimate irony it has in my hometown community.
2,000 years after the Adena culture created a burial mound to honor their loved ones, my hometown of Cedarville, Ohio, still promotes the Indian as their school mascot, a building which stands 1.6 miles away from an Adena mound. I can’t count on my hands the number of times I’ve seen my fellow classmates culturally appropriate Native American culture by dressing up in feather headdresses that left fake trails of nylon feathers all over the school, and red face paint that would stain the white bathroom sinks. We saw our red Indian logo everywhere in our school. On the floors, on the walls, on the doors, on the ceilings. Spirit day during homecoming week was the worst. Although I can’t write and pretend I didn’t participate in the same appropriation.
We all thought our first kindergarten field trip to the Indian Mound was sufficient enough to embrace our historical connections to Native American heritage in Cedarville Township. We all thought the 3rd grade Native American history lessons from those laminated books that were binded with cheap plastic and falling apart from 50 years of teaching the same racist, white-centered, European-driven narratives over and over and over and over again to the same young and vulnerable minds, brainwashing us was sufficient to support the mythology of embracing our mascot. We all thought spending 3 weeks in freshman English on Native American Literature was sufficient to finally analyze why the Washington Football Team faced so much hate for using the same exact logo and practice writing for our ACTS by arguing to remove the logo from the NFL team, but refused to take action against or criticizing our own decision for using the same logo.
It’s easy to separate my pride in being a Cedarville Indian from my incredible student experience, playing in marching band and performing in musicals as my proudest moments, but nearly every photo is inseparable from that logo, whether I’m standing at attention on Hickman Field with my clarinet tucked under my shoulder just below an Indian logo, or I’m performing with pit orchestra as an alumna while the star of the show dazzles the hysterically laughing audience with her “Wah Tah Nyee” dance and counting to ten in the “Indian tongue”. I have thousands of photos documenting my high school adventures, and yet every single one is ultimately labeled with an inextricable force of ignorance and appropriation.
For many years I knew the mound as the Indian Mound, and recognized from a young age that it was sacred ground. At least that’s what my kindergarten teacher explained to us out of breath once we reached the top of that very sacred ground. Our little kindergarten bodies could barely handle the walk, but I made my way to the top holding my best friend Carrie Kerr’s hand. We were inseparable, both shy and quiet kids who were so interested in learning we had to absorb anything we were told without critically evaluating its source. As kindergarteners Carrie and I nodded our heads enthusiastically when we returned to the bottom and read the blue plaque. “IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE”. The capital letters must be really important. It needs to be in capital letters so that everyone is reminded of the remembrance.
But what are we really remembering? Are we remembering the individuals who spent decades building this sacred monument, or are we remembering the name of the mound that’s dedicated to a white man who donated stolen land to the township of Cedarville? Are we remembering the significance of not walking on sacred grounds of Adena lives as we would in a cemetery, or are we remembering the “first Ohioans who sleep within” who were forcibly removed from their lands under President Andrew Jackson?
And what are we grateful for? Are we grateful to have this Reserve to protect a sacred monument, or are we grateful to get those steps in at the top? Are we grateful to feel secluded from a busy state route and noisy pollution of the world, or are we grateful to ignore what lies beneath us and feel secluded from our own ignorance? Are we grateful to hear the peaceful sounds of nature buzzing through trees and creek beds, or are we grateful to honor such a creek with a name that honors a white man who drove Native Americans led by Tecumseh away and across those treacherous cliffs?
The irony of this GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE summarizes the complicated relationship I have with my hometown to this day. I don’t know if I will ever be able to climb it again, but I am thankful for the GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE I do have of my last time ever climbing the Mound.
For me, the Adena Mound has been a place of seclusion from the noisy pollution of the world, and it has been for my closest friend Sophie as well. The noisy pollution we suffocated from was different from the pollution most visitors seek to escape. Granted, some escaped to smoke some dope, but we ran and hiked through the neighboring trails to embrace the natural beauty of a diverse environment with cliffs and towering trees and a sweeping creek that sounded marvelous after a strong rainstorm. The last time we climbed the Adena Mound, we climbed to escape the noisy pollution of a toxic community embedded within a church of long standing in the community.
We were both outsiders, yet we both attended the church: I, for only one devastating year and she, all her life. She could find any verse in the Bible within seconds, while I fumbled through pages, could never interpret a single word of God’s word, and felt humiliated every small group discussion when I couldn’t answer why I was feeling disconnected with God. I had my first panic attack in that church, and I can never walk into that building again. I’ve never fully healed from the emotional and mental trauma from attending that church, yet my friends who I had known my whole life essentially abandoned me when I stopped showing up and never really cared why. Sophie knew her shit, but she cut her hair short and dressed like a boy, two non-gender conforming traits that ostracized her as an outsider within her own religious community. How could we be born and raised in a home and feel so detached by our neighbors? I’m not equating our lived experiences to Native Americans literally displaced from their homes, but a sense of connection is undeniable.
So we climbed the Adena Mound to escape the noisy pollution and were able to find a new sense of resiliency. That day, Sophie was brave enough to tell me that she had finally accepted her bisexual identity and wanted to come out to her closest friend. Of course, I supported and accepted her, and we immediately hugged and cried happy tears. She shared the fear she had in telling me, afraid I wouldn’t want to be her friend anymore, but I didn’t care what people thought about hanging out with any member of a very small and essentially non-existent LGBTQIA+ community in Cedarville. She shared that some of my close friends from our marching band had disowned her and told her that she would go to hell for making this decision. I convinced her she was one of the greatest Christian influences in my life, that she was there for me when my church, a corrupt institutional structure of power, wasn’t.
And somewhere in that conversation, she let an old questioning, straight sense of self go, and she was truly free, preferring the gender-neutral name Clark going forward. It’s a stretch, I know, but she let the spirit of that old self die, and she found a new, invigorating sense of self that is honest and kind and true and caring. Was it right for us to sit on top of an ancient burial mound? No. Did we follow the same dirt path so many others took? Yes. But we decided at the top of that mound to never follow the same dirt path that was riddled in noisy pollution again, and to follow our own path without dominating narratives overshadowing the underrepresented ones. Without that Mound, we probably couldn’t find anywhere to escape corruption. The mysteries surrounding that Mound will never be solved, and I’m afraid Cedarville’s sense of bigotry will never be solved either. But I know that I will never climb another burial mound again, nor will I take the old dirt path again.
We all thought our first kindergarten field trip to the Indian Mound was sufficient enough to embrace our historical connections to Native American heritage in Cedarville Township. We all thought the 3rd grade Native American history lessons from those laminated books that were binded with cheap plastic and falling apart from 50 years of teaching the same racist, white-centered, European-driven narratives over and over and over and over again to the same young and vulnerable minds, brainwashing us was sufficient to support the mythology of embracing our mascot. We all thought spending 3 weeks in freshman English on Native American Literature was sufficient to finally analyze why the Washington Football Team faced so much hate for using the same exact logo and practice writing for our ACTS by arguing to remove the logo from the NFL team, but refused to take action against or criticizing our own decision for using the same logo.
It’s easy to separate my pride in being a Cedarville Indian from my incredible student experience, playing in marching band and performing in musicals as my proudest moments, but nearly every photo is inseparable from that logo, whether I’m standing at attention on Hickman Field with my clarinet tucked under my shoulder just below an Indian logo, or I’m performing with pit orchestra as an alumna while the star of the show dazzles the hysterically laughing audience with her “Wah Tah Nyee” dance and counting to ten in the “Indian tongue”. I have thousands of photos documenting my high school adventures, and yet every single one is ultimately labeled with an inextricable force of ignorance and appropriation.
For many years I knew the mound as the Indian Mound, and recognized from a young age that it was sacred ground. At least that’s what my kindergarten teacher explained to us out of breath once we reached the top of that very sacred ground. Our little kindergarten bodies could barely handle the walk, but I made my way to the top holding my best friend Carrie Kerr’s hand. We were inseparable, both shy and quiet kids who were so interested in learning we had to absorb anything we were told without critically evaluating its source. As kindergarteners Carrie and I nodded our heads enthusiastically when we returned to the bottom and read the blue plaque. “IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE”. The capital letters must be really important. It needs to be in capital letters so that everyone is reminded of the remembrance.
But what are we really remembering? Are we remembering the individuals who spent decades building this sacred monument, or are we remembering the name of the mound that’s dedicated to a white man who donated stolen land to the township of Cedarville? Are we remembering the significance of not walking on sacred grounds of Adena lives as we would in a cemetery, or are we remembering the “first Ohioans who sleep within” who were forcibly removed from their lands under President Andrew Jackson?
And what are we grateful for? Are we grateful to have this Reserve to protect a sacred monument, or are we grateful to get those steps in at the top? Are we grateful to feel secluded from a busy state route and noisy pollution of the world, or are we grateful to ignore what lies beneath us and feel secluded from our own ignorance? Are we grateful to hear the peaceful sounds of nature buzzing through trees and creek beds, or are we grateful to honor such a creek with a name that honors a white man who drove Native Americans led by Tecumseh away and across those treacherous cliffs?
The irony of this GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE summarizes the complicated relationship I have with my hometown to this day. I don’t know if I will ever be able to climb it again, but I am thankful for the GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE I do have of my last time ever climbing the Mound.
For me, the Adena Mound has been a place of seclusion from the noisy pollution of the world, and it has been for my closest friend Sophie as well. The noisy pollution we suffocated from was different from the pollution most visitors seek to escape. Granted, some escaped to smoke some dope, but we ran and hiked through the neighboring trails to embrace the natural beauty of a diverse environment with cliffs and towering trees and a sweeping creek that sounded marvelous after a strong rainstorm. The last time we climbed the Adena Mound, we climbed to escape the noisy pollution of a toxic community embedded within a church of long standing in the community.
We were both outsiders, yet we both attended the church: I, for only one devastating year and she, all her life. She could find any verse in the Bible within seconds, while I fumbled through pages, could never interpret a single word of God’s word, and felt humiliated every small group discussion when I couldn’t answer why I was feeling disconnected with God. I had my first panic attack in that church, and I can never walk into that building again. I’ve never fully healed from the emotional and mental trauma from attending that church, yet my friends who I had known my whole life essentially abandoned me when I stopped showing up and never really cared why. Sophie knew her shit, but she cut her hair short and dressed like a boy, two non-gender conforming traits that ostracized her as an outsider within her own religious community. How could we be born and raised in a home and feel so detached by our neighbors? I’m not equating our lived experiences to Native Americans literally displaced from their homes, but a sense of connection is undeniable.
So we climbed the Adena Mound to escape the noisy pollution and were able to find a new sense of resiliency. That day, Sophie was brave enough to tell me that she had finally accepted her bisexual identity and wanted to come out to her closest friend. Of course, I supported and accepted her, and we immediately hugged and cried happy tears. She shared the fear she had in telling me, afraid I wouldn’t want to be her friend anymore, but I didn’t care what people thought about hanging out with any member of a very small and essentially non-existent LGBTQIA+ community in Cedarville. She shared that some of my close friends from our marching band had disowned her and told her that she would go to hell for making this decision. I convinced her she was one of the greatest Christian influences in my life, that she was there for me when my church, a corrupt institutional structure of power, wasn’t.
And somewhere in that conversation, she let an old questioning, straight sense of self go, and she was truly free, preferring the gender-neutral name Clark going forward. It’s a stretch, I know, but she let the spirit of that old self die, and she found a new, invigorating sense of self that is honest and kind and true and caring. Was it right for us to sit on top of an ancient burial mound? No. Did we follow the same dirt path so many others took? Yes. But we decided at the top of that mound to never follow the same dirt path that was riddled in noisy pollution again, and to follow our own path without dominating narratives overshadowing the underrepresented ones. Without that Mound, we probably couldn’t find anywhere to escape corruption. The mysteries surrounding that Mound will never be solved, and I’m afraid Cedarville’s sense of bigotry will never be solved either. But I know that I will never climb another burial mound again, nor will I take the old dirt path again.
Resources:
- Scenic Video: https://www.gcparkstrails.com/parks/indian-mound-reserve/
- History & drone video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwPP9jLj_fo
- Wikipedia Indian Mound Reserve: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Mound_Reserve
- Williamson Mound marker plaque: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Williamson_Mound,_historical_marker.jpg
- More info on plaque: https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=118376
- Old photo of mound: https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/strobridge_images/1750/
- Williamson Mound info: https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/wyland_collection/14/
- Indian Mound basic info: https://trekohio.com/2016/04/10/indian-mound-reserve/
- Pollock Works: https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Pollock_Works
- Burial Mound archaeology: https://www.britannica.com/topic/burial-mound