[8]In the page that follows a tentative reconstruction of the less tangible customs of these [people] will be presented, based on a study of several tribes now or recently in the Archaic [status]. The Archaic [culture] as used in this paper refers to those tribes who lived mainly by hunting, supplemented to a degree by collecting native edible plant foods. They are distinguished here from other peoples of the [Stone] Age or non-farming [stage]—from Big Game Hunters on the one hand (none of whom exist today) and on the other, from Food Stores, who were able by one means or another to store food over one or more seasons and so establish more or less fixed homes. The peoples recently living in the Archaic status include the native tribes of Central and Coastal Australia, the Tasmanians, the Andaman Island tribes, the Terra del Fuegians, the African Bushmen and a number of others.
[9]The Initial Woodland in Illinois is usually considered to consist of three cultural divisions or units, the Black Sand, the Red Ochre and the Morton. The only known Red Ochre sites are mounds which undoubtedly are the burial places of important personages of a cultural group whose campsites and artifact assemblages have not as yet been identified as such. The graves yield a number of artifact types that are identical with those found in Black Sand villages. It is possible the Red Ochre mounds belong to the Black Sand [people] and that the mounds and special burial customs may have been continued into or adopted by the Morton cultural group and served still later as a framework for the highly elaborated Hopewellian funeral practices.
[10]The narrow-bladed leaf-shaped spearhead, well-chipped and without fluting, reminiscent of the general Yuma, [Folsom] and [Clovis] shape, are found in the Red Ochre [subculture] and are worthy of note. This type appears rarely in campsites but occurs in relatively large numbers in mounds. Profuse amounts of red ochre are found in graves as in Terminal Archaic (Titterington focus) in western Illinois. Copper ornaments may indicate Wisconsin (Old Copper [Culture]) influence.
[11]The Poole village (Pike County) is dated 550 B.C. and the Wilson [Mound] (White County) about 89 B.C. The Poole village appears to have been occupied from 550 B.C. to 200 A.D.
[12]Civilization, as used in this paper, signifies exhaustive exploitation of the natural resources and accompanying significant elaborations of the social and spiritual aspects (as exemplified by ceremonies, regalia, [insignia], [art] and extensive architectural structures), accomplished by means of [specialization] of the existing tools and technologies, with or without fundamental inventive developments. Artisans of the Initial and Final [Woodland] cultures seem to have practiced all the crafts employed by Hopewellians but failed to produce the beautiful chipped [spearheads], “pipes of pan”, excellent sculpture in [stone] and pottery, etching in bone, the extensive earthworks and the mounds with timbered burial chambers. Perhaps some additional stimuli—the introduction of maize or the intensification of its cultivation, a satisfying new [religion] with stirring ceremonies together with intergroup competition—gave the spiritual impetus that produced the Hopewellian fluorescence.
[13]Specialization was foreshadowed in the Red Ochre [culture] but the small total of grave offerings discovered to date fail to demonstrate any greater leisure than occurs at favorable times among any simple hunting [people].
[14]An early [subculture] termed Old Village preceding the generally known Middle [Mississippi] (Trappist or Bean Pot) period has been proposed on the strength of stratification at the Cahokia village near East St. Louis. Although this appears logically sound, the evidence has not been published and no pure Old Village site has yet been found and reported upon.
[15]Except where noted as based directly on archaeological evidence, the broad cultural features suggested in the rest of this section, are inferred from similar customs found generally among tribes in the plant-raising [status] without food-draft animals. The results were derived by the writer from a study of anthropological reports of the following tribes or groups of tribes: Polynesians, Delawares, Natchez (and their neighbors) and the western Pueblo Indians. The Pueblos, in their social, political and religious customs and [institutions] have been for seven hundred years in a transitional status between the [Archaic] hunters (or possibly “[food storers]”) and a “fully-developed” plant-raising [stage].
[16]The archaeological evidence for this section is chiefly from The Fisher [Mound] Group, etc. by George Langford in the AMERICAN [ANTHROPOLOGY], Vol. XXIX, No. 3, pp. 153-205 (July-September, 1927).
[17]These Indians called themselves Ilini (pronounced Il´-i-nee) or Illini signifying “man,” in the plural Illiniwek, “the men.” The French dropped the -iwek and substituted their own ending whence the name Illinois by which they were generally known thereafter. In this booklet Illini will be generally used to designate these tribes, their [culture] and language to avoid confusion with other tribes who, like the Sauk, Fox, Kickapoo, Potawatomi, and Miami, have occupied parts of the state and are sometimes called Illinois Indians.