Beyond Subsistence: Plains Archaeology and the Postprocessual Critique

10. Medicine Wheels on the Northern Plains: Contexts, Codes, and Symbols

188 Wilson Figure 9-3. Migrating Indians (?BIackfoot) in Calgary area, Alberta, ca. 1886. Note the use of lashed travois as sunshade (right) and drying rack for meat (left). Around the base of the tipi are what appear to be sod blocks and possibly stones (right). (Photo probably by O. B. Buell; National Archives of Canada, negative no. PA 66595; printed by permission ) or involving random placement of a one-meter-square pit in each ring, have fatal limitations. Critics of the productivity of stone circles should reflect as to the paucity of sites that have been extensively excavated (by trowel, with in situ mapping ofmaterial, and fine screening and preferably flotation of sediment) both inside and outside the stone course (see Davis 1983a). Fanlike or "butterfly" distribution of debitage marking doorway locations is suggested at the Pilgrim site (Davis 1983b). Even here, however , the search for external features or refuse distributions extending away from the circles was limited, which is important because a shade was usually erected beside the tipi in the hot season, with tipi occupants spending much of the day under the shade (Figure 9-3). A shade was roughly circular, like the tipi, but its open nature reduced the distinction between inside and outside. If the lodge doorway is locatable at archaeological sites, intersite Household as Portable Mnemonic Landscape 189 comparisons can be made of artifact distributions in either half. Significant amounts of artifactual material have been found both inside and outside stone circles (e.g., Schneider 1983), as have undoubted activity clusters such as single-lithology sharpening flakes (Wilson 1983). These findings indicate that stone circle sites have unrealized potential as maps of household etiquette and therefore of ancient cognitive landscapes. The extent to which archaeologists can read these maps depends on their persistence, resourcefulness, and imagination. Burley (1990) is correct in saying that stone circles typically yield fewer artifacts than do other campsites. Nevertheless , offsetting this lack is the special value of relatively short-term occupations, where "smearing and blending" have been less extensive than at campsites of long duration in which information may also have been overprinted in "palimpsest" fashion. The "Pompeii Premise" aside, stone circle sites may be the closest approach to archaeological "snapshots " of household etiquette in the open Plains. Meaning of Stone Circles Even if stone circles were associated with households, the stones did not necessarily serve as cover weights. Early photographs show all kinds of material placed against tipis, for whatever reason (Figure 9-4). Perhaps covers were only weighted down at night or on windy days. Perhaps, as Crow informants suggested to Lowie (1956: 89), stones were used as cover weights only in winter. Perhaps stones were used as "backstops" for logs laid against the tipi covers for security. It is unlikely, however, that stone circles were vested only with a secular function. As circles, they embodied much more because their shapes were based on that of the tipi, which itself was loaded with symbolism about world view. In outlining the tipi, stone circles demarcated household space, reinforcing symbolically the distinction between inside and outside. They could have served this important symbolic function even if they had no other use at all. Evidence exists that simple stone circles were used to demarcate sacred space used in vision quests (Hoffman 1953). As many authors have indicated, explicit separation of sacred and nonsacred is a Western cultural trait; for many other peoples sacredness resides in everything. To ask whether stone circles were sacred or utilitarian is ethnocentric and probably inappropriate. Discussion As Tuan (1971: 33) has pointed out, a perfect mesh between cosmology and the order of nature is seldom, if ever, realized. Cosmologies underly- 190 Wilson Figure 9-4. Assiniboine lodge near Fort Walsh, ca. 1876. Note the lashed-travois sunshade and presence of a variety of piled materials (including logs) around the base of the tipi. (Photo from S. T. Wood Album II; National Archives of Canada, negative no. C17621A; printed by permission) ing the examples cited above are not ideal, however much they may be idealizations. Similarly, their day-to-day application responded to many situational exigencies, from availability of raw materials to the emotional state of the participant. The systems described here fall short of being "ideology, writ large" but contribute to an understanding of it. In the absence of written records, archaeologists must speculate about ancient ideologies. Yet some of the priorities ofancient...