Toward the end of the Initial Woodland period maize or corn, as we call
it today, was introduced into northern Illinois, presumably from Mexico
and Middle America through the agency of intervening tribes. In an
apparently short time, its production seems to have been greatly
intensified and exploited. Other food crops and tobacco may have
accompanied maize.
About the same time, a formalized religion arose, probably concerned
with the worship of deities who personified natural forces like the sun,
rain and thunder, which were important to a plant-growing people. From
the evidence of burial places, there seem to have been two or possibly
three social classes. Doubtless the first comprised the families who
introduced and grew the new food plants and who were inspired to invent
the complex religion. The burial of the dead, especially those socially
important and of the highest class, was accompanied by elaborate and
colorful ceremonies closely bound to the religion. This seems to be a
continuation in grander form of the earlier Red Ochre funeral and
burial. It is unfortunate that we do not have tangible evidence of their
other religious and political ceremonies which may have been even more
impressive and significant. The official dress and insignia of the
officials, which we can barely glimpse in the rich and varied remains in
the tombs, signify a political system of social control and an
established priesthood for the spiritual guidance of the community.
Shamans or medicine men probably had only the duty of treating disease.
Reverence for and possibly worship of ancestors is suggested by the
impressive tomb chambers and mounds and the care obviously bestowed on
certain of their socially prominent dead.
Social and political prestige, religious pomp and ceremonial, all seem
to have combined to stimulate a demand for rare materials, beautiful
jewels and impressive regalia. This initiated the search for pearls at
home, the development of skillful and artistic workmanship in flint,
bone, shell, copper and mica, travel abroad and trade in materials
obtainable only in distant regions.
Aside from those technologies connected with the growing of plant foods,
probably few new crafts appeared in the culture; rather those already,
existing in the Initial Woodland were raised to a high degree of
excellence. Art in several forms flourished—carving in the round and in
relief, the making of fine symmetrical polished, decorated and painted
pottery commonly called typical Hopewellian, hammered copper jewelry,
the setting of pearls and highly-colored native stones as eyes in
sculptured animals and in bear-tooth pendants and ear ornaments, etching
of delicate designs, naturalistic and conventional, on bone and the
modeling and firing of exquisite statuettes in clay. We admire and
wonder at the excellence of execution in the best of their small
sculpture because they are skillfully fashioned and finished and because
they so accurately portray the characteristics and habits of animals
with which we are familiar. The artist had the crudest of tools to aid
him—rough stone hammers and an anvil for pecking stone to the general
form; sandstone files or abraders; clay and water to polish pieces;
flint and tubular drills for boring; and flint knives to cut and engrave
pottery and bone—in spite of which the best craftsmen well knew how to
bring out the beauty of the piece.
[Illustration: Fig. 17. Artist’s idea of a Hopewellian chief or high
priest in full ceremonial regalia. (J.C.) Evidence for dress (except
for calumet) has been found in Illinois.]
For the first time in Amerindian history in Illinois we become aware of
an accumulation of wealth, a surplus of handmade goods over and above
those needed for survival; many of these were neither well-suited nor
intended for immediate physical needs, but rather were aimed at social
display or spiritual enhancement. Wealth reflects a relatively constant
and abundant supply of food and other necessities and the resulting
accompaniment of considerable leisure time for a sizable portion of the
community. It may also mark the beginning of craft specialization.[13]
It is hardly necessary to add that, if such a profusion of grave
offerings as indicated by Hopewellian tombs—feather cloth robes, pearl
necklaces, copper hatchets, and beautifully fashioned art objects—were
left with the dead, that the high political and religious officers were
correspondingly bedecked in gorgeous apparel for civil and religious
ceremonies.
Nor should sight be lost of the fact that these creations and materials,
so commonplace and inexpensive today, were to the Hopewellians as
valuable and highly desirable as gold, silk, and precious stones are to
us in Western civilization. For a better perspective these tomb
offerings should be compared with objects usually found in camp and
grave sites of the Initial and Final Woodland peoples.
Traders may have gone to distant regions to select and barter for raw
materials, to the Lake Superior region for copper, to Ohio for
pipestone, to the south Atlantic and Gulf Coasts for the small
Marginella and Oliva shells, for the larger Cassis and Busycon shells,
and to the Yellowstone or Mexico for obsidian (of which little is found
in Illinois graves). Trade, to some degree, removes the limitations
imposed by the immediate surroundings. Pearls were secured in quantity
from the clams of the native streams. Bone, antler, tortoise and clam
shell, bears’ teeth, bear, wildcat and wolverine jaws from their hunting
and collecting pursuits were utilized more fully than ever before. Even
human jaws, possibly of enemies, were cut, polished and bored for use as
pendants.
Though the Hopewellians may not have been the pacifists they are
sometimes painted, there must have been long periods of peaceful
relationships with distant and nearer neighbors with whom they traded or
through whose territories their traders had to pass. Whether or not a
condition of peace was maintained within the borders of their culture
area by the force of arms is an interesting question that cannot now be
answered.
[Illustration: Fig. 18. The Hopewellian assemblage of artifacts that
collectively identify the Hopewellian (Classic Woodland) period and,
except for shell spoon, turtle shell dish, and some bead types,
distinguish it from the other Woodland assemblages. A, drinking cup
of marine shell (_Cassis madagascarensis_); B, C, D, Hopewellian
pottery (restored); E, mussel shell spoon with “handle”; F, turtle
shell dish; G, sheet mica (mirror?); H, antler headdress; I, J,
platform pipes with effigy mammal bowls, polished stone (Otter and
bear’s head, eyes set with copper pellets); K, platform pipe (plain
bowl), curved base, polished stone; L, copper earspools or
ornaments, pair; M, imitation bear tooth, copper; N, (Below) N₁,
Bear jaw, cut in half, ground and drilled to be worn as a double
pendant; (Above) N₂, Fragment of a human jaw that has been similarly
treated; O, copper hatchet that carries imprint of textile on its
surface; P, copper adze; Q, R, Hopewellian spearheads; S, massive
bead of copper; T, bracelet of copper beads; U, necklace of pearls;
V, necklace of copper beads; W, necklace of graduated ground shell
beads from columella (central column) of marine shell.]
In southern Illinois the advance of Hopewellian culture was slower. The
infiltration of new pottery styles noted at Crab Orchard very possibly
represents intermarriage with Hopewellian women. Possibly through ties
of relationship and the acceptance of the new food plants, the old
Baumer way of life was submerged by the Hopewellian customs though here
and there former habits still are recognizable. Some customs of Baumer
and Crab Orchard were adopted by the northern Hopewellians—the
reel-shaped gorget, the plummet and the chipped stone hoe.
In the north of Illinois, Hopewellian lasted until 250 A.D. (Poole site)
and in the west and south to about 450 or 500 A.D. Though the culture
died out in Illinois by 500 A.D., it still flourished in Mississippi
(Bynum site) around 800 A.D. and at Marksville, Louisiana, as late as
850 A.D.
As was stated earlier, emerging cultures grow out of earlier ones.
Although it may not yet be generally recognized, the Hopewellian
civilization probably exerted tremendous influence on the Mississippi
cultures and on tribes that followed them in the great central valley of
the United States and beyond, down to historic times. It must be borne
in mind that in spite of their splendid achievements, the Hopewellians
had no domestic animals but the dog, no herds for meat and great wealth,
no draft animals to drag the plough and turn the mill. All labor was “by
hand,” all transport on the back or in a boat driven by human power.