Hopewell Culture

  This is handiwork of Hopewell Culture people. It is eleven inches high and made of sheer mica. It was found in Mound 25 at Hopewell,Ohio.

Dates and Notes Related to Early Spanish Contacts with Native Americans

1501 AD: The Spanish Inquisition intensified again. An argument might be made blaming America Indians for this intensification, at least in part. In case I didn't mention it earlier, the purpose of the Inquisition was to make sure that persons called Christian were good Christians and in now way weakened Christendom. You may remember that the "Conquistadores" were generally accompanied by priests who proposed to save Native souls and to encourage Native peoples to call themselves Christian.


1511: The Toltec Empire of Mexico ended about this date. I have forgotten, for the moment, who to blame, but the Spanish were around as were Toltec and others.


1513: Balboa sighted the Pacific Ocean. Indians showed it to him. I don't think that he believed them when they first told him about that great water. I wonder which Indians did the showing. I think that Indians helped Balboa cross the isthmus where Panama is now. I wonder if those Indians were called Panamanians. Who will tell us more about Balboa and the Indians he contacted.


1515: Juan Ponce de Leon landed on the Florida peninsula. There 'John Lion Belly' was impressed by an Indian queen who ran an impressive queendom. Some of his entourage, without the same appetites as Juan, were impressed by well laid-out real estate developments. The impressive developments included neat and efficient canals used for transportation and communication as well as productive raised gardens and other earthworks. Juan, I understand, was disappointed at not finding immortality and at finding very little gold. I believe that some of his party were pleased to be taking home some nice baskets full of pearls.


1515 - 1582: Marks the lifespan of Saint Teresa of Avila who, for an important part of that span, did a pretty good job, I understand, of keeping the Christian home fires burning.


1519: Cortez invaded the Aztec Empire. A version of this story can be found in your kids school books. As you might guess Cortez was a Spaniard and the Aztec Empire was made up of American Indians. If you ask, your kids might tell you that Hernan Cortez seized control of Mexico from the Aztec Emperor Montezuma. They might not tell you that "Montezuma" is not a very true rendering of that 'emperors' name. While your talking with those kids of your, you might ask them if they know the song that contains as part of its lyrics, "from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli." Did they know that 'Mexico,' at that time, referred only to the valley that Mexico City is in today? Were the US Marines with Cortez?

1520: Panfilo de Navaez was sent by Diego Velasquez de Cuellar, governor of Cuba, to force Hernando Cortes into submission to authorities in Spain. He was captured by Cortez. I have hear that his loss to Cortez may have been due in part, to mistaking firefly lights for musket matches of Cortez' troops. I've also hear that diseases among Narvaez troops captured by Cortes spread epidemic death among the Indians of Vera Cruz and beyond.

1526: In about this year there were Spaniards in Zuni villages. They were looking for gold. Spaniards of the time were very much into gold and also pretty serious about adventuring. A few of them were interested in saving souls. At first some Zuni may have considered some Spaniards as a kind of demigod. Later some of them probably agreed that most of the Spaniards were witches.


1531: Pizarro marched on the Inca.


1533: Baja California discovered by Spanish. Indian traders and fishermen saw them. Some say that the sea level was then about 20 feet higher than it is today.


1534: St. Ignatius Loyola found the Jesuit Order. The Spanish Crown and the Vatican charged priests with the care of the souls of the Indians in the New world. Seems their souls were good dead or alive.
The same year the German 'conquistadores' George Hohermuth, Niclaus Federmann, and Philip von Hutton searched for gold and crossed the Colombian and Venezuelan 'Llanos'(plains). If I haven't mentioned the Llanos, I am pretty sure that I have already posted on Federmann.


1536: Mendoza founded Buenos Aires in what is now
Argentina. Many of the Indians there were, in some ways, similar to the plains Indians of North America.


1539: Esteban, of  theFriar Marcos de Niza expedition was killed by inhabitants of "Cibola." Those Spaniards got around. Estevan may have been the first 'black man' killed in the 'Four corners' region of what is now the U.S.


1540: The Colorado River delta was explored by the M. Diaz expedition from the mouth of the river to 20 to 40 miles up the river. I don't remember hearing that they made a lot of friends.


1541: Napo Chi led Mani against the Spanish and won. This isn't the first major battle won by Native American Indians against European invaders, but it is one of the fairly well publicized ones. I heard that it made news in Rome and Madrid. We're talking about Yucatan Maya. Bishop Diego de Landa knew the people of Mani.

1542: Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo sailed under the Spanish flag into what is now known as the Bay of San Pedro, California. I have heard that along the curve of that bay at that time was an Indian settlement called, by some, Pubugna.
In that same year Cabrillo landed on the the Santa Barbara Islands off the California coast. The Chumash saw him. Yes, the same Chumash whose holy men were respected by the great Cahuilla people. Cabrillo was probably a Portuguese hired by Spaniards for his ability as a navigator. Almost for got, Cabrillo and his crew saw Chumash in their fine boats along what is now the coast of Ventura county.

1550 -1580: Indians in the south of Mexico engaged in ongoing violent struggle against the Spaniards entering their lands. It was easier to fight the Spaniards than to fight the diseases of the Spaniards. 


1562: Bishop Diego de Landa helped bring the Inquisition to Mexico. The Bishop and men of Mexico, Madrid, and Rome seemed surprised and concerned by the strong reaction of the Maya to the workings of that institution. Check your history book or on-line for the "auto de fe" of Mani or for Bishop Diego de Landa. The Bishop may get a worse rap than he deserves.

1564: Fray Diego de Landa is recalled to face charges that he had overstepped his authority in the investigation and torture of native 'lords' and 'commoners.' Men of Mexico, Madrid, and Rome feared that Fray Diego would stir Maya to bloody rebellion. Diego brought some of the notes of what would become his "Account of the Affairs of Yucatan" to help in pleading his case before men of the Court and Church.
In this same year Xui Mayas and Spanish defeated other Maya in eastern Yucatan so that they ruled there.


1566: Santa Elena, the sixteenth-century capital of Spanish Florida was founded. It was founded by Pedro Menedez de Aviles on what is now Parris Island off the coast of South Carolina. The Spaniards had found the mainland densely populated by Native Indian peoples.


1571: Inquisition Offices were opened in Mexico. Maybe Fray Diego had convinced powerful Europeans that Indians and others in the New world needed help in keeping Christian.

Southern Ceremonial Complex

The SCC began about 500 AD at the end of the relatively peaceful millenia of the Early, Middle, and Late Woodland cultures centered on the Mississippi River. The SCC has also been called the southern Death Cult and Chiefly Warfare Cult. The early SCC included a wide ranging exchange network as did the Woodland cultural periods.

The SCC, or SECC as Waring and Holder called it was identified by them with a cultural rise beginning about 900 AD, a flourishing from about 1250 to 1350 AD with a decline into about 1550 AD. Trade networks about 1350 AD. Waring and Holder identified the SCC period with markers such as: long-nosed god, shell and copper masks, bi-lobed arrow heads, and chunkey players.

An earlier example of cultural change may be seen in the disruption of the Mississippian Woodland Culture evidenced by the marked increased reliance on corn agriculture and increased use of a bow and arrow in hunting and less on the atlatl and dart. This earlier change may have begun as early as 500 BC with more evidence available for a change after 400 BC. The evidence for change is clear to most in the field  for a time after 400 AD.

The change from Woodland cultures such as the Hopewell culture to the Southern Ceremonial Complex culture was a ver great change in the peoples of the area. The Woodland cultures had their ups and downs from before 400 BC, but the change to SCC culture was a very great change indeed.

The adoption of the SCC culture was largely by the "Civilized Tribes" of the southeast of the US rather than by the Algonquian speaking peoples farther north.

One of the big changes before the SCC cultural adoption occurred about 3200 BC with the appearance of pottery and the cultivation of squash.

Please help us fill in some details of the narration above.

Native American peace sign.

It's crafted from a sheet of mica.

Calusa

In the 1500s the Calusa still controlled much of the southwest of Florida. They defended their lands against other peoples including European explorers. The Spaniards knew them as fierce. The Calooshahatchee River, with its mouth on the southwest coast of Florida, was theirs.


They lived mostly along the inland waterways and developed them for transportation and food production. The sea was also a source of food for them. They left middens of seashells large enough to compete in size with their mounds and other earthworks. They trapped fish and caught them on hooks and in nets..


The Calusa had a strong influence on the tribes around them. That influences may have stemmed  from their wide trading activities more than from their fierceness.  They typically used dugouts of 15' in length for use at sea and along inland waterways. They also built and used larger vessels. They visited Cuba regularly and probably sailed farther into the Gulf and the Caribbean.


Their homes were built on platforms on pilings over the water. The were attractively roofed with palmetto leaves. It is said that some of their 'houses' might have been large enough to hold 2ooo persons.


They were excellent wood workers and some of their remaining wood carvings has been called examples of artful sculpting.


Please add to our information about the Calusa and please help me to correct errors I have made here.

Readers Show Interest

Readers of these posts have shown interest in a very wide variety of topics. Recent readers have been especially interested in posts related to the following in descending order:

1. this blog
2. American Indians
3. U.S. government
4. jobs
5. other countries
6. world society
7. world history
8. genealogy
9. travel
10. U.S history

Who Is Using the Atlatl Now?

There are American Indians who remember the atlatl as part of their heritage. I have heard the very word used in songs and chants. You might hear it at a modern pow wow. That they remember it may not be surprising when we know that many of their ancestors were using it before 7000 BC. They were probably using it before 20,000 BC. There seems to be a bit of evidence that they may have been using it as early as 30,000 BC. They found it useful for hunting food animals larger than grizzlies and moose. They used it to hunt some animals larger than a modern elephant.

The atlatl was more important in the hearts and minds of Native Americans than the sword was to European's and Asian's; and the atlatl may have been used longer. The great difference being that the atlatl was seldom used to kill a man. It was made for bigger game.

You can probably find pictures of atlatls on the www. An atlatl is an implement use to launch a spear-like dart a greater distance, with greater power, and probably with greater accuracy than a man could throw a javelin. It usually of wood, worked to a length a bit less than the length of a man's arm. It had a hand grip at one end and at the other a notch to hold the butt end of a large dart or spear. It multiplied the power of a man's arm.

Some atlatls were still in use among Native Americans when De Soto arrived in North American. But by the time that Spanish Explorer and Conquistador arrived the bow and arrow was more appropriate for the deer and other small game available. Then, Americans and others were still carrying swords in 1900, when they had much more efficient weapons available.

I have never held an atlatl, but I have heard that, in Alabama, hunters are licensed to use them. I suspect that they may be used in California and Arizona. What can you tell use.

Midew elders of the Grand Medicine Society of the Canadian Great Lakes region may sing of the atlatl using another name. What is that name.

You May Not Love Diego

I haven't loved an Indian for awhile; however, in general I find Indians highly respectable. If you are an Indian, a Native American Indian, you may think of Diego de Landa, Bishop of Yucatan, as you may think of Christopher Columbus, Admiral of the Ocean Sea. Yes, I know that their are some Indians who lack respect for certain Admirals and Bishops. But then, I am old enough to have met a Indian who was proud to have learned to tie a bow in his shoe-lace before he was forty. Then again he was also proud to own a plane and a license to fly it by that time.

Landa didn't have a casino. Do you know who he had for cultural neighbors? On one side he had Henry the VIII of England an on the other he had Ivan the Terrible of Russia. Just because these guys had good jobs did not make them sweethearts.


This is supposed to be a history so it seems only right to give you a few dates:
Chris lived from around 1451 to about 1506,
Henry lived from 1491 to 1547,
Diego lived from around 1524 to 1579,
Nik lived from around 1505 to 1542.

Ah, you don't know who Nik is. Nik was, Nikolaus Federmann, a German 'conquistador' of Colombia and Venezuela. He was supposed to be looking for land for German colonists, but went looking for Indian gold. I've read implications that he had ways of making then speak of their gold.

I'm trying to provide some interesting information about Diego de Landa. Not knowing what you already know of him or what parts of his life you might find useful or interesting has me stumbling around a bit.

I imagine that you know that he was a Spaniard and that Spain was probably the richest most powerful state in Europe at the time. Spain was also probably the seat of learning in Europe. They were also the most powerful Christian nation on earth. Christian faith was very strong in Spain, yet Church leaders and others felt the faith to be threatened. Perhaps it was; even in Europe.

The Inquisition was begun. The Spanish Inquisition may have bee a lot like an Inquisition on steroids. You might find it instructive and even fascinating to review what your World History book has to say about it.

In Morelia, the fine Capital of the Mexican State of Michoacan I visited  more than once, a small audiological museum displaying some 'implaments' of the Inquisition which had recently been found will digging in the local office of the Inquisition. As I remember that museum is in that very office.

To help orient you let me mention some other men whose activities effected the world during Bishop de Landa's life:
~ Niccolo Machiavelli was born in 1469 and by 1532 was publishing his most famous work, The Prince.
~ In 1531 Pizarro marched on the Inca.
~ In 1534 the Anabaptists formed a communist state under John of Leiden, but then they were Protestants.

I think that Landa, by living to the age of 55, lived longer than any of the men I've mentioned so far.

You are probably used to a lot of dates in your history so here a a few more to keep you comfortable:
~ In 1478 the Inquisition was established in Spain. The started by saying no Muslims allowed; then by saying no Muslims or Jews, and they meant it. After that it got worse. Protestants were  from Hell. In the beginning they had no idea that they had a world of Indians to save. The Inquisitors may have had more instruments of torture than certain contractors for the CIA. The Inquisition was active in Spain until 1834. That is over 350 years!
~ Most Jews were expelled from Spain and Portugal in the few years between 1492 and 1496. Spanish was the first language of the expelled Jews and perhaps their only language. Some Jewish families had been in Spain for a thousand years and helped to create the language. Were did the expelled people go? Many places. Some ended up in New Mexico. Others went to Turkey. They talked turkey their, but kept their Spanish for hundreds of years. A lot of this activity was a sort of practice to get ready to deal with the Indians of the New world.
~ From 1492 to 1506 Christopher Columbus voyaged and found those Indians.
~ In 1503 'Columbus discovered' the Cayman Islands and named them Las Tortugas. Cayman is kind of an alligator and Las Tortugas means the turtles. Now there were some people living on these islands when Chris got there. OMG! Indians! Some of those Indian guys tried to tell Chris and his sailors and soldiers that their islands were not called Alligator or Turtle. Someone must know what they called their land. When Columbus sailed away he took an Indian girl with him, sweet Mary Ann. She was taken, it has been said, to be a translator. She, surely must have told the Spaniards the the true name of her land.

Well, I've kind of gotten away from Diego de Landa. But, then, you never claimed any interest in that Bishop of Yucatan.

Antonio Garra

Antonio Garra Sr. was a Native American Indian patriot. The "Daily Alta California" of December 18, 1851 stated that Garra was a Quechan by birth and was taken to Mission San Luis Rey at a young age. He became famous, infamous to some, for attempting to organize Southern California tribes, "to drive out all the whites"  These may have been his words, but probably were not. He did have plenty of words. I believe that he spoke five Indian languages as well as Spanish and English.

He was know for being energetic, determined, and courageous. He is quoted as being against Indians being taxed without representation.

He was part of a coalition of California Indian groups which included in its leadership Juan Antonio, Cabezon, Juan Bautista, and himself. The purpose of the coalition was to gain an maintain certain political and economic rights for Indians of the regions.

He may have been betrayed by certain Californios.

Please add to this post, or question it, in your comment. Click on the word "Comments" below. You may comment anonymously if you wish. Thank you.

A Golden Age

The American Indian Interaction System I've been posting about from time to time may be said to have lasted for over 4000 years. It pulsed and changed with the earth, with life. It was an interaction of varied people of various languages. It was geographically extensive. It supported a value system which included demonstrating respect for ones ancestors and tolerance for ones neighbors.

The interaction of the peoples of this system seems to have been gratifyingly peaceful. There was death and there was violent death, but there was little warlike activity.

A more recent golden age of of the interactions of these people lasted from about 200 BC to about 400 AD. The center of these interactions seem to have been in the valley of what we call the Ohio River. Its manifestation has been called the Hopewell Exchange System. Its influence was felt from the tip of Florida to well up into Canada and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains. These Amerinds didn't fool around.

The Mississippi River was the main artery of their interaction. The waters of that river and its tributaries were their roads and communication lines, but not their only ones. They, their cultures, and their sacred goods traveled the Great Lakes, and reached the Gulf of Mexico. They knew the Atlantic seaboard, the lands we now call Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, Kentucky,m Pennsylvania, and New York, were important to them, but they also knew Labrador and Oklahoma. People of these areas had interacted earlier, but the age we speak of seems more active and the goods more glorious.

Before the Hopewell culture was the Adena culture. It centered to the north of the Hopewell. The Adena culture was strongly active from about 2000 BC to about 200 BC. Before 2000 BC there was another flowering well to the south of Hopewell culture. If you would help me to trace corresponding climate changes we could perhaps find that cultural locus coincided with climate change.

After 400 or 500 AD to about 900 AD this Mississippi valley culture experienced great change. Productive corn came, a new bow and arrow came. New power, ideas, and beliefs came. Perhaps a new people arrived. Exchange systems changed, but continued, for a time. It also seems that more strife came. There was less tolerance of neighbors and more competition. Ancestors seemed less important. Gods had changed.

Before numbers of Europeans arrived the great interaction spheres had become smaller, less active, less peaceful, and the goods less carefully made and handled. Had what had thrived for over 6000 years with the old gods been led to a 'dark age' in less than 500 years?

As in hopefully all of my posts I am sharing my best understanding of the day and with the desire to benefit you. I try to ever make my words honest. I do not expect to hit the bull's-eye of truth, but it is there I aim. I pray that you contribute to to my understanding or to question it.

Bigots in Old California

In the late 1800s some Americans had a bigoted attitude toward Indians, and Mexicans too. A useful case study might well be the history of Juan Jose Warner and the Cupeno. If you look carefully at a road map of southern California you are likely to find the place name Warner Hot Springs. That place can be the geographic center of your study.


You may discovered that in California, as in much of the U.S., bigotry was often associated with greed. The kinder bigots of those days tended to think of Indians and Mexicans as many present day parents tend to think of their children. That is they thought of them as liabilities rather than as assets. A Mexican who knew her place could occasionally have some value, but Indians were generally unredeemable.
Other bigots were not so kind. Some even considered Indians and Mexicans to be vermin to be exterminated. Indians might be drowned or poisoned like gophers in a vegetable garden. Mexicans might be shot like a fox or bobcat in a hen-house. 


Don Juan Jose might have been a bigot, but he was certainly of a better sort than any mentioned here.


One may begin in a variety of times and places to explore the realities of these attitudes of closed-minded intolerance. I suggest that you begin in 1849 with the arrest of Juan Jose Warner. Warner was neither an Indian nor a Mexican. He had learned the ways of the "Dons," the ways of the "Californios" and he respected them. As a law abiding citizen of that time and place he had become naturalized as a Mexican citizen.


He came to occupy extensive lands in the far southern hills of California. He learned to live and work with  Indians in a mutually beneficial and somewhat respectful ways. He felt it natural and a source of pride to deal with fellow Californios as peers.


Google his name and check out the the history to see how a gentleman became 'vermin' in the land of the free. Or you could Search 'Cupeno.' To be correct one needs to remember the tilde over the 'n' in Cupeno.

Kuupangaxwichem

We don't even have an English name for these fellow Californians. We make do with a poor understanding of the Spanish interpretation of their name. If you call them Cupeno, pronounced with a tilde over the 'n,' you probably come as close as you reasonably can. They are a people who historically lived in the far southwest of California. Some of their neighbors have been called Cahuilla, Diegueno, Gabrielino, Juanino, and Luiseno ---- all names we learned from Spanish speakers.

Most Cupeno now know something of the headwaters of the San Lois Rey River. They were, and are, an amazingly numerically small people to have survived. They have survived. In 1909 people in our institutions still seemed to be trying to virtually kick them to death. At that time they were moved from Cupa to Pala. Today there are probably more Cupeno living among the Luiseno on the Pala reservation than in any other single place. Some also live on the Morongo and Los Coyotes reservations. Morongo is our pronunciation of a Spanish interpretation of an earlier peoples term. I have been told that an English translation of  'Morongo' is 'idiot leave.'

I have mentioned Cupa and Pala. You might be able to find Pala on a political road map of California. You may not find Cupa there. Since, say, 1920, where Cupa was, you may now find Warner Springs Ranch or Agua Caliente Village. I remember calling it Warner Hot Springs. It was, for a time, a place from which certain America Indians might withstand the Spanish and then others.

Now you may go to enjoy the waters at 'Cupa.' The last I heard was that those waters were controlled by certain Koreans. Also there might me heard there on certain dark nights, a blast from the shotgun of 'some crazy Indian.' It might be useful to know that in certain 'crazy Koreans' may be found genes astoundingly similar to certain genes found in peoples like Navajo and Apache. Maybe 'we' should talk.

Hopewell Exchange System

American Indians had peaceful interaction spheres among a variety of peoples going back as far as perhaps 8000 BC.
In this little post I intend to say  a bit  about  trade spheres centered on the Mississippi River and relative to peoples called Mound Builders.
The earliest European visitors and explorers of what is now the US found the ones extent when they arrived, notable. By that time the Indian trade systems were far below their peak. Still, before the end if the 1500s the Spanish had begun to write of them. Before the end of the 1600s the French were participating in them. Even though by then many of the Indians' mounds and earthworks were already grown-over. By the 1700s, the English were finding the Indians a bit degenerate, but  still worthy of manipulation. By the time Americans got to the upper Mississippi in the early 1800s a great many of them thought the Indians were worthless, incapable of mound or earthwork building. Few Americans, even intelligent and imaginative ones, saw any Indians as capable of managing long range interaction spheres.
Still, it was those same Americans who began looking into what some now call the Hopewell Culture.

I intend to write more of these things a later date. I look forward to your comments.

Life on the Mississippi

For over 3000 years they lived in greater peace than have most men. About 400 BC their peace was disturbed a bit. Around 400 AD it was disturbed a bit more. Then about 1000 AD they were disturbed by hearing of new.strangers in the land. Then around AD 1500 more began to arrive that shook a a culture already shaken.
Than around 1600 those that came bringing disease that killed the people. Then round 1700 AD more strangers came and so many people of the land died that there culture so dimmed that there were those who could not see it.

Around 1800 we began to swarm over the land, despising the people, and killing those who would not die. We did not all fit this pattern, but many too many did.

Still they are among us, many of them are us as we re becoming them. The land carries their names. We carry bits of their wisdom.

Tell me about them. Tell me their names. Tell me their stories. Help me to honor them as I would honor myself. Help me to understand this land and these nations so as to honor our humanity.

Acclaimed Documentary Film Invites Public to “Shred the Pages of Textbook History” During One-Night Screening in Albuquerque

Acclaimed Documentary Film Invites Public to “Shred the Pages of Textbook History” During One-Night Screening in Albuquerque


They are us.

America Indian perspectives.

Intimations of an Ancient Heartland

Long before the Seven Nations Confederation of First Peoples was a Seven Hundred Tribes and Chiefdoms system. It lasted for an amazingly peaceful thousand years. There is much I don't know about this system and I hope that you will tell me more.

I believe that in the minds of elders of peoples like the Algonquin, Arkansas, Blood, Calusa, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Delaware, Huron, Illinois, Iroquois, Kickapoo, Menominee, Miami, Mohawk, Natchez, Onondaga, Osage, Ottawa, Owasca, Pawnee, Pottawatomie, Seminole, Shawnee, Seneca, Whyandotte, and many others there is a memory of those times. Dances and chants of atlatl, mega-fauna, travels, and revered ancestors may relate to those times.
Tell me more. Let's share.

The kept strong for long; before the time of corn. The time is long, but the blood is the same. Perhaps what kept them strong was: a trade and commerce as holy and sacred as it was competitive; an ongoing dialogue and interaction which was  respectful even when carried on in sign language; a highly varied diet of fresh nutritious food including gardens of produce largely unknown to us now and usually lots of hickory nuts;
an avoidance of monoculture; a well developed appreciation of art, craft, and beauty shown in many ways(they loved their pan pipes and sometimes covered them in copper or even silver); a love of wood and water which lead those people to use them and benefit from them well. They had been great hunters who had so long appreciated the atlatl that it had become part of their spiritual life. They lived a life that was the imperfect life of all men, but one that made them strong, and happier than most.

Some of the source of their strength and happiness can be found in the oldest songs and dances, and in the old stories.

There was an excellent trail for them, they especially like the fresh water of lakes and rivers, but knew the salt waters too. The wetlands were  source of wealth for them.

For, perhaps, 10,000 years of ups and downs they thrived through the changes on the land.
Many of of the present cities, states, rivers, streams, and lakes carry their names through time. Let's know them better. I would know them better. We live among them still.

Let's share what we know, imagine, suspect, and believe of them. The more we know of them the better are our chances to live long and prosper.