The Piketon Graded Way, which mostarchaeologists now agree was a natural feature,is not only Hopewellian but "Cherokee" accordingto the oral traditions whispered to Mann, as mustbe the Great Hopewellian Road; but then she alsospeculates that there were similar "highways"constructed across old lroquoia; in fact, she says,it was "commonplace" for natives to build long,wide, straight, raised highways connectingceremonial centers. Unfortunately, the only one

Although, she savagely derides the "fort fantasy"accepted by the 191h C. archaeologists, Mannapparently accepts without any qualms the evenmore preposterous idea recorded by DavidZeisberger that the Talligewi (Moundbuilders)"used their mound heights to military advantage,always keeping 'great blocks lying about, In order

Dr. Mann is not only geographically challengedbut archaeologically challenged as well. On p.91 she actually manages to confound the SpruceHill Fort and the Edwin Harness Mound! Despitethe presence of some constructional use of stonearound the base, Harness can by no means becalled a "stone mound". Mann consistentlyconfuses or conflates earthworks and burialmounds, so that they appear to be all one andthe same to her, e.g., the Madisonville "mounds".And only a single prehistoric human burial hasever been discovered within the Newark octagonand circle or the Great Circle, which thereforeare by no stretch of a normal imagination a"cemetery". But, the more desecrated bonesthere are or that Mann imagines the better of herargument.

A caustic author as sure of and as full of herselfas Dr. Mann should be more careful with the facts,for example, the Late Prehistoric burials at theRiker Site (in Tuscarawas, not Tuscaroras Co.)

A fulsome introduction to Mann's book by WardChurchill, who has been described as a "scholar-activist", does little to obscure the fact that Mannherself is far more activist than she is scholar.Despite literary skill and many of the trappingsof scholarship, her ignorance and prejudice isobvious; her supernumary footnotes fail to maska lack of objectivity and a rampant disregard foraccuracy. Equally telling is her flippantdenigration of the work of "western" (i.e.,Eurocentric) archaeologists: National Park (not"Parks") Service archaeological testing at MoundCity is described as "poking about", theprofessionally executed test excavation at theNewark Great Circle in 1992 as "a sort of trainingmission ... seemingly on a whim". Dr. GeorgeFrederick Wright, a respected geologist,archaeologist and minister (D.O., L.L.D.) isdismissed as the Ohio Archaeological andHistorical Society's "point man". (Wright wasactually president of the Ohio Archaeological andHistorical Society from 1907 to 1919). An entirelyreasonable suggestion regarding the changingsettlement-subsistence patterns of OhioHopewell is rejected as "cockamamie",presumably because it gives off a faint whiff ofevolution, anathema to any pan-Indianmaintaining that Native American traditions areeternal and never-changing. The fact is thatsocieties do change and adapt through time, justas they change and adapt their traditions, asanyone with an open mind and even rudimentarypowers of observation should be able todetermine.

Much of Dr. Mann's book is simply a well-written,vitriolic diatribe against virtually all archaeologists,tarring them with the same broad brush she usesto lambaste W. K. Moorehead, and especially R.C. Vietzen. She will get little argument here, forthe shortcomings of these and otherarchaeologists are well-known, indeed areancient if not prehistoric history, so much so thatDr. Mann's detailed relating of their faults istantamount to wielding a sledgehammer to kill agnat. Her polemic would command little or nocomment were it not for the political and religiousagenda to which she applies these facts andvarious Native American and pan-Indian myths.(Parenthetically, perhaps I should state that whileI happen to have no particular quarrel withNAGPRA, the respectful treatment and reburialof human remains, or even eliminating golf at theLicking County Country Club, I do still believe inthe rights of private property owners and I amnot inclined to accept anyone else's opinion justbecause they declare that they know they areright).

FAITH-BASED ARCHAEOLOGY: BARBARA MANN, ARCHAEOLOGISTS,AND THE MOUNDS

James L. Murphy Ohio State University Libraries 1858 Neil Avenue Mall Columbus OH 43210

Native Americans, Archaeologists, and the were not "mound burials". The excavations that should the enemies attempt to storm theMounds, by Barbara Alice Mann. xxvi, 520 p., conducted there by Vietzen, Kent State University heights these might be rolled upon and amongill., index. New York: Peter Lang. and others had nothing to do with the Ohio them so as to keep them shut off'. Equally as

Historical Society, and in no sense of the word improbable as these boulders of mass destructiondid the Society "entrust" the site to Vietzen. Nor is a Shawnee tradition preserved by C. C.was the Fort Ancient Baum Phase Graham Site, Trowbridge that had the Shawnee "acting quickly"which she inaccurately credits Prufer and to build a fortification, "carefully transplantingMcKenzie with describing as "Shawnee-linked", walnut, hickory, and beech trees so as to have aexcavated "moments ahead of the construction ready supply of nuts, should they come undercrew", as Mann would have it; I for one was there siege and be unable to hunt, fish, or hoe for foodand know better. If Mann has ever been to Fort (italics added)". Unless the Shawnee wereAncient, she must have been conducted by a planning for a Thirty Years War, one doesn't haveguide, spiritual or otherwise, because she herself to be a tree surgeon to understand the physicalclearly does not know where it is. On p. 98, in and temporal constraints on even an army beingridiculing early archaeologists' theory that some able to transplant a grove of nut trees sufficientlyof Ohio's geometric earthworks were military large to be of use in providing adequate rationsfortification, she says that General Anthony for an extended period of siege. In fact,Wayne disproved this "ridiculous inanity" in 1794 Trowbridge actually qualified this by saying "inwhen he tried to use "poor, abused Fort Ancient" some degree be spared from a famine", but theas a watchtower. (It was actually a mound in tradition still remains improbable, if taken literally,present downtown Cincinnati that Wayne partially and in fact Late Prehistoric earthen enclosuresleveled, about 30 miles southwest of Fort are not marked by the presence of walnut, hickoryAncient). Elsewhere Mann Confuses Fort Ancient and beech trees or by the incorporation of "awith the Butler County hilltop fort: in August, 1899, parcel of old logs" in their construction, giving the(not 1898) E. O. Randall conducted theAmerican lie to a literal interpretation of this myth.Association for the Advancement of Science on Interestingly, Mann accepts without comment thean excursion to fort Ancient - not to the Butler fact that these Shawnee warriors "made certainCounty fort. Similarly, the famous Jacksontown of having fresh water in the event of an attack byStone Mound, confusingly referred to as "the Flint enclosing a spring in the center of theirRidge mound" in this book, is a good ten miles fortification". Interesting because only a fewsouthwest of Flint Ridge and not on the Ridge. pages earlier she quickly dismisses as fantasyAs for Licking County's famous "Alligator" or J.T. Short's idea that the artificial lake in the"Opossum" Mound, early sandstone quarrying did middle of the Spruce Hill earthworks was.not impact the head of the effigy but the left front probably dug to supply water in case of a siege.paw or leg. Squier and David (1848) explicitly Although she cites Trowbridge's statement thatstate that the landowner had ceased quarrying, the Shawnees "never used stone in thein order to prevent further harm to the mound, construction of their forts", only in constructionyet Mann dismisses this documented effort as of sweat houses and stone box graves, she"rumored", typical of her pattern of stereotyping blithely ignores the fact that this conflicts with herall 191h century attitudes towards the mounds and declaration that Fort Ancient, where thetwisting facts to suit herself. constructional use of stone is evident in parts of

the earthworks, was built by the Shawnee. Shealso twists Trowbridge's remark that the Shawnee"do not pretend to account for the constructionof the very regular fortifications discovered in thewest" into a statement about Europeanfortifications, although it is quite clear thatTrowbridge was referring to the very regulargeometric earthworks discovered (which werethen considered fortifications) and not to recentlyconstructed European forts and entrenchments.To manage this, she is then forced to dismiss theHopewellian geometric earthworks as "irregular"circles and squares, when the regularity of theirconstruction is one of their hallmarks.

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she chooses to mention specifically in westernNew York is actually a well-known fossil beachridge originally recognized by DeWitt Clinton in1811. Clinton accurately described the naturalphenomenon in considerable detail and gaveample evidence that this "stupendous naturalturnpike covered with gravel" was "the ancientboundary of this great lake (Lake Iroquois)", whichwas thoroughly mapped and studied more than100 years ago (Fairchild 1902). Nonetheless,Mann is convinced that because there is anlroquoian cultural tradition of four "Great WhiteRots" roads that stretched out from "the Tree ofthe Great Peace", then these Iroquoian roadswere "literal highways laid out to the cardinaldirections from the core of Iroquoia". Butconsistency does not appear to be a virtue ofMann's oral tradition. Just as some of theseputative ancient artificial highways are Cherokeeand some are Iroquioan, some Hopewellianearthworks are identified as "Cherokee" while theHopewellian earthworks at Fort Ancient arelabelled "a major Shawnee earthwork". Stonemounds are variously allotted to both theShawnee and the Lenape. Would that it werethat simple!

Dr. Mann's knowledge of Ohio history also seemsprecarious or deliberately jaundiced. Accordingto her, the "unnecessary" Licking Reservoir wasbuilt because "settlers in Licking County, Ohio,decided that the rainfall in this very deciduous

-area was insufficient". Once it was built, "thereservoir turned out to have been unnecessaryafter all", according to her peculiar view. Sheprovides nary a hint or passing allusion to thefact that this huge reservoir was part of a statewide canal system, built not at the whim of thesettlers of deciduous Licking Co. but by the Sateof Ohio, in a major public works and engineeringfeature that - dare say it? - dwarfs all of theprehistoric earthworks in Ohio.

Contrary to Mann's belief, the placement of CampSherman north of Chillicothe and coincidentallyon the site of mound City had nothing to do withthe "settler myth" that these earthworks had beenfortifications. It was based upon the availabilityof large acreage, abundant water and nearby hillsthat stimulated the variety of conditions to beexpected in the European War. Her disregard ofaccuracy is well shown by the manner in whichshe transmogrifies details in Richard Peck'shistory of Camp Sherman. By her account,several railroad spurs become "myriadwarehouse spurs scattered across the area". Shedecries the fact that wells were sunk along theScioto River but fails to note that they were wellaway from Mound City proper. Crossing the linefrom hyperbole to out-and-out invention, shebemoans the fact that "Similarly, septic tankswere sunk into Mound City, pumping the sewagecreated by this large-scale operation onto thebones of the ancestors". Peck documents thatthere was a large septic tank built welldownstream from the camp and nowhere nearthe earthworks. No one disputes the severeimpact construction of Camp Sherman had noMound City, but certainly no purpose is servedby such distortion of facts, other than to

demonstrate the intensity of Mann's monomania,or "mythomania".

Mann avers that archaeologists and "Westerners"in general have ignored Indian oral tradition. Yetwhom does she quote to buttress her arguments?No less than Heckwelder, Brinton, John Johnston,David Jones and James B. Griffin. Outside theMidwest, more recent archaeologists havefrequently used oral tradition to test their theoriesbut - here's the rub - they used archaeologicalevidence to test those oral traditions. Mann andher ilk want no part of testing their revealed truths.Any first grader who has played the game of"gossip" should understand the problem of oraltradition, and when oral tradition is further cloakedin the guise of religious authority it is no morecompelling archaeologically than is the Bible ofthe Book of Mormon. Contemporaryarchaeologists almost routinely incorporate oralhistory and ethno-historical data into the processof testing direct-historic theories or quickly getcalled to task for failing to do so (e.g., Dunhamet al. 2003 and Boyd 2004).

Like much oral tradition, Mann herself appearsto have little real concept of time depth inarchaeology, citing a Shawnee tradition that theycame from a Mexican or Caribbean area in orderto discount the idea that they crossed the BeringStrait! But who on earth has ever suggested thatthe Shawnee did cross over the Bering Strait?(one accounts she pooh-poohs does suggest thatthey came from the northeast but that scarcelytallies with a Bering Strait origin). Why is she soopposed to the Bering Strait hypothesis in thefirst place? I suggest for the same ideologicaland political reason so prevalent today amongstNative American activists - the solipsistic beliefthat their ancestors have always been in NorthAmerica therefore, they should still own it. Thesame reason she will countenance none but the"high counters" in the game of estimating theoriginal population of the Americas - the higherthe count the more genocidal the Euros' treatmentof the natives. The same reason she ignores ordenies the relatively recent origin of the "Motherearth" tradition so fondly adopted by pan-Indiansand New Agers alike. Hers is a closed, self-referential and self-reverential system that neverneeds to question or test itself because it isRevealed Wisdom.

In this vein, Mann ignores the well-documentedfact that traditions, whether Indian or not, changethrough time (mauze 1997). History andanthropology, of course, change, too, but thediscipline of History, like archaeology, remainsquestioning, skeptical, and self-testing bydefinition, as is true of all good science. The basicdisagreement between Mann and archaeologistsis a fundamental difference in world view. Shedoes not question Indian authority or oral traditionbut accepts both and posits and unchanging truth- much like organized religion - known only to aselect, elect few, including of course herself.While she considers herself free to castigatehistorians and archaeologists for changing theiropinions as new evidence becomes available,there is no reasoning with her to go and dolikewise, wrapped in the sanctimonious robes orultimate wisdom as she is.

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Much of the last chapter deals with what Mannregards as "glitches" in NAGPRA. Notsurprisingly, she does not like the fact thatNAGPRA applies only to federal and Nativelands, that it allows archaeologists to identifyNative cultural groups, and that it considers onlyfederally recognized Natives. This segues intoa slapstick tale of Grandmother Crandell buyinga Native American skull from an ignorantLancaster antique dealer, then trying to get theLancaster police and the FBI to arrest the woefulcriminal, who eventually fled the area,presumably to avoid prosecution andharassment. Eventually helping to rebury theskull, Mann suffered "a nasty sore throat" as aresult of an apparent glitch in the "cleansingceremony" associated with the reburial. Thenfollows the fulsome diatribe on the late RaymondC. Vietzen, where nearly all of its well deservedbut hardly news to anyone familiar with theColonel or his books. Vietzen of course is aneasy mark, and Mann is correct that he was "averitable font of misinformation" - but it is a classiccase of overkill (ca. 12 pages) and, typically,Vietzen is used to damn all archaeologists. (Somuch for any myth that Indians do not speak illof the dead!)

In her glee to reveal what everyone alreadyknows about Vietzen, Dr. Mann makes what isprobably the most hilarious gaffe in her research,castigating Vietzen for laughing at one of his"Sioux brothers" for explaining how the Indiansused "ancient" (Dr. Mann's adjective, notVietzen's) Guffey birdstones". Though the factescaped this Sioux Indian as well as Dr, Mann,Vietzen well knew, as does every archaeologistand artifact collector, that Guffey birdstones are20th century fakes, by no means, "ancient" andby no means "Indian". Yet, we have a modernIndian ignorantly pontificating on how "ancient"Guffey birdstones were used. This storyillustrates one of the chief reasons modern Indianmythology and oral tradition cannot be acceptedwithout cross-checking. Another reason is themanner in which some modern Native Americanspokespeople would manipulate these myths andlegends for political aggrandizement (cf. Deloria1995:231), who claims that Indian stories abouta giant flood "can help amend the rather artificialboundaries which the Indian Claims Commissionand other agencies have forced on many tribes").And let me here anticipate Mann's same old, tiredrebuttal: of course that old Sioux knew all alongthat the Guffey bird was a fake, he was just pullingthe Colonel's leg, as Native Americans are sowont to do with "Westerners".

Larded between her broadsides aimed at Vietzenand Moorehead, Mann also manages to touchupon well known limitations of DNA research,quickly parlaying these into the inaccurateconclusion that "DNA is, therefore, much adoabout nothing". She has the zealot's gift of beingable to glibly dismiss the whole with the part,whenever it suits her. Also intercalated with herdissection of Vietzen are deft accounts of thetragic story of Minuk, the young Eskimo whosefather's remains stayed on display at theAmerican Museum of natural history for yearswhen the son wanted them reburied, and eventhe horrendous story of the Oklahoma land grab,

perhaps the single most egregious economic andsocial crime the United States has perpetratedagainst Native Americans. But while there can beno excuse for the Oklahoma land grab, neither canthere be any excuse for the manner in which Mannselects her facts while ignoring others that mightreflect less well on the Indian. Her incredible denialthat the Cherokee owned African American slavesbefore the Civil War - that these were all simply"proto-adoptees" - is as blatant a piece of self-serving revisionism as exists (cf. Littlefield 1978,Perdue 1979). (Perhaps the Cherokee Salve Revoltof 1842 should be renamed "The Cherokee Proto-Adoptee Revolt"?) The Cherokee treatment ofthose freedmen who were their former slaves alongwith the African American interlopers trying tocash in on the land grab was based on greed just asvenal and a racism just as deliberate as that moreoften identified with the White "intruder" andgrafter, greed and racism just as real and all themore obvious in view of Mann's stated belief that"African-Native mixed bloods who are Native byculture, memory, and self-identification are NativeAmerican.

Mann is also able to overlook or ignore the fact thatMoorehead, whatever his faults as a professionalarchaeologist, was an ardent supporter of theCherokee and other Indian groups, influenced theLake Mohonk Conference to recognize the plight ofIndian orphans who were being cheated of theirallotments in Oklahoma, and devoted years of hislife trying to help the modern Indian. In fact thetragedy of Morrehead's life is not just his failure todevelop acceptable field methods but also hisinability to assuage the "sad condition of theOklahoma Indians", used as a subtitle of one of hisearly publications on the topic.

In her urge to discredit archaeologists, Manndisparages Squier and Davis for their "Egyptian"explanation of the Cincinnati Adena tablet, when infact Squier and Davis explicitly refuse to discussErasmus Gest's "hieroglyphical" interpretation ofthe tablet and compare it instead to Mayan stamps,a conclusion remarkably similar to that which Dr.Mann passes of as her own, withoutacknowledgment. Again, one has to wonderwhether this is intellectual dishonesty or simplyextreme carelessness in reading her sources"

whether misinformation or disinformation, it doesnot reflect well on her scholarship.

Yet Squier and Davis are a perfectly acceptablesource when Mann wishes to inflate the number ofIndian mounds in Ohio, not only citing theirfantastic 1848 "high count" estimate of 10,000(estimated, not "counted", as Mann would have it)but slyly moving the date up to the year 1870,because subsequent authors unhesitatingly citedSquier and Davis. Mann then adopts (without anydocumentation but apparently E. O. Randall) a 1908estimate of 12,000, mounds before leaping toShetrone's 1951 (actually 1938, Dr. Mannapparently unaware of the distinction between atrue edition and a reprint) estimate of 5,000,implying that the difference is due to the actualdestruction of 7,000 mounds between 1908 and1951 (1938), "a sad tale of disappointed fantasiesand failed stewardship". Any fantasy and failurehere is strictly Mann's. Oddly enough, she ignoresMills' 1914 actual count of 3,513 existing moundsin Ohio, perhaps so she won't have to subtract themfrom her estimate of 7,000 destroyed mounds orneed ponder who might have built those extra1,487 extra mounds between 1914 and 1951! Inany case, she also manages to misinterpret bothShetrone, whose 5,000 estimate was not formounds but for "mounds, fortifications and otherremains" (probably simply rounding off Mills 1914total of 5,396 earthworks, etc.) and Randall (whoestimated over 12,000 "places", which would nowbe called sites, not are necessarily burial mounds).

Clearly, we cannot trust Dr. Mann with numbers orfacts. In the event, she has little need for either, sofor her purposes it doesn't particularly matterwhether they are accurate or not. Nor does she haveany need for anyone else's theories or hypotheses,no matter how tentative or well-delineated, becauseit develops that the truth has been revealed to her bynone other than Grandmother Barbara Crandell.(Since she takes pains to make clear that Dr.Gordon F. Meuser was a medical doctor without aPh.D., perhaps I should make clear that BarbaraCrandell is not her biological grandmother but herspiritual grandmother.) But whatever her sources, ifwe cannot trust her with easily documented facts,how can we be expected to accept undocumentedoral traditions, especially when she clearly is not

adept at meshing them with the findings of modernarchaeologists, historians, geologists and otherscientists?

Mann's book concludes with an epilogue outliningstrategies for eastern North Americans, including ahighly colorized not to say fictionalized version ofthe confrontation between Grandmother Crandelland archaeologists at the Great Circle in Newark, in1992, as well as a glossy, dramatic account of theNative American Association of Ohio's vendettaagainst the Ohio Historical Society. NAAO'spolitical activism and lobbying, the work of a verysmall percentage of the Native Americans living inOhio, undoubtedly has played a significant role inforcing the state legislature to re-examine theSociety's role in protecting state records andhistorical sites, which is all to the good. But NAAOwill not be satisfied with its Fernald NativeAmerican burial-ground nor with merely being"consulted" when OHS activities impinge uponNative American burials or "sacred: sites. It wants"Local Natives to be in charge of interpreting localNative culture and history,” which, considering themanner in which they have appropriated prehistoryand retooled it for their own psychic, social andpolitical uses, would be tantamount to putting thelunatics in charge of the asylum. This is blatantlyfundamentalist religion at its most aggressive,masking itself in a cloak of racial persecution.NAAO also wants Federal recognition forcontemporary Indians living in Ohio, members tobe determined to be traditional Native Americansby NAAO "oral criteria", criteria which wouldundoubtedly disqualify most of the 24,000 NativeAmericans currently living in the state and create alist that would very likely out-Dawes the hatedDawes rolls in terms of inaccuracy and unfairness.All of which begs, the question why, if theHopewellian earthworks at Newark do remain anintegral part of Cherokee religion, as GrandmotherBarbara Crandell and Barbara Mann maintain, wehave not seen more of the6,400 plus Cherokeescurrently living in Ohio attempting to pray there. Acommon sense fear of being conked by a stray golfball? Or could it be that Grandmother Crandell,family, friends and acolyte Barbara Mann simplyrepresent one of the further, more idiosyncraticfringes of modern Cherokee belief?

References CitedBoyd, C. Clifford, Jr.2004 Monacans as Moundbuilders? American Antiquity 69: 361-363Deloria, Vine, Jr.1995 Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact. New York: Scribner.

Dunham, Gary H., Debra L. Gold and Jeffrey L. Hantman2003 Collective Burial in Late Prehistoric Virginia: Excavation and Analysis of the Rapidan Mound. American Antiquity 68: 109-128.

Fairchild, H. L.1902 Pleistocene geology of western New York, report of progress for 1900. Annual Report of the Regents, New York State Museum 54 (1): r103-r139.

Littlefield, Daniel F.1978 The Cherokee Freedmen: from Emancipation to American Citizenship. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.

Mauze, Marie, ed.1997 Present is Past: Some Uses of Tradition in Native Societies. Lanham, Md.: University Press of AmericaMoorehead, Warren K.1913 Our National Problem: The Sad Condition of the Oklahoma Indians. Andover, Mass.: Moorehead.Peck, G. Richard1979 The Rise and Fall of Camp Sherman: Ohio's World War One Soldier Factory. Chillicothe, Ohio: Craftsman Printing.

Perdue, Theda1980 Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society, 1540-1866. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.

Shetrone, Henry C.1 938 Primer of Ohio Archaeology: the Mound-builders and the Indians. Columbus: Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society.

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