“The Serpent Mound in Adams County is the largest prehistoric effigy mound in the world. Each year, the head of the serpent aligns with the summer solstice sunset in late June. A few weekends ago, visitors flocked to the site to see it for themselves.
“But this year was different. It was the first time citizens of the Shawnee tribes in Oklahoma were officially invited back to the mound by the state of Ohio. The Shawnee were forcibly removed from their Ohio homeland in the 19th century.”
(Chris Welter. “Shawnee Citizens Officially Invited Back To Great Serpent Mound.” WYSO. National Public Radio. July 12, 2021.)
Three reservations were granted to the Shawnee in Ohio by the 1817 Treaty of Fort Meigs: Wapakoneta, Lewistown, and Hog Creek. After the Indian Removal Act of 1830 passed, another Shawnee band, which would become the Eastern Shawnee Tribe relocated to Indian Territory in July 1831. The final band, who would become the Shawnee Tribe, relocated to Kansas in August 1831. Their Kansas lands were drastically reduced in 1854 and broken up into individual allotments in 1858.
Ohio is the homeland of the Shawnee, and surely of any people living today, they have the strongest connection to the people who likely built the Serpent Mound.
Mary Annette Pember, a citizen of the Red Cliff Ojibwe tribe and a National Correspondent for Indian Country News says it was certainly ancestors of the Shawnee people who built the magnificent serpent shaped mound, the largest earthwork effigy in the world at 1,348-feet-long. However, until now, Ohio has failed to involve the tribe in conveying its meaning to the public.
So, on the Summer Solstice, June 20, 2021, the longest day of the year, the Shawnee tribe officially returned to the Serpent Mound to present their history and connection to this place that they called home so many years ago.
Pember says …
“This is the first time they've been officially invited there by any of the entities that have managed the Serpent Mound. Recently, the Ohio History Connection took over direct management, and they extended this official invitation to the Shawnee tribe to come back and to talk about their connection to that place.
“In the past, during the solstice celebrations on the occurrence of the solstice and the equinox, there have been a lot of activities at the serpent mound, but none of them were very connected to the origins of that place.”
(Mary Annette Pember. “Shawnee reclaim the great Serpent Mound.” Indian Country Today. June 21, 2021.)
Since the 1987 Harmonic Convergence, the mound has become a mecca for followers of New Age spirituality. The idea of the Convergence was created by author and art historian Jose Arguelles who claimed August 16-17, 1987, were significant dates in the Maya calendar and represented an especially auspicious time to meditate for global peace.
Some New Age activities such as digging and burying items in the mound, forwarding information purporting that the effigy was built by aliens from space or prehistoric giants and misrepresenting Native connections to the site has been of growing concern to tribal leaders.
Of even greater concern was the way that past managers of the Serpent Mound site often turned a blind eye to these activities, sometimes allowing such practitioners to manage and stage events at the mound. This sent a message to the public that these wild theories were part of the official history of the site.
(Mary Annette Pember. “Conspiracy theories threaten Native sacred sites.” Indian Country Today. January 13, 2021.)
Examples of “Wild Theories”
On December 20, 2020, a group of extremist evangelical Christians organized by Dave Daubenmire, leader of the Pass the Salt Ministries, planned to hold a prayer ceremony intended to cast out demons from the Serpent Mound and place anointed stones in or near the site.
Daubenmire claimed Serpent Mound and other earthworks in the region were built by Nephilim, giant fallen angels who are mentioned in the Bible’s book of Genesis.
Native American ancestors could not have created these works since they had no knowledge of high math, according to Daubenmire. Therefore, he taught the sites are direct conduits to the devil and should be exposed and disarmed. He also claimed the day before the winter solstice was “a high holiday for the demonic world.”
A group of Native people, including members of the Miami Valley Council for Native Americans, local Native citizens, as well as members of the American Indian Movement of Ohio, traveled to the park in order to witness the event. Phil Yenyo, director of the American Indian Movement of Ohio confronted members of the Pass the Salt Ministries as they prepared to “pray down the Satanic Serpent Mounds.”
According to Yenyo, he told the group, “You need to find somewhere else to do this. You’re not going to do your ceremony on this sacred site; our ancestors are buried all around here. We don’t violate your sacred sites or cemeteries. I let them know they need to show some respect in this place.”
(Mary Annette Pember. “Conspiracy theories threaten Native sacred sites.” Indian Country Today. January 13, 2021.)
Pushing past Yenyo, the ministry members announced that “This land will be taken in the name of Jesus.”
About 20 members of the ministry walked along the pathway surrounding the serpent, praying loudly, asking for God to cast out demons. Several people who climbed on the mound stepped down after being warned to remain on the paved pathway by park authorities. One man blew a shofar’s horn, an instrument made from a ram’s horn and traditionally used for Jewish religious purposes. Another man appeared to place a cloth square filled with rocks on the ground.
Eventually, park officials called the local sheriff to escort ministry members away from the site and closed the park to all visitors.
Various legacy media sites picked up the story, emphasizing the confrontation between Yenyo and a member of the ministry and linking to a YouTube video of the event, “Pagans try to prevent prayer.”
Periodically, similar unusual events at the mound make the news. For instance in 2012, a story in the Columbus Dispatch carried the headline, “Vandals admit muffin-crystal-thingie assault at Serpent Mound.” According to the story, a group of people from the organization Unite the Collective posted a video showing people burying “what may be hundreds of small muffin-shaped devices called orgonites in the mounds, hoping they were lifting the vibration of the earth so we can all rise together.”
Also, the History Channel’s “Ancient Aliens” series featured the Serpent Mound in 2011, offering alleged evidence that the mound was once a landing area for aliens who mined the site for iridium, a rare element to fuel their spaceships. The show’s producers conducted numerous interviews with local experts as well as supporters of various New Age interpretations of the mound.
Local owner Tom Johnson of the House of Phacops Museum – a rock shop that offers trilobites [a local fossil] minerals and crystals for sale – was presented in the show as an expert on both the Serpent Mound and local Native people. In his interview, he said, “The Shawnee are convinced that space travelers are using Serpent Mound as a marker.”
(Mary Annette Pember. “Crazy Theories Threaten Serpent Mound, Demean Native Heritage.” Indian Country Today. September 13, 2018.)
And, also in 2011, the Crystal Skull Festival brought people from around the world to Serpent Mound. The festival brought 13 “ancient crystal skulls” to Serpent Mound for a ceremony intended to ignite paranormal powers at the site. According to a story in The Columbus Dispatch, the ceremony also “brought together several Mayan priests who were to discuss the end of the world prophesied by the Mayan calendar in 2012.”
Followers of the crystal skulls prophecy believe that the skulls are pre-Columbian Mesoamerican artifacts created by the Aztecs or Mayans and will exhibit paranormal powers if brought together in one place. Researchers such as Jane MacLaren Walsh, an anthropologist with the Smithsonian have found that the skulls likely were produced during the second half of the 19th century in Europe and Mexico. The skulls have no proven connection to any pre-Columbian culture she notes in an article in Archaeology magazine.
(Mary Annette Pember. “Crazy Theories Threaten Serpent Mound, Demean Native Heritage.” Indian Country Today. September 13, 2018.)
“Earthworks are not only about the past. All of this new work – in Native art, literature, performance, and built environments – is in response to hundreds of years of sometimes crazy theories put forward by non-Native people. When Europeans arrived and found these massive and complex sites, the physical evidence went against their stereotypes about a so-called virgin land and a howling wilderness.”
– Chadwick Allen, professor of English and adjunct professor of American Indian studies at the University of Washington
Craziness And the Pan-Native Approach
Mary Pember explains that she believes people have been turning a lot more to New Age spirituality and some of the beliefs they have are “a little bit misguided and they often seem to be sort of made up.” She thinks, “unwittingly, it can be really offensive to native people because they (New Agers) often appropriate certain elements of native culture that they probably don't know very much about,” and they “often will take what they do know from popular culture – which is unto itself a misrepresentation of native culture – and create a Pan-Native approach to the world.”
(Mary Annette Pember. “Shawnee reclaim the great Serpent Mound.” Indian Country Today. June 21, 2021.)
Pember believes this is “cherry picking of culture in many ways” and “the height of white privilege.” Pembers says, “Just the tremendous luxury to just be able to choose whatever appeals to you, to incorporate it into your spirituality without any regard for how the original people might feel about that. It's very disrespectful regardless of the intent.”
Glenna Wallace, chief of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma and Ben Barnes, chief of the Shawnee Tribe, also located in Oklahoma, spent the summer solstice weekend telling visitors to the Serpent Mound historical site about their peoples' and ancestors' connection to Ohio and the mound.
Both Wallace and Barnes, however, described their peoples’ deep connection to Ohio, the Serpent Mound and the surrounding series of earthworks in the region.
Their overwhelming message is one of reverence and respect for the sacred and a plea for visitors to appreciate and honor the Serpent Mound as they would a cathedral, synagogue or mosque.
“Unfortunately the Serpent Mound has become the epicenter of efforts to appropriate sacred American Indian sites and replace the Indigenous story with all sorts of fantastic, absurd stories,” said Wallace during his solstice presentation.
“Let’s be absolutely clear. At the heart of these myths and fantastic stories is the racist notion that American Indians were too stupid to have built something so wonderful,” he added.
Barnes agreed. “Native people have inherent rights as defined by the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; that includes free prior and informed consent on how we are portrayed,” he said.
(Mary Annette Pember. “Shawnee reclaim the great Serpent Mound.” Indian Country Today. June 21, 2021.)
“It's important for people who come to visit this site to understand who occupied this land, who built the serpent and to be really clear that it was built by American Indian people,” said Megan Wood, director of cultural resources at the Ohio History Connection.
This lack of Native presence may have helped fuel the proliferation of unusual stories and legends, according to Wood. “In Ohio, people know very little about Native American history. When we’re able to talk about the federal government’s removal policies and what happened here, how long Native peoples were in Ohio and the fact that they are still living vibrant communities is very interesting to visitors,” Wood said.
The Meaning of the Great Serpent
An analysis of the soil and charcoal from multiple samples in and below the mound finds it could have been constructed as early as 320 B.C.E., which would put it in what’s known as the Adena period. The Adena culture is believed to be responsible for a few other mounds on the same site where artifacts have been recovered, and before 1991, many people assumed the Serpent Mound was a part of that history.
The leading theory is that the Fort Ancient Culture (1000-1650 C.E.) is principally responsible for the mound, having erected it in c. 1070 C.E.
But, because no artifacts have been found in the Serpent Mound itself, the commonly held belief about the mound’s origins has managed to flip-flop back and forth over time.
Recent research by Brad Lepper, Curator of Archaeology and Manager of Archaeology and Natural History at the Ohio History Connection, and several colleagues suggests that Serpent Mound consists of two distinct parts:
(1) The Great Serpent, Lord of the Beneath World, and
(2) A wishbone-shaped mound straddling a large oval earthwork that together represent First Woman.
In the traditions of the Dhegia Siouan tribes, who once lived in the Ohio Valley, First Woman mated with the Great Serpent and thereby acquired the power to create all life on Earth. If that interpretation is right, then Serpent Mound is telling an American Indian genesis story.
But it may or may not be the Dhegian Sioux creation story. Other tribes from this region have similar traditions that aren’t as well documented. The Wyandotte Nation, for example, also has a tradition of a woman mating with the Great Serpent. The Shawnee Tribe has a tradition of a female creator with many of the characteristics of First Woman; and they are the only Algonquian-speaking tribe with a Snake Clan.
Whatever its story, Serpent Mound is aligned to the sunset on the summer solstice, suggesting that it is linked to the Sun much like Newark’s Octagon Earthworks is linked to the Moon. Aligning sacred sites to the rhythms of the cosmos is a way to amplify the significance of ceremonies conducted at these special places at those special times.
(Brad Lepper. “Ohio Serpent Mound must be remembered as American Indian monument.” Newark Advocate. October 10, 2021.)
Could this mound have been used to mark time or seasons, perhaps indicating when to plant or harvest? Likewise, it has been suggested that the curves in the body of the snake parallel lunar phases, or alternatively align with the two solstices and two equinoxes.
Some have interpreted the egg or eye shape at the head to be a representation of the sun. Perhaps even the swallowing of the sun shape could document a solar eclipse. Another theory is that the shape of the serpent imitates the constellation Draco, with the Pole Star matching the placement of the first curve in the snake’s torso from the head. An alignment with the Pole Star may indicate that the mound was used to determine true north and thus served as a kind of compass.
Of note also is the fact that Halley’s Comet appeared in 1066, although the tail of the comet is characteristically straight rather than curved. Perhaps the mound served in part to mark this astronomical event or a similar phenomenon, such as light from a supernova. In a more comprehensive view, the serpent mount may represent a conglomerate of all celestial knowledge known by these native peoples in a single image.
(Katherine T. Brown. “Fort Ancient Culture: Great Serpent Mound.” Khan Academy. 2021.)
Brad Lepper – Ohio Historical Society's most visible anthropologist writes as for why Serpent Mound was built …
“I don’t think we can make a claim one way or the other. It could have been for spiritual purposes or for agrarian reasons, or both. The fact that it could be used as a calendar doesn’t mean that was its primary purpose.”
Lepper has suggested the mound could be a shrine to the Native American spiritual power “Mishebeshu,” which means “The Great Serpent.” Nevertheless, he understands why some people, such as New Agers, have epiphany-like reactions when they visit the Serpent Mound.
Lepper concludes...
“I am taking my science hat off here, but I do feel the special power of that site. It’s not any sort of energy that you could ever detect with any sort of energy meter, it’s just a special place. When I’m there, more so than any of the other Native American sites, I feel like I am in a church. It feels as if you should speak in hushed tones, that sort of thing.”
(John Lasker. "Stalking the Serpent Mound ...” Columbus Free Press. November 27, 2013.)
Serpent Mound
Author Unknown
Ohio,
1846
Brush Creek stood
low when the museum men came
with their measuring tapes and
sketchbooks.
It was winter. Fringed with ice,
the creek doubled
back on itself
as if it had forgotten something.
Pa was in
Cincinnati, or else on his way home,
so Ma told me to lead the
men
into the marshy low grounds. It being winter,
there was
little underbrush to speak of—
in the summer there would have
been
briars, poison ivy, biting flies. I listened
for the swish
of a beaver’s heavy tail,
the chitter of a chickadee, or the cry
of a hawk,
but the winter silence of the creek pressed
down on
all of us like a weight.
The humps in the ground were all
but
invisible until you were right up on them. The figure
was
even less obvious: the sinuous body,
the tail coiled three times
around,
and at the other end, the mouth wide open.
In the
summer the creek bottom was crowded
with so much life that you
could trip over
the ridges of earth before you saw
anything at
all. In winter you could climb
a tree and get some idea of the
whole thing:
the serpent’s body undulating, slithering
silently
across the ancient
earth. At the mouth end, there was an oval
mound
as if the snake were about to swallow an egg—
as snakes
sometimes did in our rickety
henhouse—my Pa always said, or
as
if swallowing the sun, one of the museum
men suggested, taking
notes with his quill pen,
an old-style inkhorn slung at his
side.
I liked that: swallowing the sun,
just the sort of thing
a snake might do,
might want to do. When, later, I told my sister
Ruth,
she disagreed. It is singing to the sun,
she insisted.
That is why its mouth
is wide open. She said, “Sometimes I
think
I hear it on summer nights. Not swallowing, singing.
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