299 days 05 the visitors, p.23
A Universe Less Traveled, page 23
Diyami excused himself to make a phone call. Over the din of the drumming, he mouthed, “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Billy leaned close to Meredith so she could hear him: “Do you remember when we came to Cahokia? You were in seventh grade. It was the spring equinox. Your class came to watch the sun rise over the mound. We were over there.”
He pointed through the glass toward an area to the left of the old pyramid. There was a colonnade of logs stuck vertically in the ground. “We had to be here at 5:30 in the morning. It was cold as hell.”
“I remember a little bit.”
Diyami returned. “You’re invited to have dinner with my parents and me at their apartment. Can you stay this evening?” He looked at Meredith, hoping for a positive response.
“We would love to,” Billy said.
“Don’t you have plans later?” Meredith asked.
“Canceled.”
Diyami opened the apartment door.
“Dad, Mom, we’re here.”
He, Meredith, and Billy stepped into a living room with white walls and a gray carpet. An image of a falcon was outlined in the center of the carpet. One wall was lined with bookshelves, the other held a collection of artworks, mostly tapestries and ceramics. The opposite side of the room was floor-to-ceiling glass, with a patio beyond. A fireplace with a stone chimney was in the center of the glass wall.
A man and woman emerged from the kitchen.
“Welcome!” said the man. He looked a little older than Billy, with glasses and long black hair, with accents of gray, pulled into a ponytail. He had a small tattoo under his left eye.
“This is my father, Sahale Red Hawk,” Diyami said. “And my mother, Menara Red Hawk.” She was about the same age as Sahale, also with long hair going from black to gray. Diyami introduced Billy and Meredith as visitors from California.
“My Indian name is Sahale, but, actually, I’ve been Herbert most of my life. The young people want nothing to do with English names, but I’m from a different generation. So please call me Herbert.”
“And I’m Juliet,” Diyami’s mom said.
Diyami rolled his eyes with a universal “my parents are so embarrassing” look that Billy was all too familiar with.
“Dinner won’t be ready for a while, so please relax. Diyami, could you and Meredith help me in the kitchen? I need some tasters and stirrers,” Juliet said.
“Sure,” Diyami said, pleased to have Meredith included.
“Billy, I’ll show you the patio,” Herbert said. “Would you like a beer? I have Kahok Lager and Pale Ale.”
“I’ve had the Lager, so I’ll try the Pale Ale.”
Billy and Herbert stepped through a sliding glass door onto the patio. The Grand Plaza lay before them, with the new pyramid to the left and the old pyramid to the right. Billy looked over the patio railing to see the apartments below. Each floor was stepped back from the one below. The view was spectacular.
“We’re very fortunate.” He turned to Billy with a sly smile. “University housing.”
“What do you do at the university?”
“I’m chairman of the Linguistics Department. Juliet is a professor of microbiology. What about you, Billy?”
“I’m in the electronics business, in California. Computers.”
Herbert looked confused.
“Difference engines,” Billy said.
“Of course. I may be a linguist, but I’m easily baffled by technical language. Do you like the Pale Ale?”
“I do.”
“Kahok Beer is one of our economic success stories. It’s in ten states now and still growing. The fellow who started it is a friend of mine. A Potawatomi from Wisconsin. He thinks it’s hilarious for an Indian to be selling alcohol to the whites.”
Billy chuckled.
Their small talk continued. Herbert pointed out various landmarks and Billy used his fact-finding skills to learn about Cahokia. Most Cahokians worked in St. Louis, but they were developing more local businesses, banking and insurance, in addition to the brewery. The university planned to add a medical school, which Herbert hoped would happen soon enough so Juliet could be part of the faculty before she retired.
The best time to visit was in October for the Three Worlds Festival, when the Grand Plaza was filled with thousands of costumed musicians and drummers representing the five hundred nations of native America and the pyramids were bathed in elaborate light shows each evening.
Billy sipped his beer, leaned on the railing and thought, I like this guy.
After a little while, Juliet, Meredith, and Diyami joined them on the patio, with additional beers and a tray of snacks. It was Meredith’s turn to be amazed by the view, and Diyami pointed out of landmarks.
“I told Billy about the Three Worlds Festival,” Herbert said. “They should come back here for it.”
“You definitely should,” Juliet said. “We have an excellent view from this terrace.”
They sat in a half-circle of chairs facing the outdoor side of the fireplace. Though it was summer, Herbert started a small fire.
“We must have a warm hearth to welcome our guests.”
Billy raised his bottle in a toast, “To Diyami, Herbert, and Juliet, our favorite Cahokians.”
“Coming here on the boat, I noticed that the two hydrofoils were called Corn Mother and Morning Star,” Billy said. “And they both had ABSOM written above the names. What does that mean?”
Herbert chuckled, then replied with mock seriousness, “Mr. Boustany, you have just asked a very big question. One that requires a long story. Do you really want to hear it?”
“We do, for sure!” Meredith said. She stole a glance at Diyami, who smiled back at her.
Herbert opened another beer. “Let’s start with ABSOM, which stands for “As Before, So Once More.” It has become the motto of Cahokia. Nine hundred years ago, Cahokia was a great city, the largest in North America north of Mexico, and also larger than London and Paris. The center of a culture that influenced what is now the entire Midwest and South. So that history is the “As Before.” “So Once More” is the city you see today, which is again the greatest Native American city in the United States. Forty years ago, when native peoples started to move back to this area, their goal was to build both a modern city and a center of native culture. Those early pioneers came up with ABSOM, and it stuck.”
“And that’s when Corn Mother and Morning Star came in,” Juliet said.
Diyami leaned over to Meredith, “You’ll love this.”
Herbert and Juliet took turns telling the story, one that everyone in Cahokia knew.
It was an Indian man and a white woman who first taught about the wonders of Cahokia. We revere them because they lit a tiny match, which native peoples later grew into a life-giving fire. Their names were Bennett Adamson and Claire Moore, though, today, every Indian within a thousand miles calls them Morning Star and Corn Mother, because we believe they were messengers of the two gods with those names. Morning Star and Corn Mother were important figures in the mythology of the ancient Cahokians. In the early 1950s, Adamson—Morning Star—and Moore—Corn Mother—were archaeologists in the Art and Archaeology Department at Washington University in St. Louis.
From their research and excavations here at Cahokia, they discovered that they were standing on the bones of a great civilization. But no one else could see it. They tried to explain the story to academics and to leaders in St. Louis. Morning Star said, ‘You have a treasure that must not be ignored. It’s Babylon, Carthage, Pergamon right here at your doorstep. But, forgotten in the mud beneath the cornfields and houses.’ (Yes, a subdivision of little houses had been built right out there on the Grand Plaza.) They had pictures, maps, everything. But they were seen as kooks and cranks. People in St. Louis laughed at them behind their backs and said: “There can be no Indian city here. The French, starting with Marquette, had met only scattered bands living in tiny villages, traveling by canoe, trapping beavers. They were simple people who knew little. Not members of a great civilization.”
Washington University grew tired of Adamson and Moore and their obsession, so they were fired. They could not find another university to support their research. But the spirits were not finished with them. They moved to a little house in Collinsville, just a mile from here, inside the territory of ancient Cahokia. It is said that the Earth spirit of Cahokia talked to them at night. They continued to dig, map and photograph. They searched the libraries, looking for more pieces of this story that was hidden in plain sight among the farms, the small towns, the five-and-dime stores. The whites of Collinsville were completely ignorant of the soil they plowed and lived on. They were sleepwalkers, aliens. It was not their story. The spirits did not speak to such people.
The seasons of sun, rain, and snow, of row crops and blacktop, of aluminum siding and roof shingles, of short-haired boys and curly-headed girls laughing on concrete playgrounds, all continued. Cahokia sank further into the silence of the earth.
But Corn Mother and Morning Star were two seeds that the barren earth could not destroy. In those days, no native people lived here. Not a one. Only the whites and the black white people, who were equally ignorant of the soil under their feet.
Corn Mother and Morning Star were in despair. No one to talk to. No one to sponsor their digging and studies. Morning Star had one job after another in Collinsville, but he had no interest in business affairs and lost them all. Eventually, he was reduced to working at a gas station. Corn Mother was a secretary at a farm implements dealer.
One day, a car pulled into the gas station. Morning Star went out to pump their gas, as was the custom in those times. He saw that they were a family of Indians. The children ran inside to get candy and sodas, the mother went to buy sandwiches from the diner next door for their lunch. Morning Star talked to the father as gas flowed into the tank.
“Where are you from?” Morning Star asked.
“Oklahoma. We were up in Ohio for a tribal event. One of my cousins got married.”
“What tribe?”
“Osage.”
“Like us!” interjected Diyami with a grin like he was eight years old again.
“I understand that the Osage used to live around here in Missouri and Illinois.”
“Yes. But they were scattered and driven away a long time ago.”
“Do you know that there was once a huge Indian city right near here?”
“What are you talking about? An Indian city?” The man shook his head.
“No, really. We don’t know when, exactly, but it was about a thousand years ago.”
“Yeah, right.” said the man, “C’mon, kids. Get in the car. We’ve got to make time if we want to get home tonight.”
“I’m not kidding. They built a big pyramid. Just about a mile from here. I can show it to you.”
“An Indian city? With a pyramid? Here? You’ve smoked one peace pipe too many, my friend.”
Morning Star moved a little closer and looked the man in the eye. “I know what I’m talking about. Let me show you. Twenty minutes, then you can be on your way.”
The man, whose name was Robert Weatherford, looked closely at Morning Star and said nothing. He had a sense. A whisper from the spirits, or so he said, years later. “Kids, we’re going to see an Indian pyramid.”
The children and wife were puzzled as they got into the car. Morning Star said, “Follow me.” He got into his car, a green 1950s station wagon with wooden sides.
“You saw it in the museum!” Diyami said, bubbling with enthusiasm.
They drove about a mile. Morning Star pulled over to the side of the road and got out of his car. Weatherford pulled up behind him.
“Where’s the pyramid?” he asked.
“Right there,” said Morning Star, and he pointed to a grassy hill to the right of a subdivision of new houses.
“That’s just a hill, man,” Weatherford said.
“No, it’s an earthen pyramid with four straight sides and two levels and a flat top. Some people call it a mound, but it is not a hill.”
“Don’t pyramids have pointy tops?” one of the kids asked.
“The ones in Egypt do. The Indians built them differently, flat on top for a temple or for the king’s house. This one is similar in shape to many in Mexico.”
Weatherford, his wife and kids looked at the pyramid, then back at Morning Star.
“You know about that, right?” Morning Star said. “Mexico. The Aztecs. The Mayans. The people here were inspired by the cultures in Mexico to build a great city. You’re standing in that city.”
“Why are those houses there if this is an ancient city?”
“No one around here gives a damn.”
“That’s the story of the Indians,” Weatherford said. He, his wife, and Morning Star looked at the pyramid in silence for a minute or two. The kids played in the grass, chasing butterflies. Weatherford closed his eyes. He turned to face the north, then to the three other directions.
“Our people don’t know anything about this,” he said. “What do you call this place?”
“Cahokia.”
“Would you like to come to Oklahoma and give a talk about this? We have a tribal meeting four times a year. They might like to hear it.”
“Sure,” Morning Star said. They exchanged phone numbers and shook hands. The family drove off toward Oklahoma. And that’s how it began.
A few months later, Morning Star and Corn Mother drove their green station wagon to Oklahoma. They had put together a slide show about Cahokia and written a small booklet to hand out, just mimeographed sheets stapled together. They spoke at Weatherford’s Osage tribal meeting. Eight people showed up. Morning Star and Corn Mother each did their part of the presentation, one running the slide projector while the other spoke, as they had practiced in the tiny living room of their Collinsville bungalow. Everyone listened politely, but only a couple asked questions. Corn Mother and Morning Star were disappointed at the lack of response.
They spent the night at Weatherford’s home. The next morning, as they were packing their suitcases, he asked them: “Could you stay another day? Some people who didn’t come last night would like to hear you.”
The second night, there were twenty people. Weatherford asked them to stay over once more. The third night, there were almost fifty and many asked questions. The booklets ran out. At the end of the third evening, one man asked, “How many Indians live at Cahokia now?”
“Only me,” Morning Star answered.
A murmur of disbelief rippled through the group.
“Maybe you should be the first,” Corn Mother said.
Word got around. Over the next few months, Corn Mother and Morning Star made several trips to Oklahoma. They spoke to the Cherokee, the Pawnee, the Miami, the Creek, and more. Corn Mother ended each talk the same way, “There’s room for you at Cahokia –you can make it a great Indian city once more.”
Then, one day, back in Collinsville, just as they were sitting down to dinner, Morning Star and Corn Mother heard a knock at their door. They opened it and there stood Robert Weatherford with his wife and kids.
“We’re ready,” Robert said. “Do you know of any homes for rent near here?”
Others followed over the next few years. Mostly young people, just out of high school who didn’t see any future on a reservation and who wanted to be part of something. Others were families, like the Weatherfords. Morning Star and Corn Mother kept traveling and talking –to the Ho-Chunk and Chippewa in Wisconsin, the Ojibway in Minnesota, even to the Sioux in South Dakota. They put thousands of miles on their worn-out green station wagon.
And the new city of Cahokia began to emerge. By 1975, Native Americans became the majority population in the town of Collinsville and the surrounding countryside. They petitioned the state of Illinois to annex the entire ancient site of Cahokia. After that, the first large construction projects began.
Sadly, Morning Star did not live to see those projects come to fruition. He passed away in 1978. Corn Mother lived until 1994. She spoke at the first university graduation ceremony just three weeks before she died.
“I met her when I was little.” Diyami said proudly. “She had the softest hands and the brightest eyes.”
“How did you decide to come here?” Billy asked Herbert.
“Robert Weatherford was my father’s first cousin. 500NU had just been founded when I got my Ph.D. from Michigan and Juliet was finishing hers at Yale. Robert worked hard to convince us that Cahokia needed the best and brightest of our people. He was very persuasive.”
Juliet and Diyami brought out plates of food and set them on the table next to the fireplace.
“Before we eat the main meal, we must make an offering to the Great Mystery,” Juliet said. She took a bundle of dried plants, held it in the fire to light it, and placed it in a bowl. She picked up small pieces of food from each platter and threw them into the fire.
“Juliet is a speaker as well as a microbiologist,” Herbert told Billy. “She has the power of communicating with the spirits of this place.”
“Let us gather,” Juliet said.
Herbert and Diyami gestured for Billy and Meredith to stand with them in a circle around Juliet. She picked up the bowl of smoldering plants and moved it back and forth in front of each person as she sang, alternating between an Indian language and English.
“We offer this day and its miraculous light so that you may continue to bless our family, our home, and our new friends, who have traveled a great distance to see this holy city. Please guide us, your people, as we continue the work of Corn Mother and Morning Star. And guide our friends on a safe journey to their home by the ocean,” she said.
