Sometime after 200 B.C., Indians of the highly influential Hopewell
Culture, centered in Ohio and Illinois, sent representatives throughout
the eastern United States. By at least the first century A.D., groups of
Louisiana Indians had met these travelers and had learned about their
culture. Hopewell people had powerful leaders who supervised a cult
centered around lavish burial rituals. Leaders organized construction of
large mounds in which certain high-status people were buried along with
exquisitely crafted objects made of copper, stone, bone, shell, pottery,
and rare minerals.
The Hopewell representatives may have been sent south in search of a
valued raw material or may have been sent as “evangelists” whose mission
it was to explain the virtues of Hopewell ceremonial life. Intentionally
or not, they introduced some Louisiana Indians to Hopewell practices.
The Louisiana manifestation of Hopewell life is called the Marksville
Culture.
[Illustration: Marksville Site]
The Marksville Site, in Avoyelles Parish, was the first scientifically
excavated site of the Marksville Culture. Burial mounds at the site are
encompassed by a horseshoe-shaped earthen embankment almost 3,000 feet
long. The site is now a State Commemorative Area open to the public. A
museum at the park houses an exhibit describing the site and the people
who lived there.
Indians of the Marksville Culture began living in larger, more permanent
settlements, building burial mounds, and making Hopewell-styled pottery,
pipes, and ornaments. They most likely had leaders who directed
craftsmen, organized community life, and officiated at burial
ceremonies.
Burial rituals must have been a very important part of the Marksville
Culture. Large mounds were constructed in several stages over many
years. The first stage usually was a flat low platform approximately
three feet high and 40 feet in diameter. Burial ceremonies were held
months or perhaps years apart and those who had died between ceremonies
were buried together. Some remains had been temporarily interred in
other areas, so these were reburied along with primary burials, and even
cremations.
A pit was dug into the mound surface, and sometimes lined with logs and
matting. Human remains were placed in the pit with pottery, pipes, stone
points, shells, asphaltum, quartz crystals, and other valuable objects.
The bodies might be ornamented with jewelry such as copper beads,
earspools, bracelets, and necklaces of shell, pearls, or stone.
Occasionally, a dog was placed in the grave. The pit was filled with
dirt. Later, other pits might be dug for another occasion or burials
might be made by placing remains on the mound surface and covering them
with a layer of earth. Eventually, more construction increased the
overall size of the mound and shaped it into a dome.
The people buried in the mounds may have been high status individuals
who lived in villages near the mounds, while ordinary people lived in
scattered villages away from the ceremonial centers. Marksville Indians
in the coastal areas lived far from the elaborate burial mounds, but
they still practiced new styles of making pottery and other objects.
[Illustration: (¼ actual size)]
The new Marksville pottery was made from local clay, but it was quite
similar in shape and decoration to pottery of the Hopewell Culture in
Illinois and Ohio. A typical Hopewell vessel would be a bowl three to
six inches tall. The rim would have cross-hatched lines on the exterior
at the top and the design on the rest of the pot would be outlined with
bold lines cut in the clay. Quite often the designs were geometric
shapes and stylized birds. The background would be textured by rocking
or stamping a small, toothed tool across the wet clay. These decorated
pots were made primarily for ceremonial uses.
The Marksville people also made other Hopewell-like objects including
copper and stone jewelry, platform pipes and figurines. The pipes had
relatively broad flat bases (platforms) approximately three inches long.
At one end was a hole for a wooden or reed pipe stem and in the center
was a bowl. Sometimes an animal figure was on the platform, with the
bowl formed in the animal’s back. Animal and human figurines were also
made. Most of these Hopewell-like objects were buried in mounds as
religious or burial offerings.
[Illustration: Marksville: a-c, Vessel Rim Sherds; d, Clay Effigy
Pipe; e, Copper Ear Spool; f, Asphaltum Effigy; g, Ceremonial Stone
Point (½ actual size)]
In contrast, Marksville people made most of their utilitarian objects
the same way as Tchefuncte people before them. Marksville people hunted
with atlatls, bolas and nets, and fished with hooks and line. They
gathered wild plants and shellfish, and probably grew a few domesticated
plants in small gardens. They stored food in pots and baskets, and
cooked in pots.
It seems that despite the Hopewellian influence, much of the culture was
unaffected by contact with the northerners. Through time, Hopewellian
influence diminished. Louisiana Indians built fewer burial mounds,
developed their own distinctive pottery, and began a new way of hunting.
[Illustration: Fishing]