Judy, Would love to see the Ladd's Mountain drawings. Thanks, Vicki -----Original Message----- From: Judy White <jwhite@loganet.net> To: creek-southeast@rootsweb.com Sent: Sun, Dec 20, 2009 9:53 am Subject: Re: [CREEK-SOUTHEAST] The Significance of Winter Solstice in Creek Town Planning Traditions What every you would like to send Richard I would be pleased to add to the website. Thanks Judy On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 4:36 AM, <talliyasoutheast@aol.com> wrote: > > Most Native Americans have heard of the Creek Green Corn Festival or in > Mvskoke, Poskita. Several other tribes hold similar ceremonies at the > Summer > Solstice, but their rituals are not as extensive. It was the Creek New > Year's celebration. The Creek Solar Calendar contained 12 months of 30 days > each. There was also a Lunar Calendar, which seems to have gone back to the > days when our ancestors were hunters and gatherers. To adjust the solar > calendar with the actual cycle of the earth around the sun, 5 1/4 days > composed Poskita. The Keepers of the Day monitored the sun, planets and > stars > from mountain top observatories, and set the days for Poskita. It was > time > when engagements were announced, marriages were held and grudges > forgotten. > Old fires in the domestic hearth were extinguished. Happily married > couples > would walk together to the temple, each carrying one thong attached to a > special Poskita pot. The Keepers of the Fire priests would then give them > coals from a new fire, that had been ignited by the sun, using mirrors and > crystals. With these coals, the couple would renew their marriage vows and > rekindle their hearths. > > With the importance of the Summer Solstice, one would expect that > ancestral Creek towns would be oriented to the east or west where the sun > rose on > the Summer Solstice. This in fact, was the case in the first towns with > mounds, that started developing about 2200 years ago. There was temple > mound, > covering two acres, built at a town on the Etowah River in NW Georgia. It > was constructed and occupied during the exact same period that the Pyramid > of the Sun at Teotihuacan, Mexico was constructed and occupied. Both also > faced the point where the sun rose on the Summer Solstice > > The Apalachees were a Muskogean people concentrated in northern Florida, > who practiced a Mesoamerican type religion of multiple gods and goddesses. > Otherwise, their culture and language were probably almost identical to > their > cousins to the north, the Hitchiti provinces, who practiced monotheism > and ritual baptism. Apalachee towns were oriented to the sunrise and > sunset > on the Summer Solstice. This was even true for the Apalachee towns in > western North Carolina and north central Georgia. That's how the > Appalachian > Mountains got their name! Apparently, either the Apalachee were originally > from these mountains, or else founded a colony in the Hiwassee River > Valley to > secure highland resources. > > I came upon a big surprise, however, when I began analyzing the many large > towns that started developing in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina > after 900 AD - in the same manner I analyze more recent cities. They were > NOT oriented to the sunrise on the Summer Solstice. Several > archaeologists, who had gone far enough in their studies of archeological > sites, to look > at the whole town plans, had noticed that the buildings were aligned. One > professor from the University of Georgia even pondered in his book, why > the > largest mounds and plaza at Ocmulgee were aligned to a 25.5 degree angle, > southwest. > > Obviously, these archaeologists had not been Boy Scouts! Modern maps are > oriented to magnetic North. The difference between magnetic north and True > (solar) North differs according to a town's location. At Ocmulgee, the > difference is 6.5 degrees. You add 6.5 degrees to 25.5 degrees and you get > 32 > degrees - the declination of the sunrise and sunset on the Winter Solstice. > Most major temple mounds in Georgia built after 900 AD are oriented to the > sunset on the Winter Solstice! Perhaps, this change in town planning was > the result of a change in religious practices. We really don't know, but > the symbolism is that life begins again after the apparent death throws of > the sun. > > Analysis of the locations of the major towns in Georgia, South Carolina, > western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee absolutely astounded me. ALL > of the major towns with large mounds from the Early and Middle Hierarchal > Period, are precisely located on a triangular matrix formed by True North > and > the angle of the Winter Solstice sunset. The principal temple mounds in > these "mother towns" were five sided. The towns are all located on the > points of Winter Solstice triangles. In fact, I have found several mound > sites > that few people or nobody knew about, merely by using a computer to draw > the > triangular matrix over a USGS map of the lower Southeast. Ocmulgee is on > the same latitude line as Poverty Point, LA, which was community begun > 2100 > years BEFORE Ocmulgee, and on the same longitude line as the Great Serpent > Mound in Ohio, which was constructed about 100 years AFTER Ocmulgee was > begun. > > How all this was done . . . I have not a clue. However, this town > planning tradition reaffirms what we Creeks always have known. Just at > the point > in time when it seems that the Darkness has prevailed, the Light triumphs > and begins the cycle of life again. > > I will be happy to email you the drawings I did of the Ladds Mountain > Observatory for Ancient Roots II: The Etowah River Valley - or perhaps Judy > the > web site mom can post them on her separate web site. > Notes on the Creek Indians > http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/creeknotes/index.htm > > Early Creek History > http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/creek/early-history/ > > Migration Legend of the Creek Indians > http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/creek/migration/ > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > CREEK-SOUTHEAST-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > -- Native American Genealogy http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/ AccessGenealogy http://www.accessgenealogy.com/ Notes on the Creek Indians http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/creeknotes/index.htm Early Creek History http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/creek/early-history/ Migration Legend of the Creek Indians http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/creek/migration/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to CREEK-SOUTHEAST-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message