Legends and Lore of Illinois Volume 2 Issue 12
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Transcript of Legends and Lore of Illinois Volume 2 Issue 12
A Short Message From the Author
This issue ends the second year of the Legends
and Lore of Illinois. We have seen considerable growth
in that time, not just in terms of readership, but also in
content. We only had one unfortunately setback,
when my digital video camera broke and I was no
longer able to record any more of our monthly videos.
It is my goal to keep this publication
continually evolving and to involve the readers as
much as possible. In keeping with that goal, 2009 will
bring a few important changes. For the past few
months I experimented with offering hard copies of
each issue. This will be an option for all of the new
issues, which will also be expanded to 8 pages.
Fan photos will be a regular feature of 2009.
On our website and our Myspace page, I requested
that our fans send in photos of themselves along with
a statement of support. So far the response has been
overwhelming, so I plan to devote an entire page to
these in the upcoming issues.
Also, I’m going to begin including my own
personal reflections. I realized that it might be
interesting for you to read how I felt when I visited
each location, especially since I’ve been to dozens of
these places over the years. With that being said, I
hope you continue to enjoy the Legends and Lore of
Illinois in the coming year. Keep writing in! g
Your Letters
Just read the latest issue of Legends and Lore,
loved it by the way!! I love your writing! One thing I
did notice though, is your investigation file date is
November 28, 2008, which hasn’t passed yet. I didn’t
know if this was on purpose or not. Just wanted to
drop you a line to see if it was! Keep up the
phenomenal work!! I can’t wait for the next issue!!
Tasha Hebert
Bloomington, IL
(Author’s note: because the stories in the Investigation
File are fictional, the date of the investigations may be
listed as any time during the month.)
If you are a fan of the Legends and Lore of Illinois, we want to
hear from you! Please e-mail your letters to:
http://www.myspace.com/legendsandloreofillinois
Contents From the Author 1 Your Letters 1 A Quick and Dirty Guide 2 The Fallen Investigate 3 Book Review 6 Ghostly Games 7 Trivia 7
Page 1
The formidable “Monk’s Mound.”
A Quick and Dirty Guide to
Cahokia Mounds
Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site is located
near Collinsville, Illinois, around eight miles east of St.
Louis. The site consists of dozens of prehistoric
mounds constructed by American Indians around the
time that Leif Ericson’s longships landed in Vinland.
The most prominent feature of these mounds is
Monk’s Mound. Monk’s Mound was the largest
earthen structure north of central Mexico at the time of
its construction. “Begun around A.D. 900 and
completed 300 years later,” Gene S. Stuart wrote in his
book America’s Ancient Cities (1988), “it has 4 terraces;
rises 100 feet; covers some 16 acres with a base
measuring approximately 700 by 1,080 feet, and
contains about 22 million cubic feet of earth (31).” A
large building sat at the summit of the mound.
The Cahokia Mounds were built by a group of
people identified by anthropologists as belonging to
the Mississippian Culture. Not much is known about
them, other than the artifacts and earthen structures
they left behind.
The mounds were a part of a large city, which
reached the height of its power between 1000 and 1200
AD. A large stockade surrounded the central
structures at the site, which the residents rebuilt
several times. There is no evidence of battles or who
their enemy might have been.
Cahokia stood at the hub of a network of
“mound communities,” which would have reinforced
its role as a trade center along with its place at the
juncture of the Mississippi, Illinois, and Missouri
Rivers. It maintained that position for several
hundred years before the site was mysteriously
abandoned around 1400 AD. In comparison, the city
of St. Louis has been in existence for a little over 200
years.
Cahokia wasn’t the only mound city in North
America. According to Earl H. Swanson, in his book
The Making of the Past: The Ancient Americas (1989),
similar, but less extensive cities have been found near
Spiro, Oklahoma; Etowah, Georgia; Moundville,
Alabama; and Hiwassee Island, Tennessee. Many of
these mounds were used for burial, and contain
human remains, stone tools, weapons, pottery, and
artwork.
At the time the first French explorers began to
penetrate the Illinois territory, the native peoples had
no knowledge of who had once occupied the massive
site. In the 1800s, American archeologists believed
that some earlier race, distinct from the Amerindians,
constructed the mounds. They called them,
appropriately enough, the “Mound People” or the
“Mound Builders.” They assumed that the Native
American tribes had exterminated them some time in
the distant past.
Many of the familiar tales of Illinois are only a
few decades old. We mustn’t forget that people have
lived on this land for over a thousand years. The
Cahokia Mounds are a reminder that every nook and
cranny of this land is haunted by the past. g
Page 2
The sign to the Cahokia Mounds museum.
Smaller mounds dot the landscape.
The Fallen
Investigation File 024
With Primordial’s “Empire Falls” blaring from
the speakers of their rusted, dark blue Toyota Corolla,
The Fallen raced down the deserted road toward
Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site under the cover of
darkness. Snow flurries trickled down from the sky as
the urban landscape suddenly gave way to an open
field and the massive silhouette of Monk’s Mound
appeared on the horizon.
“Where is this place?” Greg asked from the
backseat. He clutched his gnarled, wooden cane
anxiously. Beside him sat Emmer, a tall and lanky
young man with a dour expression. Aurelia sat in the
front passenger side. Mike, as always, sat behind the
wheel.
“It’s right there,” Mike said, pointing his finger
at the mound in the distance.
“What, that?” Greg asked. “That’s it? I’ve seen
sled hills bigger than that.”
“It’s an ancient monument,” Mike explained
with naked agitation. “It’s a sacred place.”
“It looks like the Kenosha toboggan hill,” Greg
laughed.
Emmer grinned. “Well, I’m ready to see some
fireworks,” he said. “What’s it been, over a year now
you’ve been looking for this astral gate? I’d hate the
whole thing to turn out to be a bone headed mistake
on your part.”
“I’ve got your bone right here,” Mike shot
back,
back, but before he could continue, Aurelia pulled a
weathered rib bone out of a backpack that had been
laying on the floor.
“No really, he does!” she exclaimed.
It took a few moments for the quartet to settle
down, but as soon as they saw the cars already in the
parking lot of Monk’s Mound, their demeanor
sobered.
“Looks like we’re a little late,” Emmer
grumbled.
Mike spun the wheel, and the Toyota lurched
into the parking lot, driving over a chain that had
obviously been cut. In a heartbeat, the gear was in
park and the engine off. The Fallen stealthily piled out
of the car.
“Just think,” Greg whispered. “Millions of
people are asleep in their warm beds getting ready for
the Christmas season—or whatever. No one but us is
awake right now. What a way to celebrate the winter
solstice—climbing a wet, snowy hill in the freezing
cold!”
“Bone me,” Mike said, holding out his hand.
Aurelia slapped the long-lost rib bone of Big
Thunder into his palm. Dark, ominous clouds
gathered in the sky above and thunder shook the
asphalt of the parking lot.
Page 3
A reconstructed portion of the stockade.
Step by step, The Fallen made their way to the
stairs that led to the top of Monk’s Mound. From that
vantage point, it looked as though they would have to
climb a thousand steps. By the time they made it to
the top, they feared, their adversaries could have
already opened the astral gate.
“Follow my lead!” Mike shouted under the
roaring thunder. He tightened his black, leather
trench coat around his waist and began the ascent.
The farther they climbed, the more clearly the
four heard voices echoing from the plateau at the top
of the mound. Wind whipped the noise down to their
ears along with the freezing snow, which had quickly
turned to icy rain.
Finally, after ten or fifteen minutes, The Fallen
reached within a yard of the summit. They stopped
there and sunk down to avoid detection. Greg peered
over the edge and observed that the five funda-
mentalists—their rivals for control over the astral
gate—were joined with the Satanists, Davin and Emily
among them. The holy-rollers stood in formation in
the shape of a cross, with Davin and the Satanists
standing in between the four ‘arms.’
“I don’t believe my own eyes,” Greg cursed.
“How can the Christians and the Satanists be working
together? It doesn’t make any sense! And that bastard
Davin… don’t even get me—“
“There is no Satanism without Judeo-
Christianity!” Emmer hissed. His friend looked at him
blankly, so he quickly elaborated. “Satanism is a ruse.
It’s all about controlling dissent so that they determine
what is good and what is evil. They prepackaged
rebellion in a form that confirms the underlying Judeo-
Christian worldview. They are just two sides of the
same coin. Get it? Look, have you read 1984?”
“No,” Greg blinked, cutting him off. “But I
guess it doesn’t matter. We have to stop them
whatever they having going on behind the scenes.”
He turned towards Mike. “What do we do?” he asked
frantically, readying his cane for a fight.
“Nothing—yet,” Mike replied. “We have to
wait for them to open the gate.”
“Wait, isn’t that exactly what we don’t want
them to do?” Aurelia interjected.
“Greg, remember when you were worried
about keeping Emily around, because one of the
Satanists is her brother and he was using her to get to
us through Davin?” Mike asked rhetorically. “And
remember when I said that worked both ways?”
“Yeah, but—“ Greg protested.
“Just watch.”
From the top of the mound the voice of the
leader of the fundamentalists, a middle aged matriarch
with long, curly hair, rang out in low, clear decibels.
Her hands were outstretched. “Mater misericordiae!
Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve! Ad te clamamus exsules
filii Hevae! Ad te Suspiramus, gementes et flentes in hac
lacrimarum valle! Eia ergo, Advocata nostra, illos tuos
misericordes oculos ad nos converte!”
The man at the head of the human ‘cross’
added, “Eia ergo, Advocata nostra, illos tuos misericordes
oculos ad nos converte. Et Iesum, benedictum fructum
ventris tui, nobis post hoc exsilium ostende!”
Page 4
St. Louis can be seen from Monk’s Mound
A model of all the mounds, alongside Woodhenge.
At that, the entire group began to speak in
tongues—releasing a chorus of nonsensical phrases
that spewed forth from their deep, trance-like state. In
the sky above, the clouds slowly began to spin.
“All of you have officially gone off the deep
end,” Emmer trembled. “We should get off this hill
before we get struck by lightning or something. This
has gone far enough.”
“Wait!” Mike yelled and reached out to restrain
his friend, but as Emmer turned around to retreat
down the stairs, a fissure appeared in the clouds and a
bolt of lightning struck the ground inches away.
Emmer was thrown onto the side of the mound and
rolled to a stop on a plateau midway to the bottom.
The crack in the clouds widened and electro-
magnetic energy lit up the top of Monk’s Mound. “I
think I’m getting some déjà vu!” Greg exclaimed as
fingers of lightning crackled across the midnight sky.
“We have to close this gate forever!” Mike
shouted over the whipping wind and stinging, icy
hail. He turned the rib bone around in his hand to get
a more balanced grip.
“What?” Greg asked with astonishment. “We
came all this way and now that we found the gate you
want to destroy it?”
“We don’t have a choice,” Mike argued. “Once
the gate is in the wrong hands, there will be no going
back. The world will plunge into slavery. There will
be no freedom—only one thought, one herd, one faith,
one world order.” He stood up and shouted, “Davin,
do it now!”
Near the middle of the enemy formation at the
top of the mound, Davin sprang into action. Their
leader had been momentarily distracted by the sudden
appearance of Mike, so she was unprepared for the
blow that came at her from behind. Davin launched
himself at the woman and knocked her down with the
brunt of his shoulder.
At the same moment, Mike hurled the bone of
Big Thunder into the fissure in the clouds. Davin
barely got to his feet—slipping and sliding on the icy
grass—before a great roar pierced the air and lighting
touched down in every direction.
Mike grabbed Aurelia and Greg and jumped
off the side of the hill. They landed with a sickening
thud, but their momentum carried them down the
slope before they could be fried by the lightning.
The others weren’t so lucky. Both the Satanists
and the holy rollers—along with Emily—were
scorched by the searing heat. Davin, who fell on top
of one of the larger men, narrowly escaped. As the
swirling clouds above lurched to a halt and began to
dissipate, he crawled over to Emily, but her lifeless
eyes told him that he was too late.
By the time Davin reached the bottom of the
hill, the other members of The Fallen had gathered a
few yards from the parking lot. Aurelia and Greg
carried Emmer, who was still unconscious.
“The snoozepapers will probably report this as
some kind of tragedy,” Aurelia growled. “Probably
use it as an excuse for a lecture on weather safety.”
“It was a tragedy,” Mike said as he reached the
door of the dark blue Toyota. “The ancients hid this
here eons ago to allow us to one day unlock the secrets
of the cosmos. Instead of using it for knowledge, it
was destroyed because of ignorance.”
“Maybe there are more of them out there,”
Davin suggested. “All I know is that it’s great to be
back. I almost started to miss you guys.” He grinned
and joined the others in the vehicle. g
Page 5
Cahokia’s “Woodhenge.”
Book Review Have you ever seen or read anything you
couldn’t explain and let your imagination fill in the
blanks? That appears to have been the genesis of Alan
and Sally Landsburg’s book In Search of Ancient
Mysteries. Published in 1974, this book was a
companion piece to a television special of the same
name that claimed ancient civilization was nurtured
by visitors from outer space.
The idea that our distant ancestors were visited
by extraterrestrials had already been espoused by such
authors as Erich von Däniken, who interpreted ancient
artwork and legends to mean that the gods of
primitive man were really spacemen whose “chariots
of fire” were, in reality, spaceships.
Alan and Sally Landsburg took this one step
farther, speculating that extraterrestrials had not only
come to earth, but had also established bases here at
intervals of thousands of years, giving mankind gifts
of knowledge and civilization in the process. They
theorized that members of an advanced culture had
left their dying planet in search of a new home. These
alien refugees would have eventually found our planet
and set up a base camp here.
The authors placed this base camp at Lake
Titicaca in the Andes Mountains of Peru and Bolivia.
Near this lake, which is high above sea level, lay the
ruins of a massive ancient city dated at 2000 BC. Not
even the natives know what race of people inhabited
this city or how it was built. Other than the seeming
impossibility of building a city at that height without
the use of modern construction equipment, the
evidence of its extraterrestrial origins is speculative at
best.
These long-lost inhabitants maintained a
tradition of revering jaguars, which our authors
considered strange due to the lack of that animal at
those heights in the Andes Mountains. The reason
they put forward to explain this oddity is that, when
seen from space, Lake Titicaca is shaped like a jaguar.
“Conceivably it took a jaguar as its symbol in fond
remembrance of the shape of the lake its founders saw
when they came down from the heavens,” the authors
wrote (35).
Thanks to satellite imagery, I have seen Lake
Titicaca from space, and all it looks like to me is a
misshapen blob. Furthermore, even if our visitors did
see something in the outline of the lake, how would
aliens from outer space know what a jaguar was?
Therein lies the problem that afflicts this book
from cover to cover. I will more than readily grant the
author’s premise that all of our narratives dealing with
ancient history are terribly flawed and based on
speculation, scant evidence, and a dash of wishful
thinking. There is, however, a scale of probability.
When confronted with unexplainable facts of pre-
history, like the massive ruins near Lake Titicaca, why
come to the least likely and most complicated
explanation? Sure, aliens could have built the ancient
city, but isn’t it more likely that a resourceful and
determined pre-modern people built the city?
Each generation interprets the past as they see
it. In the 1970s, a burgeoning New Age movement
sought to reinterpret history into a story of
humankind’s spiritual growth. Highly enlightened
people from space took a strong role in that narrative.
Some day, the story went, these aliens would return to
save us from nuclear and environmental annihilation.
Thirty years later, we are still waiting. g
Alan and
Sally
Landsburg,
In Search of
Ancient
Mysteries.
Non-Fiction.
(New York:
Bantam
Books,
1974.)
Page 6
Ghostly Games
This section is designed to put fun back into the
paranormal. Most of these ideas will have nothing to do
with poking around with an EMF detector and thinking
you’ve detected a ghost when you’re really just standing
under a power line.
Game #12: What Metal Band am I?
This is a good game for a party with six or
more guests. It is easily expanded to accommodate as
many players as you wish.
Ingredients
6-8 large, white index cards
Tape & black marker
Instructions
Write the name of one goth, doom, black,
death, or ambient metal band on each card. Mix them
up and then affix a random card to the back of one of
the player’s shirt. That player should not know what
the card says. Then Player 1 should affix the
remaining cards to the backs of the remaining player’s
shirts, without them seeing which card they received.
It is o.k. for the other players to see your card.
The game begins as all the players ask each
other questions to determine which band is written on
their index card. The questions should be answered
with either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The game continues until all
the players have guessed correctly! g
Trivia
Tough questions will be asked in this section. It is up to
you to uncover the clues and determine the solutions.
Sometimes you will find the answers buried in the current
issue; other times you will need to go to the location itself.
The answers to this month’s questions will be posted in next
month’s issue.
1. Of what culture were the people who
constructed the Cahokia Mounds?
2. How tall is Monk’s Mound?
3. Between what years, roughly, were the
mounds constructed?
4. In what year was St. Louis officially established
as a town (before it was a city)?
5. Many of the mounds were surrounded by a
large wooden wall, otherwise known as a ____.
6. In what year was Cahokia Mounds designated
as a World Heritage Site?
7. What was the suggested purpose of
Woodhenge, a circle of erect timber not far
from the Cahokia mounds?
Go out and explore, and good luck!
Answers to last month’s questions:
1. 1973. 2. France. 3. Lakeview. 4. New Poag Road. 5. A
triangle. 6. 1897. 7. The Broken Heart or the Unfinished Life.
Page 7
Part of the stockade, and Monk’s Mound in the distance.
A commanding view of the landscape.