Buried Indians

by McMillin, Laurie Hovell

• ISBN13: 9780299216849
• ISBN10: 0299216845
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-04-28
• Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Pr

Summary

InBuried Indians, Laurie Hovell McMillin presents the struggle of her hometown, Trempealeau, Wisconsin, to determine whether platform mounds atop Trempealeau Mountain constitute authentic Indian mounds. This dispute, as McMillin subtly demonstrates, reveals much about the attitude and interaction-past and present-between the white and Indian inhabitants of this Midwestern town. McMillin's account, rich in detail and sensitive to current political issues of American Indian interactions with the dominant European American culture, locates two opposing views: one that denies a Native American presence outright and one that asserts its long history and ruthless destruction. The highly reflective oral histories McMillin includes turnBuried Indiansinto an accessible, readable portrait of a uniquely American culture clash and a dramatic narrative grounded in people's genuine perceptions of what the platform mounds mean.

Author Biography

Laurie Hovell McMillin is associate professor of rhetoric, composition, and religion at Oberlin College, Ohio. She is the author of English in Tibet, Tibet in English: Self-Presentation in Tibet and the Diaspora.

Table of Contents

Illustrations	xiii
Acknowledgments	xv
Introduction	xvii
Part I. The Surface	1	(50)
Routes	3	(3)
The Lay of the Land	6	(4)
Farmers	10	(3)
History	13	(2)
Old Things	15	(2)
Mascots	17	(2)
Casino	19	(2)
Memorials	21	(2)
Church	23	(2)
The Project	25	(3)
How I Got Started	28	(2)
Playing Indian	30	(3)
Who Lived Here	33	(18)
Part II. What's under the Surface	51	(96)
Digging In	53	(14)
Connections	67	(1)
Double Cousins	68	(3)
The Past	71	(7)
Hunting	78	(1)
Squier's Mounds	79	(11)
Mississippian Culture and the Platform Mounds	90	(8)
Progress	98	(3)
Departures	101	(4)
Farmers Again	105	(2)
Mother	107	(2)
Horses	109	(2)
The Dead	111	(1)
Platform Controversy Beginnings	112	(6)
Storytelling	118	(3)
Trempealeau Mountain	121	(6)
Rendezvous	127	(4)
Arrowheads	131	(5)
Local Informant	136	(2)
A Thing of the Present	138	(6)
View	144	(3)
Part III. What's at the Bottom	147	(78)
Scientific Method	149	(3)
Gale and Squier	152	(7)
Platform Controversy Again	159	(5)
Opening Day	164	(2)
Mascots Again	166	(11)
Genealogy	177	(4)
Names	181	(4)
Dead Indians	185	(8)
Natural History	193	(2)
Trempealeau Mountain Again	195	(2)
The Removals	197	(9)
What We Tell Ourselves	206	(1)
Epiphany	207	(1)
Excavation	208	(3)
No Fools	211	(1)
My Meeting with Harold	212	(13)
Part IV. Backfill	225	(38)
Putting It Back Together	227	(1)
Passing On	227	(4)
Education	231	(4)
Journeys	235	(2)
Powwow	237	(5)
More Mounds	242	(3)
More Views	245	(1)
Preservation	246	(5)
One More Time to Trempealeau Mountain	251	(2)
To the Platform Mounds	253	(2)
And Home Again	255	(2)
Finishing Up	257	(6)
Notes	263