We drove to Sioux Falls so I could visit the Good Earth State Park at Blood Run, near Sioux Falls South Dakota. The Blood Run site extends across the river into Iowa. This is the site of a settlement that dates back 8,500 years. Yes, you read that correctly eight thousand years ago people were living here. We're talking people who pre-dated the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans or those other people you like to think of as "ancient."
So what happens when you're over 800 miles from home and you drive to visit a particular place at a particular time? It rains. Not only does it rain, there is a regular thunderstorm. So I patiently waited over a half an hour for the rain to stop and the sky to stop rumbling. It didn't. Not totally.
I grew impatient and drove down the road, wondering how to get to the Iowa side of the river. The road was closed. My quest to see this ancient Mound Builder city, this meeting of peoples for thousands of years, was somewhat unfulfilled.
The surrounding farmland gives way to the river valley.
I based a chapter of my graduate thesis around Blood Run; yet I had never visited. I wrote about the importance of this place based upon the writing of Allison Hedge Coke's book of poetry titled Blood Run. Because I was fascinated by the idea of this empire of moundbuilders stretching across the eastern half of North America; people who I never learned about as a child.
I wrapped the Canon T3i up in two empty plastic bags and put my versatile 18-135 lens on it and finally gathered the courage to take off down the hiking trails. I wasn't going to sit in the car and stare at a field all morning.
Had I felt comfortable in the thunder I would have taken more photos and done a much longer hike through this area.
I hate thunder and lightning. You won't ever catch me on a one mile hike in this kind of weather again. Above is an example of my photographic artistry in the thunderstorm.
It is probable that the Blood Run site (c.1500-1700 AD.) in southwestern Iowa was settled in the late proto-historic area by the Iowa, Oto, and Missouri Chiwere Siouans, along with the Omaha and Ponca Dhegiha Siouans. These groups were allied and known as the Oneota culture that is spread over a large Midwestern area. At Blood Run, they were under pressures from the Teton Lakota and Yankton Nakota peoples who had moved into the same region. According to Tom Thiessen's study of the Blood Run site, it once had 275 burial mounds. This is strong empirical evidence that mound building had persisted among these Siouan groups into late proto-historic times. (http://www.minnesotahistory.net/MHNet10.htm)
The Oneota people; lived here for hundreds of years, used this as a trading center for pipestone or catlinite which was mined at nearby Pipestone, Minnesota.
Across two states this site is there are the remnants of over 400 mounds. I really couldn't tell the natural landscape from the ancient moundbuilder site. I've been to Emerald Mound in Mississippi a few years ago and that was impressive.
I'm sure this park will continue to grow and will eventually have a visitors center and be rich with the ancient Native heritage that fills the landscape. Please go like their Facebook Page: Good Earth State Park at Blood Run
I love the wildflowers in the northern plains. Different from home.
As I left this ancient mound builder city- there was an issi watching me. She watched me for a few moments as I took a few frames of her beauty. So this site is a place that was "formed not to be forgotten." It was a site that shares similarities with our Spiro in Oklahoma. It holds a shared heritage with our Chahta ancestors. These people whose stories all converge in the river valleys across the eastern United States; these mound builders- the great empire builders of North America's past.
Comments