"Mound People"

Bacon Scrapins – “Mound People”

Bacon Scrapins are the little bits of meat left in the greasy fry pan. They’re tasty, but the nutrition needs searching for. This tale is a bacon scrapin.

Dan, my neighbour, and I stood with hands in our pockets watching as the truck dumped its load of sifted mulch onto his driveway. The truck lurched forward, stopped quickly, and its tailgate banged loudly to loosen any remaining soil. The driver lowered the truck bed and drove off down the street.

There it stood – an oval-shaped mound of nutrient soil – waiting for someone to do something with it.

“Big job to move all that soil into your gardens,” I suggested.

“Good thing I’ve got lots of time, a shovel and a wheelbarrow,” Dan replied

“A lot of work for one person,” I concluded.

“You offering?” Dan inquired.

“Just observing. You’re just the latest in a long history of people with mounds in North America, even though this small one’s only temporary.” I added.

Dan continued, “Yup. I’ve read about mounds built by Natives in North America that are quite large, some over 100 feet in height, and intended to be permanent constructions of their culture.”

“Early European settlers thought they were naturally formed hills, and some were graded to conform to whatever they wanted to build overtop of them. 18^th and 19th-century ‘scholars’ refused to believe that North Americans had built these thousands of mounds throughout the continent because they considered the peoples ‘primitive savages’ who lacked the skill, intelligence or social organization to complete such a monumental task. Recent studies have proven that to be false. The structures were built as long ago as 5000 BCE and as recently as just before Europeans arrived on the scene.” I recalled.

“Well, my mound here is going to disappear to add nutrients for our plants to grow. I’ll eventually get it done by myself, with the organizing direction of my wife. Those Native mounds were built by a very large labour force under the direction of some central authorities.” Dan admitted.

“Archaeologists, digging up and studying mounds in various places have found a lot of evidence which shows, depending on which mound they were looking at, that these mounds were used as a raised dais for special members of their society to live on and for religious rituals, or as burial sites for their dead, and where tools and things they used have been discovered. They’ve found ceramics, tools and evidence of materials that had to have come from long distances through trade.” I mused.

“There’s a Serpent Mound in Ohio, that has its “serpent head” that aligns to the summer solstice, and the “coils” align with the winter solstice sunrise and equinoxes. It’s apparent that it was constructed for astronomical purposes. Just like the pyramid mounds built by the Aztecs and Mayans in Mexico. These were smart people with advanced civilizations in many ways!” Dan observed.

“These Native civilizations, going back thousands of years, were able to organize knowledge and their citizens to build mounds that represented the best of their cultures. I think we’re still doing that to this day, and not your dirt pile as an example.” I considered.

“So what mounds are we building today that contain all the examples of how far our culture has advanced?” Dan asked.

“That’s easy,” I concluded. “Thousands of garbage dumps!”

NOTE: Characters’ names in the Bacon Scrapins tales are fictional.

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