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Description

When the sunrise on an autumn morning aligned with the entrance to the wigwam, it was time to harvest the corn. This important task was directed by the woman of the house. In the spring, she had planted far more maize than was needed to feed her small family. She, her husband, and their three children produced a surplus of maize big enough to feed up to forty-five people. After the harvest was done, they would pack the extra corn into large storage pits. Then they would be ready to trade their surplus corn for rare goods offered by travellers passing through. From the north, visitors brought rare materials like honey-coloured sandstone from the mines of Wisconsin, which her husband would use to make tools. But the visitors who most excited the woman were those who came from the south. These recent migrants from the Mississippi River were making a new home for themselves in Cahokia, a few days' walk to the south. The local Late Woodland people like the woman and her family were curious about their new neighbours.

It was for this reason that the farmer at Rench, a small family farmstead in the Central Illinois River Valley, grew enough corn to feed more than half a dozen families. With her extra corn in tow, she could go south to the emerging Mississippian communities and trade her corn for new and fascinating goods. Over the years, the woman at Rench accumulated over twenty pieces of pottery likely produced in Cahokia. The everyday tasks of cooking were reserved for her own plainer grey jars made in the style her mother had taught her as a child. But the vessels of Cahokia, some of them covered in a fine red film, were saved for special occasions only, perhaps even holy rituals. The woman of Rench was so fascinated with Cahokian pottery that she even tried to imitate it when making her own vessels, her creative efforts at a hybrid design preserved in the site's archaeological remains.

The people who made the pottery she so coveted were part of the growing settlement of Cahokia. In fifty years' time, it would explode in size and become the biggest city north of Mexico. This transformation may have been prompted by a spectacular supernova seen across the skies from North America to China in 1054, which inspired new forms of sacred leadership in the city. For now, it was attracting a slow but steady trickle of migrants from the southern floodplain of the Mississippi River. The previous few centuries had been a time of communities closing in on themselves compared to earlier civilizations in the region. Their hierarchies were vague, and warfare drove tribes apart from each other. But on the banks of the Mississippi, a movement was beginning that would unite peoples from vast areas of the Midwest under the ideology of this shining city, a period of peace dubbed by archaeologists as the "Pax Cahokiana." The descendants of the woman at Rench may well have moved to Cahokia themselves, enamoured by its opulent ceremonies and attractive material culture. Just as their grandmother sought out Cahokian wares for her home, so too might they be drawn to the idea of something bigger than themselves in the Mississippian city.

But in the year 1000, the population explosion of Cahokia was still a generation or two away. As the corn ripened in her fields, the woman at Rench began the hard work of leading her family in the harvest. In order to support the growth of the corn, she had also planted squash and beans around it in the trio known to many Native Americans as the "Three Sisters." Together, the three plants made a complete protein while protecting each other from insects and the sun. To supplement their diet, her husband and sons would hunt white-tailed deer and fish, while she and her daughter would gather berries and nuts. Since the adoption of maize farming a few centuries earlier, the busy household of a Late Woodland farming family required children to help out around the house more in order to ease mothers' increased workloads. It is likely that the woman at Rench had at least one daughter because archaeologists have found examples of what are probably a child's early attempt at making pottery. These "pinch pots" are small and crudely made, unlike the more sophisticated wares made by the adult woman at Rench. It is easy to imagine the girl carefully watching her mother's practiced hands before trying to shape the clay herself.

Earlier in the spring and summer, the family had lived in a different house just a few metres away from the wigwam. This was a rectangular longhouse built in a modern Mississippian style, one of the earliest of its kind ever recorded. Because the pottery at both houses was clearly the work of a single artisan, we can infer that the couple was monogamous without any extra wives. The woman and her husband must have been impressed by the summer houses of their new neighbours just as they were impressed by the foreigners' finely made pottery. But when it came to the wigwam needed for the colder months, they fell back on time-honoured traditions and built themselves a structure of hickory beams and bullrush thatch. The large hearth inside would keep them warm when the snows came and sustain them through the winter.

Eventually, the family would abandon this site, clearing out the houses and carefully burning them down. Their charred remains are all we have left to build a picture of their life. Did they move to another nearby settlement, perhaps even the great city of Cahokia? We know that the family at Rench were eager to acquire new goods from the Cahokians, so it's certainly possible they decided to move their family permanently to the city. As Late Woodland people who showed a keen interest in imported ideas and materials, the family at Rench represent the sea change building in the Central Illinois River Valley at the turn of the 11th century. Leading the charge was the woman of the household, who planted extra maize to trade for precious pottery and even tried to imitate that pottery in her own art. Anonymous women like her are the lifeblood of archaeological change, reckoning with new ideas and making economic and artistic decisions for their families that would change the course of history forever.

I have been working on this one for quite awhile now. I am pleased to finally bring it to you! It was really challenging drawing the corn here, but I like how it came out. I wanted to do an autumnal picture inspired by the beautiful autumnal foliage I remember from growing up in the Midwest. This picture has a lot of themes in common with another one I did a few years ago about Late Woodland people interacting with incoming Mississippians, The Oneota Messenger . I learned a lot more than I knew then about Late Woodland peoples while researching this picture. It's fun to return to a theme that I covered earlier in the series.

The design of the woman in this illustration is based on two Cahokian sculptures depicting women associated with agriculture, the Birger figurine and the Keller figurine . I also looked to a colonial-era painting of Illini women for inspiration. There are hardly any human depictions surviving from the Late Woodland period, which is why I had to look a little later to figure things out. I've been wanting to talk about Cahokia in the project for a long time, so while I haven't quite drawn it, I got pretty close with this one! It's always exciting to be able to recreate an individual archaeological site, and with these buildings carbon dating right to AD 1000, I couldn't resist bringing the woman of Rench to life.

Learn more on the website: womenof1000ad.weebly.com/maize…

Others in the series include...

Ayagigux' (Alaska)
Hrugs 'or za (Tibet)
The Royal Dancer of Gao (Mali)
Bharima (Bangladesh)
Gunnborga (Sweden)
The Parrot Keepers of Wind Mountain (New Mexico)
The Rice Keepers of Yamashiro (Japan)
The Riders of Holda (Germany)
The Initiate of Schroda (South Africa)

The Traveller of Moxos (Bolivia)

Description

When the sunrise on an autumn morning aligned with the entrance to the wigwam, it was time to harvest the corn. This important task was directed by the woman of the house. In the spring, she had planted far more maize than was needed to feed her small family. She, her husband, and their three children produced a surplus of maize big enough to feed up to forty-five people. After the harvest was done, they would pack the extra corn into large storage pits. Then they would be ready to trade their surplus corn for rare goods offered by travellers passing through. From the north, visitors brought rare materials like honey-coloured sandstone from the mines of Wisconsin, which her husband would use to make tools. But the visitors who most excited the woman were those who came from the south. These recent migrants from the Mississippi River were making a new home for themselves in Cahokia, a few days' walk to the south. The local Late Woodland people like the woman and her family were curious about their new neighbours.

It was for this reason that the farmer at Rench, a small family farmstead in the Central Illinois River Valley, grew enough corn to feed more than half a dozen families. With her extra corn in tow, she could go south to the emerging Mississippian communities and trade her corn for new and fascinating goods. Over the years, the woman at Rench accumulated over twenty pieces of pottery likely produced in Cahokia. The everyday tasks of cooking were reserved for her own plainer grey jars made in the style her mother had taught her as a child. But the vessels of Cahokia, some of them covered in a fine red film, were saved for special occasions only, perhaps even holy rituals. The woman of Rench was so fascinated with Cahokian pottery that she even tried to imitate it when making her own vessels, her creative efforts at a hybrid design preserved in the site's archaeological remains.

The people who made the pottery she so coveted were part of the growing settlement of Cahokia. In fifty years' time, it would explode in size and become the biggest city north of Mexico. This transformation may have been prompted by a spectacular supernova seen across the skies from North America to China in 1054, which inspired new forms of sacred leadership in the city. For now, it was attracting a slow but steady trickle of migrants from the southern floodplain of the Mississippi River. The previous few centuries had been a time of communities closing in on themselves compared to earlier civilizations in the region. Their hierarchies were vague, and warfare drove tribes apart from each other. But on the banks of the Mississippi, a movement was beginning that would unite peoples from vast areas of the Midwest under the ideology of this shining city, a period of peace dubbed by archaeologists as the "Pax Cahokiana." The descendants of the woman at Rench may well have moved to Cahokia themselves, enamoured by its opulent ceremonies and attractive material culture. Just as their grandmother sought out Cahokian wares for her home, so too might they be drawn to the idea of something bigger than themselves in the Mississippian city.

But in the year 1000, the population explosion of Cahokia was still a generation or two away. As the corn ripened in her fields, the woman at Rench began the hard work of leading her family in the harvest. In order to support the growth of the corn, she had also planted squash and beans around it in the trio known to many Native Americans as the "Three Sisters." Together, the three plants made a complete protein while protecting each other from insects and the sun. To supplement their diet, her husband and sons would hunt white-tailed deer and fish, while she and her daughter would gather berries and nuts. Since the adoption of maize farming a few centuries earlier, the busy household of a Late Woodland farming family required children to help out around the house more in order to ease mothers' increased workloads. It is likely that the woman at Rench had at least one daughter because archaeologists have found examples of what are probably a child's early attempt at making pottery. These "pinch pots" are small and crudely made, unlike the more sophisticated wares made by the adult woman at Rench. It is easy to imagine the girl carefully watching her mother's practiced hands before trying to shape the clay herself.

Earlier in the spring and summer, the family had lived in a different house just a few metres away from the wigwam. This was a rectangular longhouse built in a modern Mississippian style, one of the earliest of its kind ever recorded. Because the pottery at both houses was clearly the work of a single artisan, we can infer that the couple was monogamous without any extra wives. The woman and her husband must have been impressed by the summer houses of their new neighbours just as they were impressed by the foreigners' finely made pottery. But when it came to the wigwam needed for the colder months, they fell back on time-honoured traditions and built themselves a structure of hickory beams and bullrush thatch. The large hearth inside would keep them warm when the snows came and sustain them through the winter.

Eventually, the family would abandon this site, clearing out the houses and carefully burning them down. Their charred remains are all we have left to build a picture of their life. Did they move to another nearby settlement, perhaps even the great city of Cahokia? We know that the family at Rench were eager to acquire new goods from the Cahokians, so it's certainly possible they decided to move their family permanently to the city. As Late Woodland people who showed a keen interest in imported ideas and materials, the family at Rench represent the sea change building in the Central Illinois River Valley at the turn of the 11th century. Leading the charge was the woman of the household, who planted extra maize to trade for precious pottery and even tried to imitate that pottery in her own art. Anonymous women like her are the lifeblood of archaeological change, reckoning with new ideas and making economic and artistic decisions for their families that would change the course of history forever.

I have been working on this one for quite awhile now. I am pleased to finally bring it to you! It was really challenging drawing the corn here, but I like how it came out. I wanted to do an autumnal picture inspired by the beautiful autumnal foliage I remember from growing up in the Midwest. This picture has a lot of themes in common with another one I did a few years ago about Late Woodland people interacting with incoming Mississippians, The Oneota Messenger . I learned a lot more than I knew then about Late Woodland peoples while researching this picture. It's fun to return to a theme that I covered earlier in the series.

The design of the woman in this illustration is based on two Cahokian sculptures depicting women associated with agriculture, the Birger figurine and the Keller figurine . I also looked to a colonial-era painting of Illini women for inspiration. There are hardly any human depictions surviving from the Late Woodland period, which is why I had to look a little later to figure things out. I've been wanting to talk about Cahokia in the project for a long time, so while I haven't quite drawn it, I got pretty close with this one! It's always exciting to be able to recreate an individual archaeological site, and with these buildings carbon dating right to AD 1000, I couldn't resist bringing the woman of Rench to life.

Learn more on the website: womenof1000ad.weebly.com/maize…

Others in the series include...

Ayagigux' (Alaska)
Hrugs 'or za (Tibet)
The Royal Dancer of Gao (Mali)
Bharima (Bangladesh)
Gunnborga (Sweden)
The Parrot Keepers of Wind Mountain (New Mexico)
The Rice Keepers of Yamashiro (Japan)
The Riders of Holda (Germany)
The Initiate of Schroda (South Africa)

The Traveller of Moxos (Bolivia)