The St. Louis area on the east side of the river was once the cultural center of North America, long before European “discovery” and settlement of the Midwest. The ancient Cahokia civilization, which has local remnants known as the Cahokia Mounds, is featured in Hero, Hawk and Open Hand, a new exhibit at the St. Louis Art Museum that celebrates the technological advances, artwork and earthen structures of American Indians.
John Nunley, Morton D. May curator of the arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the St. Louis Art Museum, will give two gallery talks about the new exhibit, March 22 and March 25. Nunley is a storehouse of knowledge about these cultures, as well as many African traditions, and expert at making connections between them.
Hero, Hawk and Open Hand is made of several sections representing different cultures, including Hopewell and Cahokia. These cultures created huge earthen structures, or mounds, 12 to 15 feet high and 30 to 40 feet across.
“To give you a sense of the scale of these, four Roman Coliseums could fit in there,” Nunley said, pointing to a large diagram of a congregation of mounds created by the Hopewell culture, which existed from 220 BC to 400 AD.
The Coliseum is an enormous structure that was designed to hold 50,000 spectators and measures 615 feet by 510 feet, with the height of a 12- to 15-story building.
Another mound, now known as Monks Mound, is as high as a modern 10-story building and was created in what is now known as Cahokia. The culture of Cahokia became the first major metropolis in North America.
Located just 8 miles from St. Louis, Cahokia was a center for art and commerce. Native Americans in Cahokia built 120 earthen mounds by moving around 55 million cubic feet of earth with ancient tools and baskets.
The exhibition includes over 300 objects made from various materials, such as stone, copper and wood. Its title was derived from important symbols of ancient Native American culture.
“There were always three things that were very important symbols. One is the hero,” Nunley said, explaining the title of the exhibit. Heroes were both male and female and were usually politicians, artisans or priests.
“Heroes sacrifice themselves for protecting their society,” Nunley said. Heroes also seek the world of the ancestors on behalf of their society, which is why they were so important to those cultures.
In order to gain access to the ancestors believed to be in the Milky Way, heroes would “go through a portal which is the open hand,” Nunley said. “So, the heroes, in order to gain the strength and wisdom of the ancestors and the spirits, go through that hand, into that world, and then come back down to earth to accomplish the things they need to do.”
The hawk also has great significance to Native American cultures, because it has excellent vision and its strike is deadly. The hawk motif is visible in many of the works throughout the show.
“People dress as hawks and become hawk-like because they want the vision of the hawk,” Nunley said.
Despite their great artwork and civilizations, Native American cultures of the Midwest are not as well-known as their Mexican and South American counterparts. Nunley feels that this is due to the size of Native American populations in Mexico and South America. Since the Native American population in the Midwest is considerably smaller, Nunley feels there is less recognition of their ancient achievements.
Also, Native Americans, just like tribal Africans, were grossly underestimated by the Europeans who colonized both continents. Nunley said that European Americans “thought it would be impossible for ‘savages’ to create cities with streets and religious institutions, so it was just downplayed.”
Hero, Hawk and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South runs until May 30 at the St. Louis Art Museum. John Nunley’s gallery talks are scheduled for Tuesday, March 22 at 11 a.m. and Friday, March 25 at 6 p.m. Both talks are free, but exhibition tickets are required. For more information, visit HYPERLINK “http://www.slam.org/”www.slam.org or call 721-0072.
