Monuments Upon the Tumultuous Earth
https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/monuments-upon-the-tumultuous-earth/?utm_source=Emergence+Magazine&utm_campaign=b24ad0ec3f-Boyce%E2%80%9420230326&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_73186f6259-b24ad0ec3f-357088886
For thousands of years, Indigenous societies were building hundred-foot pyramids, fifty-acre plazas, and intricate clusters of hillocks along the wild waterway of the Mississippi River.
Beholding the 2,200-mile levee system that now curbs the river’s torrent, Boyce Upholt wonders: what do our monuments say about who we are—and the crises we face?
"A river, though, and especially a river so big, is never orderly, at least not when left to its own devices. The Mississippi’s unruliness grows as each new tributary joins the flow. Many are big enough to lend their names to whole states: the Minnesota and then the Wisconsin, the Iowa and the Illinois. By the time the Missouri arrives, halfway down the continent, the nation’s big river has grown to the extent that—again, speaking here of natural conditions—it can writhe across a floodplain six miles wide. When the Ohio joins at the bottom tip of Illinois, this river becomes a monstrosity. A continental torrent. I’ve heard stories of through-paddlers who, after traveling more than a thousand miles from the headwaters, give up when they reach this confluence, overwhelmed by the size of the water."
Please read the article at the link above.
Today's quote:
After all, it is hard to master both life and work equally well. So if you are bound to fake one of them, it had better be life...” and “There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” Joseph Brodsky
...many civilizations existed here before the Europeans tried to civilize the land.
ReplyDeleteYou said it. And yet our re-writen history books just ignore that...like so many things these days!
DeleteThe mound monument is interesting, they were brave to create these monuments in the middle of the river. Happy Easter, have a great weekend.
ReplyDeleteHi Eileen...they were near the river, not in the middle of it. There was a city formed of about a thousand people near the river.
DeleteAs you know, we live by another Mississippi River, which is not quite as long or famous.
ReplyDeleteI like your Mississippi. It seems pretty tame in comparison. Doesn't get any dikes along it's shores either.
Deletewe have been to this mound. you can see st. louis from the top. it is quite a climb up.
ReplyDeleteI visited as a girl when living in St. Louis. I'd love to go back and see more now that it's been restore more.
DeleteI'd like to see the mound and the Mississippi someday.
ReplyDeleteNice ideas to have on your "bucket list."
DeleteBarbara, Sad and brutal though history frequently is, it is a story of conquering, subjugation and sometimes extermination of previous peoples around the world. Of course, our domestic and world history, with all of its warts and blemishes should be taught in schools in the hopes that it will help mitigate future behavior...but I'm not hopeful. We've been to Cahokia Mounds and we lived in St. Louis. The Mounds are fascinating and having experienced massive flooding from the Mississippi River, we know that although it's been constrained, it can't be contained if mother nature deems it so. Take Care, Big Daddy Dave
ReplyDeleteTHanks for your comments. Yes, the force of nature is definitely beyond our most educated attempts to control it.
DeleteThat is interesting. Good research!
ReplyDeleteThank you for that. Every time I write a blog about something old in England I get comments saying that there's nothing that old in the USA. Maybe I should direct them here.
ReplyDelete