Abstract
Native American myths, legends and oral traditions are rich with stories of giant beings existing in ancient times. They all talk of giant Thunderers or Thunder-beings, giant snakes and great Thunderbirds. Even the first humans were said to be giants, some half man, half animal. The Tsistsistas (Cheyenne) have a name for the giant beings that their ancestors encountered during the early migration to the grasslands of the Great Plains. They called them haztova hotoxceo or “two-faced star people”. Other Plains tribes such as the Black Feet, Gros Ventres and Lakota have similar stories.These old stories may have real world counterparts. Discovered in a prehistoric effigy-mound group (the Kolterman Mounds) in south-eastern Wisconsin (U.S.A.) is a human-like petroform or lithic effigy with a serpentine body and wing-like arms known as the ‘Star-being’. Configured in stone, it is approximately 20 metres in length with a red coloured, bison-shaped headstone aligned to face the summer solstice sunrise. However, it is not a lone or singular occurrence. The ‘Star-being’ is but one of two human-like petroform effigies discovered in south-eastern Wisconsin. There is another of almost the same size called the Starman which also has a red coloured, bison-shaped headstone aligned to face the summer solstice sunrise. Both the Starman and Star-Being lithic complexes are codified by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin as archaeological sites of Archaic age.Each giant lithic effigy appears to be a reflection of certain constellations and stars. The ‘Star-being’ is a mirror-image of the (western) constellations of Scorpius and Libra (with Sagittarius); the Starman is an almost exact representation of Taurus and the Pleiades. Both giant effigies are estimated to be 3500-6000 years old, embodiments of ancient legends and traditions writ large in stone and connected to ‘The People’ through ceremony and acts of cosmic renewal.
Highlights
To find the origin of many Plains Indians traditions, one needs to look to the east whence they came
During the six years spent investigating the Krug-Senn petroform and archaeoastronomy site (1986-1992), the methods needed to objectively assess whether ancient Native American astronomical attributes and observations were a primary function of a petroform site were eventually developed (Bender 2008a)
Mr Redfox had suggested we look at the most detailed description of the Massaum ceremony or "Crazy Animal Dance" described by Karl Schlesier (1987: 77-109) in the book of Cheyenne cosmology, The Wolves of Heaven
Summary
To find the origin of many Plains Indians traditions, one needs to look to the east whence they came. Bender had been settled in the northern and western Great Lakes area for untold generations They were either proto-Algonquin or proto-Siouan speaking people who, living close to each other for generations, developed a similar lifestyle and common culture despite the differing language core (Bender 2004: 14; Hewes 1948; Powers 1977: 18; Waldman 1985: 39-40, 6768). When they migrated west, ‘the people’ as most called themselves did what others have done during their migrations or journey of nations; they took their beliefs and traditions with them. Northern grasslands of the North American mid-continent, not the American desert southwest or meso-America (Bender 2007)
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