Effigy Mound Builders-The Late Woodland Stage.

While reading the article, what I found to be particularly interesting was how the inhabitants of the Late Woodland society expressed their religious beliefs through the beautiful designs and patterns on their pottery. Their pottery types were much more elaborate in comparison to that from the early and middle woodland societies. Their designs were intricate and the pots were elaborately embellished.

Often the designs on these pots were those representing upper world and lower world imagery. The upper world was mostly depicted by birds or humans dressed as birds whereas the lower world was represented by “long tailed water spirits” that the Native Americans believed to inhabit a “watery world under the earth” (pg 107). The under world creatures that represented the evil kind took various forms such as that of cats, panthers, horned monsters, snakes etc. However, it was repeatedly observed at several sites, especially in the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) society that the “Benevolent Thunderbird” (pg 107) represented the upper world. It seems interesting that a variety of creatures represented the lower world but only the symbol of the bird was used to depict the upper world. It is unclear why the Shamans “who called upon these upper world forces during rituals” (pg 107) held the birds with such high respect. Their importance is very definitely evident because they appeared painted on cave walls as hawks, falcons and birdmen. The correlation between religous beliefs and the symbol of the bird with the upper world is what I felt was intriguing.