Mysteries of the Hopewell: Astronomers, Geometers, and Magicians of the Eastern Woodlands

Introduction

I N T R O D U C T I O N The question of questions for mankind—the problem which underlies all others , and which is more deeply interesting than any other—is the ascertainment of the place which Man occupies in nature and of his relations to the universe of things. —Thomas Huxley They’re all dead now. But sometimes, in the early morning, when the fog is still hovering there in the valley and the ground is wet with dew, one can almost make out the ancient encampments of the Hopewell there in the shifting, changing mist. Other times it happens at night, when shadows from the fire flicker and dart about like wandering ghosts from some ancient, forgotten burial ground. Spirits of the Old Ones who lived here? Powerful warriors or medicine men who once knew this land as their home? No—surely such images are tricks of the brain, illusions of the mind’s eye.l.l.l. Still, this is the land of the Hopewell—Native Americans whose powers of mind and spirit reached deep into unexplored realms. Indeed, the Hopewell were a special people who, to a greater extent than any of the peoples in eastern North America who preceded them, unlocked the secrets of geometry, developed a sophisticated system of measurement, and even came to understand the great cycles of the sun and moon. These were tremendous accomplishments of the mind and spirit that have almost been forgotten, almost lost in the shadows of time. 1 Sometimes, especially in some of the earlier literature, one finds the Hopewell referred to as the “Mound Builders.” The term “Mound Builder,” however, can also be used to refer to the earlier Adena Indians as well as the later Mississippian Indians—all of whom also built mounds. And so, throughout this book we will refer to the people who we are concerned with as the Hopewell. In chronological terms, it has been about fifteen hundred years since the Hopewell people lived. Their time on this earth was brief, from sometime around 100 b.c. to about a.d. 400 or 500. From what we can tell, the Hopewell lived in small, scattered hamlets that surrounded their great ceremonial centers (Pacheco 1996; Dancey 1992). Most likely, each hamlet was made up of one or maybe a few extended families. The Hopewell were hunters and gatherers. But they were also agriculturalists. In fact, to a greater extent than any other people in eastern North America, the Hopewell were responsible for accelerating the change from food gathering to food producing economies (Smith 1992). The foods the Hopewell grew were not the same as what we eat. Their cultivated foods included marsh elder, maygrass, goosefoot, knotweed, and sunflower—mostly seed crops, although gourds and some small amounts of corn were also grown. The Hopewell were farmers. But that does not mean they were parochial or provincial. Quite the contrary. The Hopewell were wideranging in their contacts, with a resource network that reached for hundreds of miles in all directions—north to Lake Superior, south to the Florida Gulf Coast, east to the Carolinas, and west to the Rocky Mountains . From these distant places, the Hopewell imported huge quantities of precious materials that included copper, silver, mica, obsidian, quartz, and even alligator and shark teeth. The Hopewell then fashioned these materials into some of the finest examples of craftsmanship ever seen—beautiful creations that include delicate musical panpipes, effigy smoking pipes, copper breastplates, rings and bracelets, pearlcovered blankets, ornate headdresses, and other rare works of art. We know that the Hopewell were accomplished in agriculture 2 i n t r o d u c t i o n and fine craftsmanship. Only now, though, are we beginning to appreciate the full extent of their accomplishments in other areas, such as plane geometry, measurement, arithmetic, and observational astronomy . Such were the golden days of the Hopewell. As happens with all things, however, the Hopewell disappeared. Like fireflies in the night, their individual points of consciousness burned bright for a moment, only to merge again with the transcendental. Most likely, we will never know the life histories of those individual points of light. But from what the Hopewell left behind, it may be possible to gain some sense of their worldview or their vision of the universe. Indeed, that is my purpose here. In the pages to follow...