Reading the Rocks (not THOSE rocks...)

This is a picture of Rock Eagle, a huge Indian effigy mound near the Oconee National Forest in Georgia. I was taken here on a field trip when I was in 5th grade. This is an amazing effigy to see in person. It's hard to get a feeling for just how large this figure is from a photo, but trust me - as a small elementary school child it's overwhelming in size and in history (just to give you a sense of scope, those "rocks" aren't lots of little pebbles - they're boulders). The concept that this mound was built before Europeans came to this area was mind-boggling. It was also confusing to many students that this was a religious figure. Like most elementary school aged children, all most of the kids in my class knew about religion was what they had been exposed to at home, in Religious Education classes on weekends, or at summer camp. This figure was unlike anything we had experienced in relation to religion before. Granted, this being the Bible Belt, the mound was presented from more of a "spiritual" angle on things; the idea of an American Indian religion being present in this landscape wasn't emphasized. I would like to go back now and experience this effigy again, now able to be fully aware of the implications in the landscape of all the people who were there before us and the strong spiritual traditions that were the origin of this amazing figure.

I think that these mounds fit Geertz's definition of religion as the "symbols" he described.
These effigy mounds definitely "stand for and suggest" something else other than just a bird (in the case of Rock Eagle) or other animal. They transcend the shape they take to invoke something more spiritual, deeper than just the boulders or mounds of earth that they're composed of, but a concept, experience, or feeling. They are "a visible sign of something invisible" which gave people an outlet to express their spirituality; their religion. These effigy mounds do represent an order to the universe, and certainly the people who observed this religion and its customs (manifesting themselves in the effigies) believed it to be factual and realistic! Also, at this period in time many American Indian communities in the same regions would have similar spiritual and religious traditions and there wasn't a lot of interaction between communities which were geographically separated (I learned about this Fall term in my American Indian History class). For this reason, this definition has an interesting twist on it in regards to this subject. Where today we are exposed to many other religions, even peripherally, and have many ideologies to "choose" from, so to speak, this situation wasn't the case in that historical period. Therefore, the belief that their religion was factual was perhaps even stronger than ours might be because it wasn't challenged or questioned in the same way that some religions and their beliefs are today.

In my opinion, American Indian effigies definitely fit Geertz's definition. I think they are certainly a legitimate religious expression and should be viewed (and taught!) as such instead of as these odd landscape features of a stereotypical witch-doctor type religion that many people think of when they see these images or hear of American Indian religious traditions.


Geertz definition of religion - A system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.

symbol (Merriam Webster, m-w.com)
1: an authoritative summary of faith or doctrine
2: something that stands for or suggests something else by reason of relationship, association, convention, or accidental resemblance ; especially : a visible sign of something invisible