WEBVTT 1 00:00:22.519 --> 00:00:29.280 The Star people among the Zuni is that we are descendants from the Star people 2 00:00:29.719 --> 00:00:35.600 and in the past they have helped us to be what we are today or 3 00:00:35.640 --> 00:00:42.039 in this modern world. And we have very good relationships with what they call 4 00:00:42.119 --> 00:00:47.399 the God system, which is related through the Star people. And we have 5 00:00:48.079 --> 00:00:54.280 been practicing these systems for thousands of years and it even has survived to this 6 00:00:54.439 --> 00:00:59.880 day. On a lot of ritual ceremony prayers out here in the Southwest among 7 00:00:59.880 --> 00:01:03.239 the hope A, Zoona and others said, even on the cultures that disappeared, 8 00:01:03.319 --> 00:01:10.159 like the Chocoal culture, the Masrty culture in Kenyandiche and Arizona, they 9 00:01:10.239 --> 00:01:18.840 used a reference of the Orion constellation to lay out their systems. That's our 10 00:01:18.879 --> 00:01:25.400 own Clifford Mahoodi, who passed away in January of twenty twenty two, and 11 00:01:25.519 --> 00:01:29.480 he was a regular on Earth Agents. We had a great understanding of the 12 00:01:29.640 --> 00:01:37.439 Native Indigenous perspective here in the United States, and a lot of the discussion 13 00:01:37.519 --> 00:01:42.560 with him was sacred geometry and how these people lived on the Earth and connected 14 00:01:42.640 --> 00:01:49.280 with with Mother Earth in different parts of the United States. Today, we're 15 00:01:49.359 --> 00:01:59.040 welcoming a new voice, a new Indigenous author and spokesperson Taylor Keene. And 16 00:01:59.560 --> 00:02:05.359 it's been really hard on the Natives of the United States in the last few 17 00:02:05.439 --> 00:02:10.719 years, simply because COVID decimated a number of people we had on the program, 18 00:02:10.840 --> 00:02:19.159 but also it just feels like we have lost the voice of these indigenous 19 00:02:20.560 --> 00:02:24.080 seers. That's what that's what I'm gonna call them is seers from the ancient 20 00:02:24.120 --> 00:02:34.439 past who are bringing through traditional information, traditional understandings for the people who lived 21 00:02:34.479 --> 00:02:39.960 in the United States. Now we realize through people like Pauline Steves, that 22 00:02:40.159 --> 00:02:46.879 there have been people living here in the United States for over one hundred thousand 23 00:02:46.960 --> 00:02:52.599 years, and this is shocking to a lot of anthropologists. But what doctor 24 00:02:52.639 --> 00:03:00.560 Steves is showing through new carbon dating is that there are significant settlements throughout the 25 00:03:00.639 --> 00:03:09.360 United States that had indigenous people encampments. And as this data is getting out 26 00:03:09.719 --> 00:03:16.199 and we'll hear more about Paulitt Steve's later in this program, these settlements are 27 00:03:16.240 --> 00:03:24.280 extremely important. Now recently there was a new Mexico study that revealed footprints that 28 00:03:24.319 --> 00:03:30.840 were twenty three thousand years old, and that is being hailed as the oldest. 29 00:03:30.879 --> 00:03:38.240 But as more data comes down from indigenous scholars like doctor Paultte Steves and 30 00:03:38.400 --> 00:03:46.560 others. We're seeing that the timeline is being pushed very far back into the 31 00:03:46.680 --> 00:03:53.919 past to the point where these individuals were living during the Ice Age, the 32 00:03:54.400 --> 00:04:00.400 Holocene period that included you know, a lot of extinct megafauna. These are 33 00:04:01.080 --> 00:04:09.680 elephants, mastodons, elk sabertoothed tigers, a lot of animals or most of 34 00:04:09.719 --> 00:04:15.480 these animals have perished or become extinct following that period of time. But it 35 00:04:15.519 --> 00:04:25.000 looks like the native people that were living around this period actually hunted these animals 36 00:04:25.680 --> 00:04:30.720 and left their bones in their gravesites and in a number of caves. So 37 00:04:31.399 --> 00:04:36.000 this is important to know because up until very recently, we thought there were 38 00:04:36.079 --> 00:04:43.639 nothing There were no hominins living in the United States. Now we know throughout 39 00:04:43.639 --> 00:04:46.279 Europe, through Africa and so forth, and so on other parts of the 40 00:04:46.319 --> 00:04:54.240 planet there are great evidence of early people. But what's fascinating is that these 41 00:04:55.079 --> 00:05:01.839 early settlers were very advanced. They had mathematical skills, engineering skills, and 42 00:05:02.040 --> 00:05:14.439 also astronomical abilities working with cosmological systems for planning agriculture. And this looks to 43 00:05:14.519 --> 00:05:19.720 be one of the reasons that in the United States there were colonies like Kahokia 44 00:05:20.560 --> 00:05:25.959 Hope. Well, from the east coast to the west coast, there were 45 00:05:26.399 --> 00:05:30.639 thriving communities that are estimated to be in the tens of millions. Now, 46 00:05:30.680 --> 00:05:36.399 this is something that's very new and some of the latest details. We'll learn 47 00:05:36.439 --> 00:05:42.959 more about it today. I was under the impression and most of the research 48 00:05:43.079 --> 00:05:47.720 books that I use and others believe that the United States had perhaps one million 49 00:05:48.319 --> 00:05:54.680 inhabitants. But it's looking like it could have been up to one hundred million. 50 00:05:55.319 --> 00:06:02.160 One hundred million different tribes, different indigenous groups that thrived in what is 51 00:06:02.240 --> 00:06:10.120 now known as the United States. So today's program is Discovering Turtle Island, 52 00:06:10.720 --> 00:06:15.800 a first people's account of the Sacred geography of America. And my guest today 53 00:06:15.959 --> 00:06:25.480 is author Taylor Keene, and he is a Cherokee, Omaha Indigenous American scholar. 54 00:07:00.639 --> 00:07:04.199 We all know the Mounds of America. We've had a number of people 55 00:07:04.199 --> 00:07:10.000 on the program talking about the mounds, and we have looked at him from 56 00:07:10.319 --> 00:07:16.839 a number of perspectives, cosmological referencing, support, indigenous ceremonial centers, and 57 00:07:16.920 --> 00:07:25.720 so forth. But we have not talked about these sacred sites from a Indigenous 58 00:07:25.759 --> 00:07:30.399 American point of view. And we're really fortunate today to have a author, 59 00:07:30.319 --> 00:07:36.399 an Indigenous American, who has written a fascinating book not only on the mounds, 60 00:07:36.800 --> 00:07:44.800 but the traditions, a perspective of the Americas that we rarely get. 61 00:07:44.920 --> 00:07:50.560 We've had doctor Paulette Steves talk about the antiquity, but this book we're talking 62 00:07:50.600 --> 00:07:58.480 about today's called Discovering Turtle Island, a first people's account of the Sacred geography 63 00:07:58.560 --> 00:08:03.360 of America. My guest is is Taylor Keen, and let me tell you 64 00:08:03.360 --> 00:08:07.600 a little bit about Taylor. He is a Cherokee. He's a citizen of 65 00:08:07.639 --> 00:08:13.519 the Cherokee Nation, the founder of Sacred Seed, an organization devoted to propagating 66 00:08:13.920 --> 00:08:22.800 tribal seed sovereignty, and a member of the Earthen Bison clan of the Omaha 67 00:08:24.199 --> 00:08:28.319 tribe, where he is known as Bison Maine. We'll have to ask him 68 00:08:28.319 --> 00:08:31.279 about that. He's coming to us today from Omaha, Nebraska. I also 69 00:08:31.440 --> 00:08:39.360 mentioned that he's got a numerous credentials. He has a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth 70 00:08:39.360 --> 00:08:46.039 College, two master's degrees from Harvard, and he's a fellow in the Harvard 71 00:08:46.080 --> 00:08:52.480 Project on American Indian Economic Development. Taylor welcome to Earth. Ancients. Man 72 00:08:52.440 --> 00:08:58.240 got a real long list of credentials there. That's fascinating. Clip Thanks for 73 00:08:58.279 --> 00:09:03.399 having me. I'm super excited to be here today. You know, it's 74 00:09:03.440 --> 00:09:09.360 such a blessing to have you because we have a number of books that have 75 00:09:09.399 --> 00:09:16.639 been written that are substantial on the mounds, but to have an Indigenous American 76 00:09:16.600 --> 00:09:22.720 right about these things is really special. What was your motivation to write on 77 00:09:22.799 --> 00:09:28.200 the mounds and the cosmology behind the mounds? Well, that's a great question. 78 00:09:28.279 --> 00:09:33.360 There's a couple of answers to it. I want to begin by the 79 00:09:33.480 --> 00:09:37.519 role of prophecy within all of this, and I allude to it to some 80 00:09:37.559 --> 00:09:43.960 degree, but it's really it's a part of our oral tradition of sharing. 81 00:09:43.200 --> 00:09:48.559 But it's the prophecy of the seventh generation. And the prophecy of the seventh 82 00:09:48.679 --> 00:09:56.399 generation is about a period of suffering that's the first six and then the coming 83 00:09:58.440 --> 00:10:03.559 of the seventh generation. And the story has to do with going back in 84 00:10:03.679 --> 00:10:07.399 time, and multiple tribes have different versions of this prophecy. The one that 85 00:10:07.440 --> 00:10:11.200 I'm familiar with is the Siuian one, probably originating with the Dakota people. 86 00:10:13.559 --> 00:10:18.879 If we're to look at the real history of Turtle Island, and that's part 87 00:10:18.879 --> 00:10:22.639 of our creation story as many Indigenous people, and we can get to that. 88 00:10:22.639 --> 00:10:28.279 But when you're looking at the real history of America, this land we 89 00:10:28.360 --> 00:10:33.200 call America, ones that Indigenous people call Turtle Island, many of them. 90 00:10:33.360 --> 00:10:37.360 When you look back at the what's happened on this continent. The one thing 91 00:10:37.960 --> 00:10:41.279 that most people don't know about, and they should is the role of smallpox. 92 00:10:41.960 --> 00:10:46.159 Oh yes, and so you know, we're all survivors of the pandemic. 93 00:10:46.960 --> 00:10:52.360 Without getting into the politics of how many people actually died from that, 94 00:10:52.480 --> 00:10:54.679 in the bigger picture, it was very little. And I don't mean that 95 00:10:54.679 --> 00:11:00.840 as a callous perspective. I mean that in comparison to epidemics like smallpox, 96 00:11:01.480 --> 00:11:05.960 so a variant of cowpox which comes out of Europe. When it was actually 97 00:11:07.279 --> 00:11:11.399 transmitted or by whom to the indigenous populations, it doesn't matter because it was 98 00:11:11.399 --> 00:11:18.320 so infectious, probably as early as fifteen hundreds, began to be to become 99 00:11:18.440 --> 00:11:24.039 documented in the late sixteen hundreds and seventeen hundreds, the net effect from the 100 00:11:24.440 --> 00:11:31.600 tip top of Northern Canada to the southern tip of South America were decimation rates. 101 00:11:31.759 --> 00:11:37.159 Even at the most conservative scientific methods, fifty percent of the people died 102 00:11:37.080 --> 00:11:43.879 in places like Nebraska, where it hit somewhat later because we were interior to 103 00:11:43.960 --> 00:11:48.240 the country and didn't have as many conquistadors. Probably came from the Spanish, 104 00:11:48.320 --> 00:11:50.720 but again, it doesn't matter who cares. Once it was there, it 105 00:11:50.799 --> 00:11:56.039 was there, and eighty five to ninety five percent of the populations died. 106 00:11:56.240 --> 00:12:01.879 So we're talking we're talking about an impact on tribal cultures here. That's one 107 00:12:01.919 --> 00:12:09.679 aspect of it, but probably nearly almost a collective memory loss when you have 108 00:12:09.799 --> 00:12:11.320 that many. So if we were to think about one hundred of our best 109 00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:16.879 friends and family and you randomly pick five to tell the stories of what one's 110 00:12:16.919 --> 00:12:20.639 life was or what life was like, you're going to be missing so much. 111 00:12:22.399 --> 00:12:28.120 And so that is the backdrop for the the prophecy of the Seventh generation. 112 00:12:28.879 --> 00:12:33.799 Ultimately, at a certain point, you can pick whatever point that was, 113 00:12:33.879 --> 00:12:39.559 You can pick interactions with the Spanish and then the French and the British 114 00:12:39.639 --> 00:12:43.600 and then the Americans. All of those insult to injury to what was had 115 00:12:43.679 --> 00:12:48.720 already happened from smallpox, and at a certain point, you know, it 116 00:12:48.879 --> 00:12:52.759 just continued to go downhill somewhere in that we look and say that was the 117 00:12:52.759 --> 00:12:56.559 beginning of the prophecy. And the prophecy is that we would suffer for six 118 00:12:56.720 --> 00:13:01.000 generations with the mark Kens that were to come as a part of the prophecy, 119 00:13:01.039 --> 00:13:07.080 which was the successive birth of for albino bison. Once the fourth one 120 00:13:07.240 --> 00:13:09.440 was born, and that was in two thousand and seven, the first one 121 00:13:09.480 --> 00:13:13.559 was born in two thousand and one, that marks the era of the seventh 122 00:13:13.600 --> 00:13:18.759 generation. And the prophecy, as told to me, is that that seventh 123 00:13:18.799 --> 00:13:24.720 generation of indigenous youth, they will be the ones who will lead our tribal 124 00:13:24.799 --> 00:13:31.879 nations to stand tall, and that would usher in an era of cultural resurgence. 125 00:13:33.240 --> 00:13:37.159 To the non indigenous populations born after that time period two thousand and seven, 126 00:13:37.879 --> 00:13:41.360 they would be the generation who are finally ready for indigenous wisdom. And 127 00:13:41.399 --> 00:13:46.639 all of this is meant to be usher in an age of cultural resurgence. 128 00:13:46.679 --> 00:13:50.960 And just by the fact that I'm here on your show today is proof to 129 00:13:52.000 --> 00:13:56.600 me that we're witnessing that. So it's incumbent back to your question of why 130 00:13:56.679 --> 00:14:01.519 write this book, As was not to me at the time when I heard 131 00:14:01.519 --> 00:14:07.399 the story, I had not gone back deeply into all this, and you 132 00:14:07.480 --> 00:14:13.879 went through my academic credentials. But basically the messages that was told to me 133 00:14:13.080 --> 00:14:18.440 was, Taylor, you've done very well in the white man's world and you 134 00:14:18.480 --> 00:14:22.320 don't know all your stories and you better figure them out. So I said, 135 00:14:22.360 --> 00:14:26.840 touche, you're right, and I'm supposed to be a teacher, And 136 00:14:26.879 --> 00:14:33.559 I left the corporate world and began teaching and began to just dive deeper, 137 00:14:33.600 --> 00:14:37.320 in deeper into things. And there's so many things I could talk about, 138 00:14:37.360 --> 00:14:41.720 some of which are in the book, some of the things I've remembered since 139 00:14:41.759 --> 00:14:48.600 then, and things I've explored. But ancient sites and anthropology, archaeology, 140 00:14:48.759 --> 00:14:52.759 archaeo, astronomy, symbology, cosmology. I've had to learn all these things 141 00:14:52.759 --> 00:14:56.480 because I'm a business guy. You're a good strange man for this material though, 142 00:14:56.480 --> 00:15:01.279 because you I appreciate that, and I wanted to touch something real quickly. 143 00:15:01.919 --> 00:15:07.799 Were you saying that there was prophecy that the invaders would bring a disease 144 00:15:07.840 --> 00:15:11.519 that would wipe out millions of indigenous people? You know, I've never heard 145 00:15:11.559 --> 00:15:16.279 that it specifically said anything about a disease, but just the prophecy was that 146 00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:22.559 we would suffer for six generations. Yeah, and then with the seventh everything 147 00:15:22.639 --> 00:15:26.039 was going to change. I do want to time of hope. Yeah. 148 00:15:26.120 --> 00:15:30.720 Along with that, real quickly, talk about dispossession of the Americas, because 149 00:15:30.759 --> 00:15:37.200 you go into this and it's a systematic land grab not only in the United 150 00:15:37.200 --> 00:15:41.679 States today but in Mexico and in South America. Talk a bit about that 151 00:15:41.759 --> 00:15:48.279 because this is really important. Even our founding fathers justify land grabs. And 152 00:15:48.360 --> 00:15:54.759 you actually mentioned Jefferson one of the key figures because not only does he do 153 00:15:54.840 --> 00:16:00.399 the Louisiana purchase, which is a huge chunk of land that he opens up 154 00:16:02.120 --> 00:16:07.000 kind of a problem area for indigenous people because it's like you can do whatever 155 00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:11.159 you want. You can take chunks of land, even if it's on a 156 00:16:11.279 --> 00:16:15.159 native area and call it your own. So talk briefly about the land grabs. 157 00:16:17.960 --> 00:16:21.240 Well, it's you know, it's a really hard topic and that's partly 158 00:16:21.240 --> 00:16:26.000 where I started, because I needed to understand it myself as an indigenous person. 159 00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:32.399 It's easy to uh look at things from a victim status and to basically 160 00:16:32.440 --> 00:16:36.639 say these things were stolen from us, but to not know the facts is 161 00:16:37.200 --> 00:16:41.360 discourtesy to the whole scenario of the past, and so I felt it was 162 00:16:41.399 --> 00:16:48.720 incumbent upon myself to fully understand these things and looked into the legal frameworks of 163 00:16:48.720 --> 00:16:52.480 how it was actually done. And yes, our some of our founding fathers 164 00:16:52.559 --> 00:16:57.000 today we would say they had a conflict of interest in President Washington and President 165 00:16:57.039 --> 00:17:03.759 Jefferson were both guilty of that with regard to the land companies that they had 166 00:17:03.799 --> 00:17:07.200 a financial interest in, and so in essence they knew where they were going 167 00:17:07.279 --> 00:17:11.920 to go next, and then they would go in and buy some of those 168 00:17:11.000 --> 00:17:15.880 lands and profit off of it. But truly, and the book puts in 169 00:17:15.960 --> 00:17:25.000 specific language from President Jefferson himself about his perspectives, and I think he was 170 00:17:25.240 --> 00:17:29.720 a torn man over this from his own morals, and at a certain point 171 00:17:29.960 --> 00:17:33.920 his perspective was, you know, we're not going to do anything without their 172 00:17:33.960 --> 00:17:40.920 consent, to a perspective of look, we have the power here, and 173 00:17:40.960 --> 00:17:44.319 if they don't agree to do this, we can force it upon them. 174 00:17:44.359 --> 00:17:51.119 And the language is clear in the book. I refer to President Jefferson as 175 00:17:51.160 --> 00:17:56.640 the architect of dispossession. And somebody had to figure it out. Somebody had 176 00:17:56.640 --> 00:18:03.519 to figure out the policy of what we did Hereultimately, you take a page 177 00:18:03.640 --> 00:18:07.759 out of the British colonization book and adopt it to America. And he was 178 00:18:07.799 --> 00:18:12.519 the one who figured out how to do that. That's where the discovery doctrine 179 00:18:12.559 --> 00:18:17.039 becomes the legal doctrine. Somebody had to figure out how to do it. 180 00:18:17.079 --> 00:18:26.480 But he was also a leader in the early Americas, including the chief executive 181 00:18:26.480 --> 00:18:32.599 during a lot of the western expansion. You mentioned the Louisiana purchase and the 182 00:18:32.640 --> 00:18:38.680 embodiment of manifest destiny, and by the end he had he had very little 183 00:18:38.680 --> 00:18:44.079 patience for indigenous peoples to get out of the way. And you've got this 184 00:18:44.240 --> 00:18:52.880 backdrop as well of this religious superiority, and that's where the doctrine of sovereignty 185 00:18:52.920 --> 00:18:57.880 comes from ultimately, and I talk about this Papal edicts in the fourteen hundreds 186 00:18:57.920 --> 00:19:04.279 were the Hope is saying it's okay to conquer these lands. It was okay 187 00:19:04.319 --> 00:19:07.720 to take slaves, and then it was not okay to do that, but 188 00:19:08.119 --> 00:19:12.920 you can still if they will convert, you can take things, and if 189 00:19:12.960 --> 00:19:17.559 they don't convert, you can kill them. I'm simplifying a lot of language, 190 00:19:17.559 --> 00:19:22.119 but it was a very brutal taking of the land. So did they 191 00:19:22.160 --> 00:19:27.799 take kind of a page out of the Spanish conquistador's land grab because of course 192 00:19:27.799 --> 00:19:33.839 they're in the fourteen hundreds. But you know, it seems like it began 193 00:19:34.000 --> 00:19:38.920 with that with the papal edicts. But it appears to me the legal doctrine 194 00:19:40.160 --> 00:19:45.480 that came out in the Martial trilogy, the legal doctrine was not even introduced 195 00:19:45.519 --> 00:19:52.240 until the eighteen thirties. Talking about the doctrine of discovery. They had to 196 00:19:52.240 --> 00:19:56.559 sort of put that in there because otherwise there was no foundation from which to 197 00:19:56.599 --> 00:20:02.400 take the land from the indigenous people, but had to be inserted after the 198 00:20:02.440 --> 00:20:06.640 fact to justify it, to make it an argument. And you look at 199 00:20:06.640 --> 00:20:08.759 the British legal system as a model for that. So I think most of 200 00:20:08.799 --> 00:20:14.799 it came from looking at what Britain did and their colonization efforts. But you 201 00:20:14.880 --> 00:20:19.400 also said something very important, Taylor, which is that your Heathens unless you 202 00:20:19.440 --> 00:20:26.400 convert to Christian ethics or Catholic Church. And this was the excuse that Cortez 203 00:20:26.559 --> 00:20:33.079 used to basically dominate and subjugate the Aztecs as well as others. Oh, 204 00:20:33.720 --> 00:20:37.160 I mean, if you really want to look into all those stories, I've 205 00:20:37.200 --> 00:20:44.119 certainly explored South America and Peru and Machu Picchu and some of these other sites. 206 00:20:44.119 --> 00:20:51.960 And when you hear the brutality and the coerciveness and lies and basically the 207 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:56.759 evilness of how it was done, it was brutal. And they understood several 208 00:20:56.799 --> 00:21:03.519 concepts. Divide and then conquer, take the leaders and hold them hostage, 209 00:21:03.559 --> 00:21:07.759 and make them tell the people what to do. All those things were done. 210 00:21:07.960 --> 00:21:11.480 But again, even in South America, probably the bigger impact is the 211 00:21:11.559 --> 00:21:17.480 role of smallpox. And I didn't go into this because that's not where my 212 00:21:17.640 --> 00:21:23.960 ancestors are from. But when you look at those early descriptions of what the 213 00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.799 conquistadores did, in many cases their first trip, they didn't have very much 214 00:21:30.039 --> 00:21:37.720 success. Whatever they brought had its impact. Many of them turned tail tucked 215 00:21:37.720 --> 00:21:41.039 and ran back to Spain, only to come back again and find that nobody 216 00:21:41.119 --> 00:21:45.880 was there. Yeah, so that's that much I do know. Because no 217 00:21:45.920 --> 00:21:52.960 one was immune from smallpox, and there's other diseases and blights and things that 218 00:21:53.000 --> 00:22:00.200 could have happened. There's certainly impact of TB later on that affected a lot 219 00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:06.079 of the tribes. There's some evidence out there of the plague. Take your 220 00:22:06.119 --> 00:22:10.359 pick, but ultimately, you know, it's all about guns, germs and 221 00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:15.119 steel, you know, so it was but but but the germs was the 222 00:22:15.119 --> 00:22:18.559 big one. Yeah, with with with the America, because when you have 223 00:22:18.720 --> 00:22:25.039 eighty five to ninety five percent of the population dying, even fifty percent as 224 00:22:25.079 --> 00:22:29.000 a very conservative estimate, I mean, that's there's it was a cakewalk, 225 00:22:29.400 --> 00:22:33.799 sadly, and you know, it forced a narrative. In the book, 226 00:22:33.839 --> 00:22:38.200 I refer to it as the founder's dilemma of America, the concocted stories that 227 00:22:38.279 --> 00:22:42.640 need to be told to justify what happened. Uh, and in many cases 228 00:22:42.759 --> 00:22:45.960 just ignoring. But that's one of the deeper topics I know that you wanted 229 00:22:45.960 --> 00:22:49.519 to discuss is the antiquity of the land. Yeah, we were just talking 230 00:22:49.559 --> 00:22:56.000 about that before we started with We mentioned doctor Paul Atte Steves, a indigenous 231 00:22:56.039 --> 00:23:03.480 anthropologist in Canada, and I wanted to to get your reference on it because 232 00:23:03.720 --> 00:23:11.839 one of the things that's important about her work is using oral traditions as a 233 00:23:11.880 --> 00:23:18.519 form of data. And I've be until very recently academic archaeologists ignored this data. 234 00:23:19.640 --> 00:23:26.519 And Steve's showed and others are showing that you can relate it to other 235 00:23:26.200 --> 00:23:34.279 tribal stories and come up with a systematic data field. She believes that indigenous 236 00:23:34.279 --> 00:23:40.319 people have been in the United States or North America over one hundred thousand years. 237 00:23:41.319 --> 00:23:44.920 And I'm really curious to hear what you have to say about her findings 238 00:23:45.319 --> 00:23:49.720 and then what you can bring to that subject. No, I've had the 239 00:23:49.759 --> 00:23:56.680 honor of communicating with doctor Steves and I read her work. We also mentioned 240 00:23:56.759 --> 00:24:04.839 before this recording doctor Jennifer Rafft's work on it's called Origin, about the history 241 00:24:04.680 --> 00:24:10.440 of DNA and when people came to the America. So both I kind of 242 00:24:10.480 --> 00:24:14.920 read in concert and was floored by both of them and reached out to both 243 00:24:14.960 --> 00:24:19.160 and they both responded back to me. So, you know, there is 244 00:24:19.200 --> 00:24:26.839 a narrative about the America's because of what I call the founder's dilemma of America, 245 00:24:26.880 --> 00:24:32.359 but is basically there's a guilty conscience of America about what happened and a 246 00:24:32.480 --> 00:24:37.000 refusal to discuss the truth. And the truth is one is some of the 247 00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:41.359 facts that I've laid out in the book of what actually happened, but much 248 00:24:41.400 --> 00:24:45.359 more subtle control of the narrative. How long have indigenous people's been here? 249 00:24:45.799 --> 00:24:51.160 This goes back to the formation of now what we call anthropology, but the 250 00:24:51.200 --> 00:24:56.279 Bureau of American Ethnology and the role of the Smithsonian and some of this. 251 00:24:56.440 --> 00:24:59.960 And one of the inaugural directors, not the first, but was John wesleep 252 00:25:00.079 --> 00:25:06.079 Out, famous explorer of the Southwest and the Grand Canyon area and not nice 253 00:25:06.119 --> 00:25:11.519 to indigenous people's down there, may I add as the inaugural director. He 254 00:25:11.599 --> 00:25:18.400 wrote a paper that I mentioned in the book on certain limitations of anthropological data, 255 00:25:19.039 --> 00:25:25.440 and in the essence, that's where he lays out the baron straight theory 256 00:25:25.839 --> 00:25:30.960 and basically says, there will be no other theories discussed but this one. 257 00:25:30.480 --> 00:25:36.000 No one knows. No one knows exactly what his motivations. I get a 258 00:25:36.079 --> 00:25:38.519 kick out of this. But one of the theories as I was doing the 259 00:25:38.559 --> 00:25:45.839 research was that his father, I believe, was a Presbyterian minister in Halmira, 260 00:25:47.119 --> 00:25:51.880 New York. Do you know much about Palmyra or no? Who else 261 00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:53.400 was from there? No? Oh? Is it? Is it like a 262 00:25:53.519 --> 00:25:59.880 landing ground or a birthplace for a number of problems. Joseph Smith of the 263 00:26:00.079 --> 00:26:07.480 Rmon Church, and apparently the rumor was that his father is a Presbyterian minister. 264 00:26:07.839 --> 00:26:11.960 Lost a lot of his congregation to the Early Mormon Church, and that, 265 00:26:12.119 --> 00:26:18.400 of course is one of their theories, is that somehow it was lost 266 00:26:18.400 --> 00:26:23.359 tribes of Israel that became the indigenous peoples. There's no DNA evidence for that, 267 00:26:23.440 --> 00:26:29.000 and I also explored everything to look at the anthropological record, and they 268 00:26:29.039 --> 00:26:34.720 don't line up. But either way, the net effect of that paper and 269 00:26:34.759 --> 00:26:38.680 the policy if you write the first paper of the Academy in a whole field 270 00:26:38.720 --> 00:26:42.200 and say you can't violate this, well then everyone has to follow suit. 271 00:26:42.319 --> 00:26:48.160 So one of the things that's discussed in all this narrative Graham Hancock's work on 272 00:26:48.519 --> 00:26:52.039 America. Before I think I'm getting the title right, he looks into a 273 00:26:52.039 --> 00:27:00.559 lot of this. But you know there is from the mainstream academics and supposed 274 00:27:00.559 --> 00:27:06.519 to authorities on all this. Anything that is considered to be old careers are 275 00:27:06.519 --> 00:27:11.599 dismantled and ruined if they come up with anything besides the Clovis first theory as 276 00:27:11.599 --> 00:27:17.440 a very straight theory, but now it's almost irrefutable. And I love doctor 277 00:27:17.920 --> 00:27:21.359 Steve's work and I have a lot of respect for the work that she's done 278 00:27:21.359 --> 00:27:23.920 there. She laid out so many things, and there's so many sites. 279 00:27:25.039 --> 00:27:26.839 Matter of fact, there's one right here in Nebraska close to me that I 280 00:27:26.880 --> 00:27:32.079 didn't know anything about. That I need to go and explore. But right 281 00:27:32.119 --> 00:27:38.400 now we've got radiocarbon dating from the footprints in White Sands, New Mexico at 282 00:27:38.400 --> 00:27:41.680 twenty three and a half thousand years. And I know there's plenty of anthropologists 283 00:27:41.680 --> 00:27:47.160 who still don't want to accept it, but it's hogwash and it's silly when 284 00:27:47.160 --> 00:27:52.839 you look at the multiplicity of languages. I don't have any of the citations 285 00:27:53.200 --> 00:27:56.160 or data in front of me right now, but there's several thinkers who have 286 00:27:56.240 --> 00:28:00.880 looked at the multiplicity of languages and there's just no way that you could have 287 00:28:00.599 --> 00:28:06.599 these five different distinct language groups with still yet you know, over five hundred 288 00:28:06.640 --> 00:28:11.519 and seventy five that's how many tribal nations are still recognized, but how many 289 00:28:11.599 --> 00:28:18.559 language groups are still around even though that's in crisis. But going back to 290 00:28:18.599 --> 00:28:23.400 pre smallpox, how many more were there then? So the clock going backwards 291 00:28:23.400 --> 00:28:27.400 can only be expanded. But I think it's a part of what I call 292 00:28:27.480 --> 00:28:34.039 the Founder's film of America. If you brand indigenous peoples as less than human, 293 00:28:34.839 --> 00:28:37.440 which you saw a lot of in the time of Powell. That was 294 00:28:37.880 --> 00:28:44.240 the impact of the American eugenics movement, and the timing of it was imprinted. 295 00:28:45.240 --> 00:28:48.920 I talk about John Wesley Powell and his work as the first director of 296 00:28:48.920 --> 00:28:55.599 the Smithsonian and the head of American the Bureau of American Ethnology, as discussing 297 00:28:55.839 --> 00:29:02.599 aryan Aryan race notions of supremacy, and so it was clearly a part of 298 00:29:02.640 --> 00:29:07.799 the eugenics movement that was born in America, and sadly Hitler got it from 299 00:29:07.839 --> 00:29:15.799 America, the whole eugenics movement, and that was prevalent at premier institutions like 300 00:29:15.839 --> 00:29:18.920 my alma mater, Harvard University. And then one of the reasons why there's 301 00:29:18.920 --> 00:29:23.880 such vast collections in the Peabody Museum and other places, it was just, 302 00:29:25.039 --> 00:29:27.440 you know, the vanishing race. They're going to die, so it's our 303 00:29:27.440 --> 00:29:33.279 divine right to take the land from them and do something with it. And 304 00:29:33.319 --> 00:29:37.599 then the process vilify them. And I've seen countless documentation of you know, 305 00:29:37.680 --> 00:29:44.759 early Americans being basically like they're savages, and they weren't really even really hear 306 00:29:44.839 --> 00:29:48.039 that long and psychologically it makes perfect sense to me now after doing all the 307 00:29:48.079 --> 00:29:52.839 research, you know, It's funny because I think I read somewhere and you 308 00:29:52.839 --> 00:29:56.200 can probably give me more details on this, that at its peak there was 309 00:29:56.240 --> 00:30:03.759 something like two hundred and fifty thousand miles coast to coast and they were systematically 310 00:30:04.559 --> 00:30:11.279 destroyed by various cities that went up by people that wanted to cultivate crops on 311 00:30:11.319 --> 00:30:18.200 the land. But that's amazing, and so the mounds were significant in present 312 00:30:18.279 --> 00:30:22.759 day United States, I guess everywhere. And so if you were to use 313 00:30:22.839 --> 00:30:29.759 that backdrop of how long indigenous peoples have been here when you start talking about 314 00:30:30.079 --> 00:30:36.759 population trends, and I discussed this somewhat in the book. My research looked 315 00:30:36.799 --> 00:30:41.440 at how many people were here and you've got everywhere from an extremely conservative at 316 00:30:41.519 --> 00:30:47.559 one million, which is a silly methodology when you look at why up to 317 00:30:48.680 --> 00:30:51.400 one hundred million. Now, the bulk of those were probably coming out of 318 00:30:51.440 --> 00:30:56.960 meso America, and we see the reasons why, the explosion of indigenous agricultural 319 00:30:57.039 --> 00:31:03.880 methods and you know, the expansion of what we would call civilizations today, 320 00:31:03.920 --> 00:31:10.880 which is based off cosmology, religion, and food. For whatever reason, 321 00:31:10.920 --> 00:31:15.000 we don't see a major explosion into the Americas until a little bit later. 322 00:31:15.119 --> 00:31:22.440 Than that, and we don't know why or if something older is still there 323 00:31:22.480 --> 00:31:27.599 that we haven't found. But you see the rise of the Anasazi populations around 324 00:31:27.680 --> 00:31:33.440 the same time that you see the rise of the Mississippian cultures in the heartland. 325 00:31:33.119 --> 00:31:37.720 But again this is a moving target. Corn is one of the things 326 00:31:37.720 --> 00:31:45.640 that I view to look at to track when these explosions happened. But certainly 327 00:31:45.680 --> 00:31:53.960 you've got the rise and subsequent fall of the Proto Pueblians known as the Anasazi. 328 00:31:55.079 --> 00:31:57.160 Anthropology loves to give new names, which I think is also part of 329 00:31:57.200 --> 00:32:05.319 the psychology that separates the people who are still in the Pueblos today from the 330 00:32:05.359 --> 00:32:12.440 ancient ones, and they call them things like the Anasazi, same with the 331 00:32:12.519 --> 00:32:16.559 rise and fall of Cohokia in the Mississippian period. Also terms like Adina and 332 00:32:16.640 --> 00:32:22.000 Hopewell and all these others, But it's just the ancestors. Ultimately, I 333 00:32:22.039 --> 00:32:28.559 got into this part of looking at that. One is to show that indigenous 334 00:32:28.599 --> 00:32:34.359 peoples were brilliant, that we had advanced mathematics, that we had cosmology, 335 00:32:34.799 --> 00:32:38.240 that we had civil engineering, we had architecture, we had construction methods, 336 00:32:38.920 --> 00:32:45.000 and you almost have to see the mounds with your own eyes to feel the 337 00:32:45.200 --> 00:32:50.880 energy and to see the beauty and complexity of how many people were probably here, 338 00:32:50.920 --> 00:32:52.599 but some of the estimates go up to a hundred million. Yeah, 339 00:32:52.680 --> 00:33:01.240 let's talk about the mounds. Is your book titled as Sacred Geography? Are 340 00:33:01.799 --> 00:33:08.240 the mounds built over energy fields? Lay lines? Toluric? I mean I 341 00:33:08.359 --> 00:33:13.599 use the term to lurk fields a lot, because the Maya built many of 342 00:33:13.640 --> 00:33:20.200 their herem is over energy centers, and they cultivated the energy. But what 343 00:33:20.319 --> 00:33:24.640 is your knowledge on why they would build a mound and on what kind of 344 00:33:24.720 --> 00:33:30.200 land. I certainly feel the energy when I'm on some of these sites. 345 00:33:31.559 --> 00:33:36.559 I loved the whole notion of lay lines, which is basically just connecting points 346 00:33:37.119 --> 00:33:44.480 between sacred sites. Is their energy there? Absolutely? Do we know what 347 00:33:44.519 --> 00:33:50.839 that is today with our huge egos and five senses, I don't think we 348 00:33:50.920 --> 00:33:54.319 have any clue. But most certainly they were powerful places. And you see 349 00:33:54.720 --> 00:34:00.759 the expansion of European and colonization, and you know, the Catholic Church is 350 00:34:00.839 --> 00:34:04.759 one of the biggest ones. They would find these sacred sites and build their 351 00:34:04.839 --> 00:34:07.119 church on top of it because they knew there was energy there, and that 352 00:34:07.239 --> 00:34:13.679 includes North America. That's Mexico though, and I totally agree what you're saying 353 00:34:13.679 --> 00:34:16.960 that Mexican Catholic churches would find these sites and build on top of them. 354 00:34:16.960 --> 00:34:22.840 But fame in the Southwest too, really sure. Oh. As matter of 355 00:34:22.880 --> 00:34:28.360 fact, in the book, I talk about a very important site very close 356 00:34:28.440 --> 00:34:35.320 to the city of Omaha, Nebraska, has different pronunciations to the Pawnee and 357 00:34:35.360 --> 00:34:38.719 the Ricora and all of their Ketto and speaking relatives, but Phook is what 358 00:34:38.760 --> 00:34:43.800 it's called. And even with that site, it's the navel of the world. 359 00:34:43.880 --> 00:34:47.079 And I'll leave your listeners to read the book and some of the stories 360 00:34:47.119 --> 00:34:50.920 that are in there, but it's the navel of the world. They had 361 00:34:50.920 --> 00:34:55.480 to do in the time of giants, and the Creator enacted the flood to 362 00:34:55.559 --> 00:35:00.960 get rid of the giants and the people and and many of the animals were 363 00:35:01.239 --> 00:35:06.800 structed to go to a cave underneath the sacred site, a Council of Animal 364 00:35:06.880 --> 00:35:15.599 site, only to emerge later an incredible site, in my opinion, ceremonial. 365 00:35:15.599 --> 00:35:21.239 There's some neat effigy mounds that are there. There's a powerful burroke which 366 00:35:21.280 --> 00:35:25.239 is the tree of life to the Pawnee, and wonderful vista for prayers and 367 00:35:25.320 --> 00:35:34.920 contemplation. It's just stunning. But the good citizens of Kansas Nebraska Territory decided 368 00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:37.480 that that was the site that they were going to build their capital on. 369 00:35:37.280 --> 00:35:40.960 Neopolis was going to be the name of it. Fortunately ended up being somewhere 370 00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:45.360 else. But there's another example of the conqueror finding these most sacred sites. 371 00:35:45.559 --> 00:35:52.480 But I mean, they're all across the country. We're going to take a 372 00:35:52.519 --> 00:35:58.559 short commercial break to allow our sponsors to identify themselves, and we'll be right 373 00:35:58.599 --> 00:36:04.800 back with my guest today, Taylor Keen discussing his newest book, Rediscovering Turtle 374 00:36:04.920 --> 00:36:49.760 Island. We'll be right back. My guest today is Indigenous American scholar Taylor 375 00:36:49.880 --> 00:36:53.039 Keen, who's written a new book called Rediscovering Turtle Island. And this is 376 00:36:53.039 --> 00:36:59.800 a look at these earthen works otherwise known as mounds throughout the United States. 377 00:37:00.400 --> 00:37:08.320 There's significance, there are cosmological alignments, and who actually built them. But 378 00:37:08.400 --> 00:37:17.320 let me just ask you, Taylor, as a sensitive So if there's two 379 00:37:17.400 --> 00:37:24.400 hundred plus thousand of these mounds, are they built to distinguish a sacred area, 380 00:37:24.519 --> 00:37:32.320 a sacred site for prayer, for ceremony, for cosmological reasons or was 381 00:37:32.360 --> 00:37:37.519 there another reason for those for those mounds? And it's great that you say 382 00:37:37.559 --> 00:37:42.760 that the white man would come and build on top of them, because something 383 00:37:42.880 --> 00:37:45.800 intuitive. You'll never read anyone saying I could feel the energy of this site, 384 00:37:45.800 --> 00:37:51.039 so I'm gonna build my capital on it. That's just I don't know 385 00:37:51.039 --> 00:37:57.159 what that is. But what do you say about building so many of these 386 00:37:58.039 --> 00:38:04.280 sacred mounds? I mean, I certainly won't discount the role of energy and 387 00:38:04.440 --> 00:38:07.000 things that I don't fully understand yet. I would love to be able to 388 00:38:07.880 --> 00:38:15.320 intuit that and to explore it further. I do know this, the relationship 389 00:38:15.840 --> 00:38:19.960 between earth and sky is terribly important when you're looking at the mound if you're 390 00:38:19.960 --> 00:38:24.119 trying to understand them. So you had mentioned cosmology, we might as well 391 00:38:24.280 --> 00:38:29.440 bring that topic up. But one of the things I discovered central to the 392 00:38:29.760 --> 00:38:34.639 cosmology of ancient indigenous people's is the tree of life, which you'll find in 393 00:38:34.679 --> 00:38:40.159 many other cultures. Higgs a drill within the Norse mystic Judaism, the capitalistic 394 00:38:40.239 --> 00:38:45.519 tree of life, that's kaim. They all line up. That was one 395 00:38:45.519 --> 00:38:49.960 of the epiphanies that I had, and within the Indigenous version, which probably 396 00:38:50.039 --> 00:38:53.039 is influenced by the model out of meso America, but it's also very similar 397 00:38:53.079 --> 00:38:59.559 to the notions out of ancient China, probably where our DNA comes from. 398 00:38:59.559 --> 00:39:06.840 Originally most of it, but the Tree of Life, it includes the tripartite 399 00:39:06.880 --> 00:39:12.440 realms of the upper and the lower and the middle realms, and that's the 400 00:39:12.480 --> 00:39:16.000 creation story, the cosmological story that is the theme for all of this. 401 00:39:16.119 --> 00:39:21.880 But more importantly symbolically, it's the axis MOUNDI, the center of the universe, 402 00:39:22.440 --> 00:39:29.440 center of the world, and from there you have this incredible cosmology that 403 00:39:29.519 --> 00:39:34.039 talks about all these things. And we live in the middle realm, the 404 00:39:34.159 --> 00:39:37.480 universe as woven by Grandmother Spider, who's part of a lot of our creation 405 00:39:37.599 --> 00:39:44.360 stories. And then in the upper realm is the realm of the thunderers and 406 00:39:44.440 --> 00:39:49.559 their messengers, the thunderbirds. And then the roots is the lower watery realm 407 00:39:49.639 --> 00:39:55.039 important the agriculture inhabited by water spirits, and chief amongst them the underwater serpent 408 00:39:55.119 --> 00:40:01.280 itself the great serpent. Some people call it other tribes water panther. But 409 00:40:01.440 --> 00:40:06.360 it is a unique variation off some of the stories being told out of meso 410 00:40:06.440 --> 00:40:10.119 America. They have no thunderbirds. They have their water gods. But you 411 00:40:10.199 --> 00:40:15.960 have a very unique story in North America that probably was influenced by meso America, 412 00:40:16.000 --> 00:40:22.119 but it became its own, its own thing. So so much of 413 00:40:22.159 --> 00:40:25.480 it has to do with that tree of life, the connections between the upper 414 00:40:25.480 --> 00:40:30.679 realm and the middle realm, or connections to the lower watery realm, and 415 00:40:30.719 --> 00:40:37.199 that explains so much about the cosmology. Many of the mounds are connected to 416 00:40:38.360 --> 00:40:45.559 important stellar things in the sky. We talked before the call just a little 417 00:40:45.599 --> 00:40:50.639 bit about the Newark Works not too far from Columbus, Ohio, and that 418 00:40:50.760 --> 00:40:52.519 is the nexus point for most of the mounds. And yes, ninety percent 419 00:40:52.559 --> 00:40:59.760 of them are gone. Agricultural farming, railroads, cities, you loo could 420 00:40:59.800 --> 00:41:02.360 eat, Saint Louis, all those mound groups are gone because when they were 421 00:41:02.360 --> 00:41:07.920 building, they just tore them down and raise them to the ground. Probably 422 00:41:07.920 --> 00:41:12.840 more importantly than progress was a lack of respect because I think somewhere they knew 423 00:41:13.159 --> 00:41:17.960 that these were ancient things, and unfortunately they sought to destroy them rather than 424 00:41:19.000 --> 00:41:22.519 study them. But we have enough left to blow our minds, and that's 425 00:41:22.719 --> 00:41:24.719 what a lot of the book is about. But when you're looking at places 426 00:41:24.760 --> 00:41:29.960 like Newark Works. It's heart wrenching at the most sacred part for me, 427 00:41:30.639 --> 00:41:32.719 and it's the pinnacle of the book. Is what I call the ceremony of 428 00:41:32.760 --> 00:41:38.599 ceremonies, And this time of year is very powerful. Actually once every twenty 429 00:41:38.679 --> 00:41:45.360 years eighteen point six years, you see the full phase of the maximum and 430 00:41:45.400 --> 00:41:50.559 minimum moon rise. But you also see alignment of the Great Circle and octagon 431 00:41:51.239 --> 00:41:53.320 at the Newark Works, aligned to the dark rift of the Milky Way, 432 00:41:53.320 --> 00:41:58.519 which is what we as Indigenous people know is the journey of souls back to 433 00:41:58.559 --> 00:42:04.119 where we come from. Seven Sisters constellation. Are they still doing ceremonies there? 434 00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:10.800 No, there's a golf course there. Oh terrible. That's that's its 435 00:42:10.880 --> 00:42:15.840 own story. But the Mound Builders Country Club, as a matter of fact, 436 00:42:15.920 --> 00:42:19.280 I was just out there, is true? Did they actually call it 437 00:42:19.280 --> 00:42:24.239 the Mound Builders country It is, and they've been they've they've been embroiled in 438 00:42:24.280 --> 00:42:30.679 a battle. They built it in the early nineteen hundreds originally, and not 439 00:42:30.760 --> 00:42:37.519 too long thereafter the Ohio Historical Society realized what it was and bought it from 440 00:42:37.599 --> 00:42:40.239 them, but gave them a seventy or ninety year lease. I've heard two 441 00:42:40.280 --> 00:42:46.079 different versions. It was up in I think around two thousand and seven or 442 00:42:46.119 --> 00:42:51.320 so, and it was controversial then whether to renew it, But some of 443 00:42:51.360 --> 00:42:58.519 my inside sources there said that the last director of the Ohio State Historical Society 444 00:42:59.000 --> 00:43:04.840 retired with a nice retirement package and renewed it for another seventy years. Wow. 445 00:43:05.599 --> 00:43:09.159 So's when I was out there. There's a beautiful point in the great 446 00:43:09.159 --> 00:43:15.159 Circle that's connected to the Octagon, which is the Hopewell Road, where every 447 00:43:15.559 --> 00:43:22.920 eighteen point six years, initiates or adepts in ancient tribal mystery schools would probably 448 00:43:22.960 --> 00:43:27.960 line up to walk the Great Hopewell Road and the dark rifts of the Milky 449 00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:31.280 Way would rise overhead to them. And there was an observation point, I 450 00:43:31.320 --> 00:43:38.519 assume for other interested people's family members to watch these ceremonies. And I had 451 00:43:38.559 --> 00:43:44.239 to navigate through golfers to get up on the spot myself and had them all 452 00:43:44.760 --> 00:43:50.039 shaking their fists or other fingers at me. And I promptly shook mine back 453 00:43:50.079 --> 00:43:53.320 at this because do you feel anything when you were there? Oh? I 454 00:43:53.559 --> 00:43:58.360 for sure. So it's got a lot of it's on a key lay line 455 00:43:58.360 --> 00:44:01.679 of some kind. It's got to be and so much of them have been 456 00:44:01.719 --> 00:44:06.719 destroyed. But you know, you can drive in a car, you know, 457 00:44:06.760 --> 00:44:09.679 around the Newark Works to you know all these different parts, and so 458 00:44:09.800 --> 00:44:14.599 much of them have been destroyed. The Alligator Mound, which is a stupid 459 00:44:14.639 --> 00:44:17.960 name for it. It's really the underwater serpent that is there, and it's 460 00:44:19.000 --> 00:44:23.000 an incredibly nice neighborhood and it's all that's left. There's a little cul de 461 00:44:23.079 --> 00:44:30.679 sac at the end. So it's an actual remains of a mound that yes, 462 00:44:30.079 --> 00:44:35.400 oh so okay. So it has a shape and it's been protected somehow, 463 00:44:35.920 --> 00:44:39.840 somehow, somehow it was protected. But everything else in between there is 464 00:44:39.920 --> 00:44:44.480 now gone. Same with Serpent Mound. You know, we only know of 465 00:44:44.599 --> 00:44:50.119 the Serpent Mound itself, but there was, you know, an accompanying complex 466 00:44:50.239 --> 00:44:53.559 that was probably there for all of them ceremonial sites. But all of these 467 00:44:53.599 --> 00:44:58.320 mounds are connected to movements of the Sun and the moon and the stars, 468 00:44:58.400 --> 00:45:02.159 equinoxes, the solstice, true Norse, the dark rift of the Milky Way. 469 00:45:02.960 --> 00:45:06.679 At the very least, it's a clock. It's a good way to 470 00:45:06.719 --> 00:45:10.960 measure time, but to understand including procession of the Earth, which is incorporated 471 00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:16.800 into the arsen works. You have to be a careful student for thousands of 472 00:45:16.880 --> 00:45:21.840 years somehow. Well, the big questions I always get asked is well, 473 00:45:21.880 --> 00:45:27.840 where was the writing system? Wow, mathematics is the greatest communications system there 474 00:45:27.960 --> 00:45:30.320 is, and there was definitely high mathematics. When you look at the side 475 00:45:30.360 --> 00:45:35.639 elevations of almost any of the works, my favorite ones, I would look 476 00:45:35.679 --> 00:45:43.760 at the side elevations by the first publication of the Smithsonian that was by Squire 477 00:45:43.800 --> 00:45:49.880 and Davis on the Ancient Antiquities in the Mounds, and they did side elevations 478 00:45:49.920 --> 00:45:53.559 and it's basically algebra. Yeah, they're doing surveys in their coming. Yeah, 479 00:45:53.920 --> 00:45:58.480 there are numbers and you're just looking at the pictures and it's like, 480 00:45:58.559 --> 00:46:02.760 okay, that's a sign that's co signed. Yeah, it's just mind boggling 481 00:46:02.760 --> 00:46:07.159 because you know, these aren't just like geometric. These are algebraic. And 482 00:46:07.159 --> 00:46:13.079 we're talking a thousand to two thousand years ago, if not even further. 483 00:46:13.760 --> 00:46:16.800 Hey, let's talk about a good story, which is Pahook, Nebraska, 484 00:46:16.840 --> 00:46:22.719 which is a chapter. Talk about this place because it was somewhat it was 485 00:46:22.760 --> 00:46:30.280 saved by a family and there's effigy mounds. Talk about the mounds just an 486 00:46:30.280 --> 00:46:34.840 incredible site, and the fact that it's still there, it's not protected, 487 00:46:34.920 --> 00:46:39.760 and you know, that's a whole other conversation. The Newark Works has Genesco 488 00:46:39.920 --> 00:46:43.960 protection as a World Heritage Site, and at least it gives it a good 489 00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:46.079 brand. But if somebody wanted to buy and destroy it, I don't know. 490 00:46:46.119 --> 00:46:49.960 I mean, it becomes very complicated. Pog's one of those sites. 491 00:46:50.519 --> 00:46:54.039 It absolutely should be protected. It's in private hands now who are friendly. 492 00:46:54.079 --> 00:46:59.840 But I know of other sites close to where I live, right in right 493 00:47:00.079 --> 00:47:06.480 and Omaha, Nebraska that new owners takeover don't have the same mindset fence it 494 00:47:06.519 --> 00:47:12.280 off and who knows what they've done to those ancient Earth's lodge basins and perhaps 495 00:47:12.280 --> 00:47:16.119 the ceremonial site. It's what I call Serpent Ridge. That's another one that 496 00:47:16.280 --> 00:47:22.000 is up in Florence, Nebraska, which is one of the early settlements. 497 00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:27.840 But speaking about energy, that's an incredible zone right there. But basically you 498 00:47:27.960 --> 00:47:34.679 have a lot of the early French explorers, Lewis and Clark, the Mormons 499 00:47:34.719 --> 00:47:38.519 came through there for their winter encampment. All within it's got to be a 500 00:47:38.559 --> 00:47:45.679 five mile square area. What are the legends of that area is there any 501 00:47:45.159 --> 00:47:52.880 oral history, oral traditions of sacred ceremonies, or a winter or summer encampment 502 00:47:52.920 --> 00:47:57.360 of some kind. I mean, some of those sites are, you know, 503 00:47:57.440 --> 00:48:00.039 somewhere. I don't even know if they can be carbon dated. I'd 504 00:48:00.519 --> 00:48:07.480 have to ask my friend who's the Emeritis state archaeologist here in Nebraska. But 505 00:48:07.960 --> 00:48:14.599 my guess is there anywhere between one and three thousand years ago all of all 506 00:48:14.639 --> 00:48:20.920 of those sites. So I don't know if they're necessarily stories that I'm aware 507 00:48:20.960 --> 00:48:25.679 of. There's certainly stories about the supernatural beings that are around there. The 508 00:48:25.760 --> 00:48:31.679 underwater serpent was said to live in the freshwater springs underneath the earth and then 509 00:48:31.719 --> 00:48:37.639 would come out at origin places into what people would know as the Missouri River. 510 00:48:37.480 --> 00:48:43.199 All the tribes are translation for it is smoke on the water, and 511 00:48:44.880 --> 00:48:51.519 many of the stories are about that places of origin. And all the stories 512 00:48:51.519 --> 00:48:57.079 about the underwater serpent and thunderbirds and those are those are the stories that we 513 00:48:57.119 --> 00:49:01.000 have and there across all of the land. But I didn't see like Serparate 514 00:49:01.039 --> 00:49:08.360 Mountain has from an aerial of you has obvious design on the hills uh And 515 00:49:09.039 --> 00:49:15.440 but at uh Pewhok it's called effigy mounds or they have effigy mounds, but 516 00:49:15.880 --> 00:49:21.519 there's nothing really remaining that you can see. Maybe there is there is, 517 00:49:21.559 --> 00:49:23.840 it's just not explored. Cliff. That's one of the things that I want 518 00:49:23.880 --> 00:49:30.679 to do is to really uh get some more traction and get some proper light 519 00:49:30.719 --> 00:49:36.000 oar studies. Light ar would be great, but I mean you can you 520 00:49:36.039 --> 00:49:37.519 can walk on them and you can see them, and you know that there's 521 00:49:37.519 --> 00:49:42.119 stuff there. But you know, again, you know with vegetation being there. 522 00:49:42.119 --> 00:49:45.920 But light ar would do a tremendous about to help that. And there's 523 00:49:45.960 --> 00:49:52.880 other technologies that are that are out there that can certainly help ground penetrating radar. 524 00:49:55.639 --> 00:50:00.039 That all costs money. That all costs money. And that's one of 525 00:50:00.079 --> 00:50:07.199 my dreams is to have enough pocket change to buy a drone that's got light 526 00:50:07.280 --> 00:50:09.239 our capabilities. I don't know if that's possible or not, but that's one 527 00:50:09.280 --> 00:50:14.320 of my goals because I would love to go to these Yeah, my guess 528 00:50:14.360 --> 00:50:19.760 is more than pocket change. But if there's anything a call to arms out 529 00:50:19.800 --> 00:50:23.039 of all this is we need to save these sacred sites across all Americas for 530 00:50:23.119 --> 00:50:31.039 everyone's edification and enjoyment. I just became obsessed with this topic because there was 531 00:50:31.079 --> 00:50:37.559 so little written from an Indigenous perspective, and I've tried to inject my own 532 00:50:37.679 --> 00:50:42.159 versions of you know, what I understand about Indigenous ceremonies and life ways and 533 00:50:42.199 --> 00:50:46.639 our cosmology. And I think that as an Indigenous person who is open and 534 00:50:46.679 --> 00:50:51.639 aware and is disciplined enough to do the researcher're going to find all these connections. 535 00:50:52.480 --> 00:50:54.400 Serpent Mound itself, I know, goes back to one of our Cherokee 536 00:50:54.440 --> 00:50:59.599 stories, our interpretation of that if the serpent needs the sun. But as 537 00:50:59.639 --> 00:51:05.800 I was mentioning the ceremony of ceremonies that the Newark works as ad abs initiates 538 00:51:05.840 --> 00:51:09.960 to walk on the Hopewell Road on that one powerful night around the summer solstice 539 00:51:10.239 --> 00:51:15.280 every Jaeshia twenty years, you're going to see the dark rift of the Milky 540 00:51:15.320 --> 00:51:19.360 Way appear out of the Southern hemisphere and come up overhead, which is where 541 00:51:19.400 --> 00:51:22.360 the journey of the souls connects. And so you would have this physical as 542 00:51:22.400 --> 00:51:27.840 above so below with the stars. And then if you to keep going on 543 00:51:27.840 --> 00:51:31.400 the Hopell Road, it points to a natural occurrence called sugar Loaf Mounds, 544 00:51:31.880 --> 00:51:35.679 and by the time that the sun rose in the morning, you would see 545 00:51:35.679 --> 00:51:40.039 Scorpius moving towards the sun. The serpent eats the sun, so at least 546 00:51:40.039 --> 00:51:45.239 with the earthen works in the Mississippian Realm, probably connected the energy, but 547 00:51:45.360 --> 00:51:51.519 also connected from the powers and the symbology of the upper realm to the middle 548 00:51:51.559 --> 00:51:53.800 realm. I want you to talk a little bit about an area that I 549 00:51:53.840 --> 00:52:00.280 never heard of before, which is Circleville and the earthen works there. One 550 00:52:00.280 --> 00:52:05.079 of the things that you bring up that I have not heard is the masculine 551 00:52:05.079 --> 00:52:10.840 feminine aspects of these earthworks. Yes, and I want you to explain that. 552 00:52:10.920 --> 00:52:15.320 And the reason this is so amazing is that if there is an energetic 553 00:52:16.400 --> 00:52:22.880 part of these sacred sites that you're talking about that the ancestors knew, the 554 00:52:22.920 --> 00:52:29.840 connection between male and female energy is extremely important. We see this in Mexico 555 00:52:29.960 --> 00:52:37.599 and Yucatan at places like Ushmoh. It's a it's a feminine dwelling, it's 556 00:52:37.599 --> 00:52:42.000 a feminine city, and they actually had sexual We talked. I talked to 557 00:52:42.039 --> 00:52:47.559 elders about this. They talked about sexuality and having children at certain astrological times. 558 00:52:47.679 --> 00:52:55.119 Talk about this. H This Circleville is because this is absolutely fantastic part 559 00:52:55.159 --> 00:52:59.800 of your book. Well, it's not just that one site. It's in 560 00:53:00.440 --> 00:53:02.320 and so many of them. I was mentioning from the newer works. Another 561 00:53:02.400 --> 00:53:07.880 example, it's the great circle in the octagon and in essence with circles, 562 00:53:09.320 --> 00:53:15.039 which is associated with the sacred masculine because it's the sun and are. One 563 00:53:15.079 --> 00:53:21.320 of the interpretations of our creation stories has to do with Father being the sun 564 00:53:21.400 --> 00:53:24.440 and Mother being the moon. So you have the original distinction between the sacred 565 00:53:24.480 --> 00:53:30.840 masculine and feminine. But even from that you get these notions incorporated into the 566 00:53:30.880 --> 00:53:37.199 mounds where the octagons and squares just depending on how they're laid out with certain 567 00:53:37.199 --> 00:53:42.639 marketings, and all of them have different little mounds for orientations. They're aligned 568 00:53:42.719 --> 00:53:49.559 to the movements of the moon and the hinges, whether they're wood or stone. 569 00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:53.320 You can think of big horn medicine will or there's the woodhinge at Kahokia. 570 00:53:53.800 --> 00:54:01.599 Those are most easily tied to and equinox. Talking about the hinges, 571 00:54:01.639 --> 00:54:08.400 which are markers, right, yeah, like as these stone workers, you're 572 00:54:08.440 --> 00:54:14.960 talking about these mounds having these markers that are circular or square. Yes, 573 00:54:15.480 --> 00:54:20.199 Well, what was found was, for example at kajoki of the wood hinge 574 00:54:20.239 --> 00:54:22.880 that was there. It took new technology to find out where the wood post 575 00:54:22.960 --> 00:54:27.079 were, but it's all there, and so you know, it's a it's 576 00:54:27.079 --> 00:54:31.360 a flat space, but it was in practice. It was in practice a 577 00:54:31.639 --> 00:54:37.320 wood hinge. Big Horn Medicine wheel is actually stone and you can go and 578 00:54:37.360 --> 00:54:45.440 see it. And it's not just aligned to equinoxes and solstice activity, but 579 00:54:45.840 --> 00:54:50.400 also to the rising of stars in the sky at at a certain time. 580 00:54:50.480 --> 00:54:54.719 Doctor Jack Eddie was the first sort of anthropologist archae astronomer to document a lot 581 00:54:54.719 --> 00:54:58.920 of that stuff in the nineteen seventies. But it's very much a sagred spot 582 00:54:58.960 --> 00:55:04.000 and you see indigenous people going up there all the time for prayer and contemplation 583 00:55:04.119 --> 00:55:06.360 and probably to feel the energy. That's why I go there. It's a 584 00:55:06.440 --> 00:55:09.440 very peaceful, wonderful place. See that's that's the amazing part of these mouths, 585 00:55:09.440 --> 00:55:15.320 and that's why it's really terrible that they most of them have been bulldozed. 586 00:55:16.000 --> 00:55:21.000 It could be a healing center if people were more sensitive, those those 587 00:55:21.119 --> 00:55:25.039 mounds could have been used as healing centers. I wanted to talk real briefly, 588 00:55:25.079 --> 00:55:30.119 and we've worry brought it up about the cosmological aspects and the importance of 589 00:55:30.360 --> 00:55:37.599 working with the the the planets, and the and the seasons by stargazing. 590 00:55:39.320 --> 00:55:44.760 I mean, it's everything. I've been very much interested, most recently with 591 00:55:44.840 --> 00:55:52.079 the role of mythology, and all of our greatest stories are inspired by the 592 00:55:52.119 --> 00:55:55.639 ancients, whatever culture you come from, looking at the stars. I just 593 00:55:55.719 --> 00:56:04.400 finished a wonderful work on Greek mythology Mythos by Stephen Frye. And it's the 594 00:56:04.440 --> 00:56:07.679 same with the origin for our tribal stories. I mean, when you're talking 595 00:56:07.679 --> 00:56:13.440 about all the original beans and cosmos and chaos and the spinoff, there are 596 00:56:13.519 --> 00:56:16.679 representations of what people were looking at in the stars. Same with our indigenous 597 00:56:16.719 --> 00:56:21.519 stories. The more and more I find out about it, I touch on 598 00:56:21.559 --> 00:56:24.519 some of this stuff in the book, But for example, the Red Horn 599 00:56:24.599 --> 00:56:32.199 panel at Picture Cave, which is where the Degeean Suians, my maternal ancestors 600 00:56:32.559 --> 00:56:38.519 are from, along with many other tribes, and we were probably one larger 601 00:56:38.679 --> 00:56:45.599 unit. But you've got this red Horn panel which tells the story that was 602 00:56:45.639 --> 00:56:52.559 celebrated at places like Kahokia about first father and first woman and their children and 603 00:56:52.719 --> 00:57:01.079 the thunder twins and Redhorn the savior of humanity from the upper realm brought to 604 00:57:01.119 --> 00:57:05.840 this realm. And there's ties to meso America, but it's become its own 605 00:57:05.960 --> 00:57:10.079 story, unto itself. But when you have all of these stories together, 606 00:57:10.519 --> 00:57:16.159 ultimately they can be tied to movements of the stars. So people watched certain 607 00:57:16.199 --> 00:57:22.440 stars and they became personified, uh here on this planet and the and the 608 00:57:22.639 --> 00:57:28.639 in the middle realm. But but but but indigenous people are more connected to 609 00:57:28.800 --> 00:57:34.559 the seasons. Then then you know what we've We've just lost it, you 610 00:57:34.559 --> 00:57:37.760 know, we we don't care. You know, there's there's the seasons, 611 00:57:37.800 --> 00:57:44.639 the winterfall, uh, spring in summer, but it's more important to follow 612 00:57:44.679 --> 00:57:47.679 it in a ceremonials kind of way. You kind of blessed the season as 613 00:57:47.719 --> 00:57:53.159 it opens, and then you plant your crops. But you also you give 614 00:57:53.280 --> 00:57:57.239 thanks to the creator and so forth and so on. That stuff, the 615 00:57:57.280 --> 00:58:01.239 little small things that I think are more important that we need to understand that 616 00:58:01.280 --> 00:58:07.880 we've lost. You know that the indigenous people were so connected to the land. 617 00:58:07.960 --> 00:58:13.119 It's a whole energetic movement to have ceremony. Why bother having ceremony, 618 00:58:13.199 --> 00:58:19.039 Well, it's the same as praying, So talk a little bit about that. 619 00:58:20.159 --> 00:58:23.519 Well, certainly, I'd like to think that Indigenous peoples have been able 620 00:58:23.599 --> 00:58:32.079 to maintain some of these core values and notions that are important despite you know, 621 00:58:32.199 --> 00:58:40.280 the near successful genocide and ecoside of our lifeways, including this systematic nextinct 622 00:58:40.519 --> 00:58:45.639 extinction of bison, and not to mention other things that we're here, wolfs, 623 00:58:45.719 --> 00:58:50.360 etc. Elk from many of the places, all those things that you'll 624 00:58:50.400 --> 00:58:55.760 see in clan system structures for indigenous people, and equal injustice is the transformation 625 00:58:55.920 --> 00:59:02.360 of the land and the plants of all these invasive species farming. I mean, 626 00:59:02.679 --> 00:59:08.360 I'm from the bread basket of the United States, and it seems to 627 00:59:08.360 --> 00:59:15.239 be as nearly a sin to not have every agrable acre planted with crops, 628 00:59:15.280 --> 00:59:21.320 which are in many cases around here are highly subsidized by the United States government. 629 00:59:22.320 --> 00:59:25.360 And it's just changed the whole landscape. Prairies are gone. Spent a 630 00:59:25.400 --> 00:59:30.000 lot of time with folks over in Iowa, and I'm trying to remember what 631 00:59:30.079 --> 00:59:34.639 percentage of the land is still in its original form, but it's a percentage 632 00:59:34.639 --> 00:59:39.519 of one percent. All the rest has just been transformed and full of pesticides 633 00:59:39.559 --> 00:59:44.000 and everything else, and the natural flora and fauna that we're there are gone. 634 00:59:44.480 --> 00:59:47.599 So despite all that, we still have our teachings in our ways. 635 00:59:49.880 --> 00:59:53.079 Thanksgiving we think of that as an American holiday. It's not a holiday to 636 00:59:53.199 --> 00:59:59.440 indigenous peoples, but it's a part of our ceremonial agricultural lifeways to give thanks 637 00:59:59.480 --> 01:00:02.800 to the creator. Around the harvest moon, we have the beginning of spring. 638 01:00:05.239 --> 01:00:08.400 Typically, well, I can only speak for some of my tribes, 639 01:00:08.400 --> 01:00:14.199 but the first thunder brings about notions of rebirth for the land. But you 640 01:00:14.239 --> 01:00:17.400 know, indigenous, there are indigenous peoples of Europe and you may have some 641 01:00:17.440 --> 01:00:21.920 of those in your in your line or stock. I don't know where you 642 01:00:22.039 --> 01:00:24.239 come from, but I'm Northern. Look at me, I'm a white boy 643 01:00:24.320 --> 01:00:31.039 I come from. My people are Northern European. So like Beltane and Midsommer, 644 01:00:32.320 --> 01:00:37.239 those are indigenous ceremonies. Oh interesting, So those are the indigenous people 645 01:00:37.239 --> 01:00:43.079 of those regions. Yeah, well, I mean Irish, Celtic, Scandinavian, 646 01:00:44.039 --> 01:00:49.760 whatever you might be. You have indigenous peoples too. And there's mounds 647 01:00:49.800 --> 01:00:54.599 over there. There's stone works and earthen works and serpent mounds. And that's 648 01:00:54.639 --> 01:01:00.480 the big question to me, is okay, there's too many coincidences is here 649 01:01:00.559 --> 01:01:05.000 of how we used to live life and maybe in a lot of sense we 650 01:01:05.159 --> 01:01:08.239 need to find our way back to those things. Well, it's so much 651 01:01:08.480 --> 01:01:15.480 more holistic to live in this manner where you're you're blessing and living among the 652 01:01:15.559 --> 01:01:24.320 seasons and you bless Mother Gaya, you know, and you live more completely 653 01:01:24.480 --> 01:01:30.000 rather than what we're especially in the Western culture, we're so everything's so artificial. 654 01:01:30.239 --> 01:01:35.119 You know, it doesn't have to be that way, Cliff. That's 655 01:01:35.159 --> 01:01:38.480 one of the points I talk about thinking red and living red, taking the 656 01:01:38.519 --> 01:01:45.039 indigenous living cosmological system. But you know that goes to my work with Sacred 657 01:01:45.079 --> 01:01:50.199 Seed of what were people eating and how were they living? To do this, 658 01:01:50.360 --> 01:01:52.360 and you know, and I had to ask a lot, but you 659 01:01:52.400 --> 01:01:57.760 know, bits and pieces are throughout every tribe in North America, like when 660 01:01:57.800 --> 01:02:00.400 to plant, we plant on the new Moon in May. We have roles 661 01:02:00.440 --> 01:02:05.639 of the sacred masculine and sacred feminine, a try for doing so. Only 662 01:02:05.679 --> 01:02:08.239 the women plant, and they have to be of child bearing age. And 663 01:02:08.679 --> 01:02:15.599 to your average religious person in North America, a Catholic or a Protestant, 664 01:02:16.000 --> 01:02:21.519 you start talking about fertility and how babies are really made and everybody gets really 665 01:02:21.599 --> 01:02:28.480 uncomfortable, but that's how they're really made right. And and you see that 666 01:02:28.559 --> 01:02:35.480 within the mounds, you see sacred masculine and feminine metaphors and symbology in these 667 01:02:37.159 --> 01:02:44.480 you had mentioned sort of feminine cities. I've not studied it too deeply, 668 01:02:44.559 --> 01:02:50.599 but certainly indebted to the work of doctor Timothy Pocketet. Doctor Susan Alt. 669 01:02:51.880 --> 01:02:54.960 Pocketet did the sort of seminal work on Kohokiah, and he was one of 670 01:02:55.000 --> 01:03:01.400 the anthropologists who embraced the oral traditions. Doctor Robert Hall was probably the first 671 01:03:01.400 --> 01:03:06.239 guy, but he was indigenous to really look at all of these aspects of 672 01:03:06.280 --> 01:03:12.760 the sacred masculine and feminine and the symbolism and ceremonies and some of the antiquities 673 01:03:12.800 --> 01:03:17.559 of the of the land as well. But Susan Alt writes about perhaps the 674 01:03:17.599 --> 01:03:22.199 Emerald city sort of a moon cult. I hate those terms are anthropological terms, 675 01:03:22.199 --> 01:03:28.599 but I get what they're saying of basically a sacred feminine city outside of 676 01:03:29.199 --> 01:03:36.480 Cohokia, the ancient city that's now called right around Saint Louis. But you 677 01:03:36.480 --> 01:03:40.159 know, as we learn more about these sites and the interconnectedness and archaeo astronomy, 678 01:03:40.199 --> 01:03:45.880 and things that belonged to the sun belonged to the masculine, and things 679 01:03:45.880 --> 01:03:49.559 that belong to the moon belonged to feminine, and the balance in between those, 680 01:03:49.639 --> 01:03:52.239 and then the role of the stars, and they become the stories you 681 01:03:52.320 --> 01:03:57.199 mentioned. Gaya. That's the Greco term for Indigenous peoples. It's you know, 682 01:03:57.320 --> 01:04:00.320 Mother Earth, Earth's mother, the oldman who never dies. She has 683 01:04:00.400 --> 01:04:08.800 many names, but it's the same concept. We're going to take a short 684 01:04:08.840 --> 01:04:14.840 commercial break to allow our sponsors to identify themselves, and we'll be back shortly 685 01:04:14.880 --> 01:04:20.400 with my guest today, Taylor Keene, discussing his newest book, Rediscovering Turtle 686 01:04:20.440 --> 01:05:02.679 Island. My guess today is Indigenous America's scholar Taylor Keene, and he's sharing 687 01:05:02.760 --> 01:05:13.280 with us insights from his newest book, Rediscovering Turtle Island. Hey, talk 688 01:05:13.320 --> 01:05:17.920 a little bit about ceremonial artifacts. You actually you actually have a section in 689 01:05:17.920 --> 01:05:26.559 the book where you highlight it's called the calu mint wand calumt. Yeah, 690 01:05:26.719 --> 01:05:30.239 it's a sacred pipe. And the thing that's interesting about this is that it 691 01:05:30.320 --> 01:05:35.039 was never smoked, right, and so it was talk about that how it 692 01:05:35.119 --> 01:05:41.719 was used and what it means well, one of the main parts of the 693 01:05:41.760 --> 01:05:47.440 research that was just mind boggling to me was, however old the Calumet tradition, 694 01:05:47.519 --> 01:05:51.880 and I'll explain just a moment to your listeners what that means, but 695 01:05:53.039 --> 01:05:58.840 it certainly has ties to a thousand years ago, and through the anthropological research 696 01:05:59.000 --> 01:06:02.000 it's tied to place is like the Kahoki Empire, which was a trading network. 697 01:06:02.559 --> 01:06:10.800 Ultimately it was a true empire based on economics, but it was one 698 01:06:10.840 --> 01:06:15.119 of the ceremonies that came out of that. And you see the Calumet remaining 699 01:06:15.159 --> 01:06:19.639 with many of those tribes, including my mother's tribe, the Omaha's and the 700 01:06:19.719 --> 01:06:27.480 Pawnees I talk about because they have documentation of having these ceremonies. Ultimately, 701 01:06:27.639 --> 01:06:32.719 what they were had to do with war and fertility, and we may think 702 01:06:32.760 --> 01:06:39.880 of that as a dichotomy, but after war, when many people have expired, 703 01:06:39.920 --> 01:06:46.039 you need fertility to come back. And the main part about the Calimet 704 01:06:46.119 --> 01:06:51.199 ceremony is the center object, which is a singular piece of corn. Going 705 01:06:51.280 --> 01:06:58.360 back to our discussion about Gaya, it was mother corn, so symbolic that 706 01:06:58.440 --> 01:07:02.440 one perfect ear of corn, which was this ceremony. These two wands, 707 01:07:02.480 --> 01:07:08.440 one is masculine one as feminine. There are tons of symbology into the creation 708 01:07:08.639 --> 01:07:17.719 stories. The psdological hero known as Redhorn also had the original name of and 709 01:07:17.800 --> 01:07:21.360 then these are odd names to most people, but these are ancient, thousand 710 01:07:21.400 --> 01:07:25.159 year old names. He who was hit with deer lungs, and it has 711 01:07:25.199 --> 01:07:29.320 to do with a certain story about the first humans. And there are owl 712 01:07:29.400 --> 01:07:33.800 feathers on those pipes, and many thinkers and I agree with them that it 713 01:07:34.159 --> 01:07:40.199 has allusions to these early stories. And there's some symbolism of the morning Star 714 01:07:40.239 --> 01:07:44.280 in the Evening Star, the battles between morning Star and the Evening Star, 715 01:07:44.320 --> 01:07:49.320 and they were personified in the characters. The pipe wands were very powerful, 716 01:07:49.440 --> 01:07:53.559 and though they were not smoked because it wasn't that type of pipe, but 717 01:07:53.920 --> 01:07:59.280 didn't make them any less significant. And when the ceremony was enacted, it 718 01:07:59.280 --> 01:08:05.840 would literally stop war. And so was because they were imbuing the body of 719 01:08:05.880 --> 01:08:15.599 this wand with the ancestors energy of some kind, so that when a ceremony 720 01:08:15.719 --> 01:08:18.640 was brought out and their people are looking at this one, they're like, 721 01:08:19.600 --> 01:08:25.239 oh, this is like Thor's hammer or something, you know what I mean. 722 01:08:25.560 --> 01:08:27.840 Yeah, kind of get the analogy behind it. Yeah, yeah, 723 01:08:27.880 --> 01:08:30.000 yeah, yeah. I'm trying to think of what would be a good analogy, 724 01:08:30.039 --> 01:08:33.920 because we did have what I called a masive power, and I could 725 01:08:34.439 --> 01:08:39.000 show you illustrations of what they look like. They were often made out of 726 01:08:39.039 --> 01:08:42.319 stone, but all the stories about the thunder Twins and the giants, they 727 01:08:42.319 --> 01:08:49.720 would hold these maces that were symbolic of power and kingship basically to use the 728 01:08:49.760 --> 01:08:55.920 European I would say, maybe chieftainship in our realms. And there was a 729 01:08:56.000 --> 01:09:00.399 spear as well, probably not unlike the spear of destiny. Oh okay, 730 01:09:00.760 --> 01:09:05.119 there were symbols, and there was lots of elaborate headgear too, And I 731 01:09:05.119 --> 01:09:10.199 could show you examples from picture cave of the thunder Twins and what looks like 732 01:09:10.279 --> 01:09:15.239 meso American, big sort of headdresses. And then some of the copper plates, 733 01:09:15.279 --> 01:09:18.239 the refuse plates that are found in the Edewa mounds, that rogan plates 734 01:09:18.680 --> 01:09:25.800 have things that look very elaborate. But they were probably elite leaders of some 735 01:09:25.960 --> 01:09:31.680 type, if not religious individuals. But help me understand how this is. 736 01:09:31.720 --> 01:09:35.600 So you call it the wand but it's actually a pipe that most people would 737 01:09:35.600 --> 01:09:42.119 smoke stupidly. It's a ceremony's are they are they? Is it made of 738 01:09:42.279 --> 01:09:49.560 an ancient wood or a bird's beak or all there's all the above types of 739 01:09:49.640 --> 01:09:55.159 symbols within them. They were made of a special wood. They were not 740 01:09:55.239 --> 01:09:58.560 allowed to touch the ground, at least the last Omaha version, which is 741 01:09:58.600 --> 01:10:00.720 what I found. The glory that you're referring to as to do with my 742 01:10:00.840 --> 01:10:04.520 discovery of them at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, the Planes Indian 743 01:10:04.640 --> 01:10:13.159 Museum, and they were basically unclassified objects that the curator and I she asked 744 01:10:13.199 --> 01:10:15.159 for my help if I wanted to figure out what they were, but they 745 01:10:15.199 --> 01:10:18.520 were attributed to their law tribe, but no one really knew what they were. 746 01:10:18.960 --> 01:10:25.039 As it turns out, it was our sacred corn bundle. And from 747 01:10:25.119 --> 01:10:30.279 there I did all the research into the ceremony, and it literally was used 748 01:10:30.279 --> 01:10:32.680 that if there were two tribes warring, and somebody had the guts to do 749 01:10:32.840 --> 01:10:36.880 it, there would be a principal character who would walk into the warring tribe 750 01:10:36.920 --> 01:10:42.159 with these two pipe wands, and if accepted, it stopped the war. 751 01:10:42.680 --> 01:10:45.520 If not, they were probably killed, we don't know, but it would 752 01:10:45.560 --> 01:10:50.239 stop war. And then what ensued was a very sacred ceremony of gifting. 753 01:10:50.680 --> 01:10:56.960 There were some beautiful objects that were associated with this bundle that were their big 754 01:10:57.079 --> 01:11:01.640 bolts of either English or French trade cloth from probably the eighteen eighties, which 755 01:11:01.760 --> 01:11:04.720 is beautiful to look at, and a big bolt of it today. You 756 01:11:04.760 --> 01:11:06.640 know, I don't know how much this stuff costs, you are, but 757 01:11:06.720 --> 01:11:11.800 it's terribly expensive and it's just a recent knockoff. This was the real thing. 758 01:11:12.399 --> 01:11:15.720 And there were other wonderful trade items that people at that time period wanted 759 01:11:15.760 --> 01:11:18.760 to trade and they felt were important. But it would stop war. But 760 01:11:18.840 --> 01:11:26.119 the main part of the ceremony was in doing this sacred object of mother corn 761 01:11:26.920 --> 01:11:30.000 to the heavens. They would put it on top of a tepee pole and 762 01:11:30.159 --> 01:11:35.479 then bring it back down as a symbol of fertility and gross for the tribe, 763 01:11:35.479 --> 01:11:40.760 and then they would annoint those powers on a child. So it was 764 01:11:40.920 --> 01:11:44.960 it was a fertility ceremony that literally ended war. That'd be great if we 765 01:11:45.039 --> 01:11:50.439 still had those today. So is this wand still in the museum of it? 766 01:11:50.680 --> 01:11:55.640 Is? It is? No, it's not available to view anymore. 767 01:11:55.720 --> 01:11:59.720 It's in the sacred collection now. And at some point that's what part of 768 01:11:59.760 --> 01:12:02.880 the point of the chapter is on the book. It might seem tedious the 769 01:12:03.039 --> 01:12:09.840 descriptions of them to some individuals, but the intended audience for those for that 770 01:12:10.039 --> 01:12:14.439 chapter was really to explain to other indigenous people, because really I'm writing a 771 01:12:14.520 --> 01:12:20.319 lot of this book for the seventh generation so that they understand. One was 772 01:12:20.399 --> 01:12:25.239 the synchronicity of how this happened, because it was crazy that I just happened 773 01:12:25.279 --> 01:12:28.520 to be up there as an advisor and the curator just happened to know about 774 01:12:28.600 --> 01:12:32.920 these unclassified documents, and we had enough time one Thursday or Friday afternoon to 775 01:12:33.279 --> 01:12:35.840 wander in to look at it, and we're able to piece it together. 776 01:12:36.359 --> 01:12:45.359 Incredible story. And we view those bundles as almost like people that they miss 777 01:12:45.479 --> 01:12:47.560 us and they need us and we need them, and the goal is to 778 01:12:47.600 --> 01:12:53.039 get her home someday. And I was just honored and blessed that she picked 779 01:12:53.119 --> 01:12:57.640 me to find her again after being gone since eighteen eighty three. That's what 780 01:12:57.840 --> 01:13:01.600 the documentation of the object said. Do you guess are into it that it's 781 01:13:01.600 --> 01:13:08.520 a few hundred years old or perhaps older, or perhaps the various aspects of 782 01:13:08.720 --> 01:13:11.439 the feathers, the bones, or whatever it's made out of, it could 783 01:13:11.439 --> 01:13:15.840 be very ancient. My guess is those were created for the ceremony. But 784 01:13:15.920 --> 01:13:23.079 the ceremony itself is at least a thousand years old, because it's alluded to 785 01:13:23.640 --> 01:13:30.520 in the anthropological record and research going back to Kahokia. How long it went 786 01:13:30.600 --> 01:13:33.279 on before that, we don't know. But my guess is it could be 787 01:13:33.520 --> 01:13:38.479 thousands of years old. It could be tens of thousands of years old. 788 01:13:39.520 --> 01:13:44.079 We don't know some of the mysteries of America. This has been fun. 789 01:13:45.560 --> 01:13:50.720 I want to conclude with a chapter you wrote on Kahokia. Kahokia, and 790 01:13:51.039 --> 01:13:56.199 you actually have a I want to ask you about this. It's the year 791 01:13:56.680 --> 01:14:02.359 one thousand and fifty four. Yes. First of all, is this story 792 01:14:02.399 --> 01:14:09.560 of this young indigenous person walking through Kahokia and seeing the ceremony? Is that 793 01:14:09.840 --> 01:14:15.039 from a document you read? Or is it an oral tradition or what? 794 01:14:15.159 --> 01:14:19.520 Because it's so elaborate and so detailed that I was like, how in the 795 01:14:19.640 --> 01:14:24.920 heck did he find It's a fantastic story. Talk a little bit about this. 796 01:14:25.279 --> 01:14:29.199 I appreciate that, Cliff, And I really feel like, you know, 797 01:14:29.479 --> 01:14:31.560 if somebody says, what one chapter should I read, and I say, 798 01:14:31.640 --> 01:14:38.880 read that chapter because it's great it's years of anthropological research. Again, 799 01:14:39.000 --> 01:14:44.520 my discipline is in the field of business and strategy. But it was a 800 01:14:44.640 --> 01:14:48.720 natural evolution for me because I realized the one thing that I could do in 801 01:14:48.800 --> 01:14:55.199 the world was to take my skill set of strategy, which is an interdisciplinary 802 01:14:55.840 --> 01:15:00.720 field of all these different things finance, economics, operations, marketing, human 803 01:15:00.840 --> 01:15:03.359 resources, human talent, all these things. And I thought, well, 804 01:15:03.399 --> 01:15:10.159 if I can just learn the fields of history and anthropology and symbology and cosmology 805 01:15:10.239 --> 01:15:14.880 and mytho the lifetime it is a lifetime, but if I could figure that 806 01:15:14.960 --> 01:15:17.880 out, I might have something meaningful to share with people. And that's where 807 01:15:17.960 --> 01:15:21.359 we're at. So when I did all this research, and that's where all 808 01:15:21.399 --> 01:15:27.760 the details come from. What they were eating, the timeframe of which mound 809 01:15:27.920 --> 01:15:30.880 was built first, what was in the fields, what was the role of 810 01:15:30.000 --> 01:15:34.840 people, allusion to twins and these stories, and I kind of put it 811 01:15:34.920 --> 01:15:41.079 all together. I get a kick out of it because it was really difficult 812 01:15:41.159 --> 01:15:44.720 to put all this together. And the first version of that chapter was very 813 01:15:44.800 --> 01:15:49.239 antiseptic and very anthropological. And I had a copy editor, nice young lady. 814 01:15:49.279 --> 01:15:54.000 It was a few years out of college, and she was a bull. 815 01:15:54.359 --> 01:15:59.199 I remember I'd gone through several copy editors, and I picked that chapter 816 01:15:59.319 --> 01:16:02.119 because it was the most confusing and the most difficult. It's challenging, yeah, 817 01:16:02.239 --> 01:16:05.680 I can see. And I had one little bit that I had turned 818 01:16:05.720 --> 01:16:10.279 into a story narrative of that character, Honga, but it was like one 819 01:16:10.359 --> 01:16:14.159 paragraph, and I gave it to her as a test, because I gave 820 01:16:14.239 --> 01:16:17.439 that one chapter to everybody. It was the best thing that I had studied, 821 01:16:17.600 --> 01:16:21.119 and it was probably the worst written chapter because it was so hard to 822 01:16:21.239 --> 01:16:25.319 get everything well, talk a little bit about it. Was it from an 823 01:16:25.439 --> 01:16:30.479 oral tradition? Where did that data come from? Because you're describing the buildings 824 01:16:30.560 --> 01:16:35.840 with such accuracy that it's like you're right there. Well that's well as the 825 01:16:35.920 --> 01:16:42.199 first draft of it was a very dry description of those things that you saw 826 01:16:42.359 --> 01:16:45.800 there, so you know, it'd be like four or five paragraphs of talking 827 01:16:45.840 --> 01:16:48.680 about the crops that were in the field, or what researcher said, what 828 01:16:48.920 --> 01:16:54.439 was built first, or how did they build a new It's all research. 829 01:16:54.960 --> 01:16:59.840 But I had this one paragraph about Honga in italics in this thing, and 830 01:16:59.880 --> 01:17:02.600 I gave it to this copy editor, and I really owe her a lot 831 01:17:02.680 --> 01:17:09.319 of thanks. Everyone else, like wouldn't comment or just did sort of grammatical 832 01:17:09.359 --> 01:17:15.199 stuff. She xed out everything else in a red marker and circled the one 833 01:17:15.279 --> 01:17:19.880 paragraph on Honga and we met for coffee, so you built on that paragraph. 834 01:17:20.079 --> 01:17:25.279 She handed it back to me and she said, everything I marked out, 835 01:17:25.479 --> 01:17:28.000 I think you should trash. I know it's going to hurt your feelings, 836 01:17:28.079 --> 01:17:30.199 but you should tell you should tell every books edited like that. I 837 01:17:30.279 --> 01:17:34.960 know what you're talking about. And and she said, you're a natural storyteller. 838 01:17:35.720 --> 01:17:40.479 Tell the story, don't tell the facts. So that's where it came 839 01:17:40.560 --> 01:17:44.880 from. So all of that is based out of research, and I wherever 840 01:17:45.079 --> 01:17:48.119 possible where I was citing something from papers. That's what you see. Even 841 01:17:48.159 --> 01:17:54.199 though it is sort of a fictional narrative, it has citations because all those 842 01:17:54.199 --> 01:17:58.000 things are rooted in the research that I did. Okay, so let me 843 01:17:58.079 --> 01:18:00.079 tell you it was my interpretation of what was happening. Okay, Well, 844 01:18:00.880 --> 01:18:10.079 you're basing it on on facts and research on other people's uh stories of Well, 845 01:18:10.439 --> 01:18:15.079 they didn't have any stories, they just had theories and facts of you 846 01:18:15.159 --> 01:18:17.119 know, there's people who were studying the plants. There, there are people 847 01:18:17.159 --> 01:18:26.720 who were studying the stratigraphy, the objects elders talking to you about this as 848 01:18:26.760 --> 01:18:30.760 well. I mean, because you're talking about one thing that a thousand years 849 01:18:30.800 --> 01:18:32.640 ago. Yeah, it's amazing. Number one is a thousand years ago. 850 01:18:32.680 --> 01:18:38.920 But number two what's shocking is they're sacrificing human beings. Well, I mean, 851 01:18:39.000 --> 01:18:43.039 that's that's clear in the anthropological record, Okay. I talk about that 852 01:18:43.159 --> 01:18:49.079 because I thought this was all This is all Aztec Maya worship kind of you 853 01:18:49.159 --> 01:18:55.199 know, blood letting, blood sports. This actually happens at Kahokia because we 854 01:18:55.279 --> 01:18:59.000 have what skeletal remains, is what you're suggesting. Yes, and and that's 855 01:18:59.039 --> 01:19:03.520 why I framed the whole concept of that chapter around Hongo, who becomes a 856 01:19:03.880 --> 01:19:08.520 dynastic leader. And that's the only thing that makes sense to me. It's 857 01:19:08.560 --> 01:19:13.479 all about bloodlines, and that's why I make the illusions that they would decimate 858 01:19:13.800 --> 01:19:19.239 entire bloodlines when changing succession. Whether or not they were looking at maternal bloodlines 859 01:19:19.479 --> 01:19:27.359 or paternal we don't know, but it seems to be the structures. As 860 01:19:27.399 --> 01:19:30.399 a strategist, I look for patterns, and that was the pattern that I 861 01:19:30.520 --> 01:19:34.840 saw, and that made sense of why there were so many and the obsession 862 01:19:34.920 --> 01:19:39.199 with twins and the role of twins in some of the burial mounds. And 863 01:19:39.279 --> 01:19:45.640 I'm making a theory, but it's an indigenous theory, it's not an anthrological 864 01:19:45.720 --> 01:19:49.239 fantasy. So this is ritual sacrifice is basically what you're talking about, which 865 01:19:49.319 --> 01:19:57.399 is very all over the Maya theme and all over as other Mesoamerican indigenous people. 866 01:19:57.479 --> 01:20:02.279 That's all over the place. Several similar things happened in other cultures too. 867 01:20:02.439 --> 01:20:08.039 Certainly, anyone who's seen Game of Thrones knows that that's the case in 868 01:20:08.159 --> 01:20:13.119 Europe too, and you see that in Asia and everywhere, the change of 869 01:20:13.479 --> 01:20:17.760 that dynastic leadership usually results in some bloodshed. That's true. It's not just 870 01:20:18.039 --> 01:20:25.720 in the America's I think some of the other indigenous people from different parts of 871 01:20:25.800 --> 01:20:31.359 Europe were doing that to a degree. It's just abhorrent to us today because 872 01:20:31.399 --> 01:20:35.920 it's like, you think of life as sacred. Can you can you help 873 01:20:36.039 --> 01:20:46.760 us understand why the sacrifice of of of of a human would be important and 874 01:20:47.640 --> 01:20:55.920 we're using the term sacrifice as in another term. Well, what I'm what 875 01:20:56.000 --> 01:21:00.039 I'm alluding to in the work is that whenever dynasties would change, and I 876 01:21:00.119 --> 01:21:04.319 think this is not unlike the sort of Game of Thrones version in Europe. 877 01:21:05.199 --> 01:21:11.399 Every one of those players knows that if something changes and the game of who's 878 01:21:11.399 --> 01:21:14.800 sitting on the throne changes, they could be dead. And I think the 879 01:21:14.880 --> 01:21:18.960 same thing was happening here. They're all dynasties, and they're abought bloodlines, 880 01:21:19.039 --> 01:21:26.000 and so if somebody knew made the run at power, they would kill off 881 01:21:26.119 --> 01:21:30.520 anyone else who could challenge their authority. And so in many cases, if 882 01:21:30.960 --> 01:21:35.760 a great leader passes away, I make this illusion in that chapter that the 883 01:21:35.880 --> 01:21:43.560 rest of the family would sacrifice themselves because they knew if they didn't, they 884 01:21:43.600 --> 01:21:48.000 would go interesting, whether they wanted to or not. So it became sort 885 01:21:48.039 --> 01:21:56.359 of ritualized self sacrifice. We don't know how it happened, but that made 886 01:21:56.439 --> 01:22:00.359 sense to me as an indigenous person and looking at system and the role of 887 01:22:00.479 --> 01:22:04.880 families and dynasties and elite, et cetera. That's that was my interpretation what 888 01:22:05.000 --> 01:22:13.159 I'd seen from the anthropological record. Forgive me the books called Rediscovering Turtle Island. 889 01:22:13.239 --> 01:22:17.479 My guest today has been Taylor Keene. I urge you to get this 890 01:22:17.680 --> 01:22:20.479 book just came out. I mean, it just came out a week ago, 891 01:22:21.439 --> 01:22:25.600 and it has and we haven't got a chance to get around to it 892 01:22:25.600 --> 01:22:31.399 because we're times limited. That has wonderful diagrams on these mounds. They the 893 01:22:31.520 --> 01:22:36.960 details of why they would build the mound, and it's cosmological referencing to different 894 01:22:38.079 --> 01:22:45.000 star systems and seasonal systems. As we conclude, Taylor, Uh, you 895 01:22:45.159 --> 01:22:49.159 bring up at towards the end of the book something that I thought it was 896 01:22:49.279 --> 01:22:56.720 fascinating. Scott Walters talks about this as well, is the influence of Mesoamerican 897 01:22:56.880 --> 01:23:01.960 cultures into what is present day United States. You suggest, and I think 898 01:23:02.000 --> 01:23:11.920 you even say that the toll tech design and people were in the America's Northern 899 01:23:11.960 --> 01:23:16.279 America at a very early period. Talk a little bit about that. Well, 900 01:23:16.319 --> 01:23:19.279 I'm not sure if I would agree with that. First of all, 901 01:23:19.359 --> 01:23:26.479 toll tech is just an anthropological term. We don't know what people's or exactly 902 01:23:26.520 --> 01:23:30.640 who comprised that. That's one of the theories is that somehow the toll Techs 903 01:23:30.640 --> 01:23:33.880 were the mysterious mound builder culture. And most of this theory came up in 904 01:23:33.920 --> 01:23:41.800 the late eighteen hundreds. Maybe my dear friend Scott Walter believes that is a 905 01:23:41.880 --> 01:23:46.560 big question in anthropology is what is the connection between meso America and North America. 906 01:23:47.439 --> 01:23:54.880 Very little, if a scant or no evidence has been found to show 907 01:23:54.920 --> 01:23:59.720 that there was trade in between. My perspective is you can't get around it. 908 01:23:59.760 --> 01:24:04.680 From from a cosmological perspective, from a mythology perspective, you see comparisons 909 01:24:05.720 --> 01:24:11.600 self evident in my opinion, First Father, first Mother, the thunder Twins, 910 01:24:12.840 --> 01:24:15.319 the upper realm, the lower realm, the underworld, whatever, they 911 01:24:15.439 --> 01:24:19.520 called them, different things. But there's a couple of scholars that I really 912 01:24:19.840 --> 01:24:23.840 like their work and talk about it in my book. But where they're making 913 01:24:23.880 --> 01:24:29.800 these deeper comparisons, there's a couple of theories that I've seen out there, 914 01:24:30.399 --> 01:24:34.720 whether it was one person or a set of individuals that experienced that cosmology and 915 01:24:34.800 --> 01:24:46.479 brought this powerful story back. I would compare it to the sharing and prostalytization 916 01:24:46.880 --> 01:24:54.079 of the Christian myth across the world, a similar type of thing. It 917 01:24:54.199 --> 01:24:58.159 was a powerful, compelling story, and people are attracted to it. And 918 01:24:58.359 --> 01:25:05.159 just as they're attract to the stories of Jesus and ancient biblical times, here 919 01:25:05.319 --> 01:25:11.000 they were attracted to these stories that came out of messo America. But enough 920 01:25:11.039 --> 01:25:15.079 time went along that there's variations in North America that made it uniquely our own, 921 01:25:15.199 --> 01:25:19.039 and it grew out of its own. But we have a core value 922 01:25:19.079 --> 01:25:25.960 across all of indigenous peoples, which is we are all related. I have 923 01:25:26.079 --> 01:25:30.279 to say this though. I've seen some of the sculptures of the Mississippian Mound 924 01:25:30.319 --> 01:25:36.960 builders, and some of their clay figurines look surprisingly like Maya. Oh yeah, 925 01:25:38.199 --> 01:25:43.000 I mean to me, there's no mistake. There's absolutely a connection. 926 01:25:45.399 --> 01:25:47.680 And when you look at, like I said, the rogan plates from the 927 01:25:47.800 --> 01:25:51.159 Edawa Mound, I mean most people would look at that and say that is 928 01:25:51.279 --> 01:25:58.640 meso American, but it's you know, it's our own versions of those stories. 929 01:25:59.119 --> 01:26:01.960 Why is it so far hard for anthropologists to go It's possible that the 930 01:26:02.079 --> 01:26:09.880 Maya or other people came into what is currently Mississippi Valley, Ohio Valley and 931 01:26:10.079 --> 01:26:15.399 settled there or traded. Well, there's no evidence of any of which you're 932 01:26:16.239 --> 01:26:21.920 alluding to there that they've found. There's evidence, you know, for example, 933 01:26:23.079 --> 01:26:29.560 those wonderful copper refuse plates that I'm referring to, it's about the story 934 01:26:29.600 --> 01:26:39.039 of the ascension of First Father. Those were manufactured at Coahokia, but found 935 01:26:40.399 --> 01:26:46.720 through a trading network to the Edewa Mounds in the Southeast Ceremonial Complex, probably 936 01:26:46.760 --> 01:26:51.880 the ancestors of the Muscogee Creeks and the Chalktaws and the Chicken Saws and the 937 01:26:51.960 --> 01:26:59.039 Seminoles. But that same story reflected down there. However, as far as 938 01:26:59.079 --> 01:27:03.359 I'm aware, there is no evidence of finding objects up north that were conclusively 939 01:27:03.960 --> 01:27:10.600 created in meso America or vice versa. So without that evidence, I mean. 940 01:27:11.199 --> 01:27:14.479 But to me, more importantly is the cosmology and the story is from 941 01:27:14.520 --> 01:27:19.640 there, so there is some relationship. But chronologically speaking, mess America happened 942 01:27:19.680 --> 01:27:28.840 first, and the populations were there first. So it as tough as it 943 01:27:28.960 --> 01:27:31.359 may be for some of the indigenous peoples of North America, we do come 944 01:27:31.439 --> 01:27:39.920 from them, at least cosmologically speaking and from an agrarian perspective. When peoples 945 01:27:40.600 --> 01:27:45.199 came here, whether it was by bearing straight or by a boat or waves 946 01:27:45.279 --> 01:27:49.039 one hundred thousand years ago, we don't know. But we're all related and 947 01:27:49.159 --> 01:27:55.319 those stories are intertwined. Amazing Taylor, what would you leave like to leave 948 01:27:55.399 --> 01:28:02.239 the audience with as a concluding remark? Actually, also within that, why 949 01:28:02.560 --> 01:28:05.960 is it important to buy your book, and I love your book. I 950 01:28:05.960 --> 01:28:11.319 think it's a good step forward, and I can see bits and pieces of 951 01:28:11.359 --> 01:28:15.560 your next book coming out of this one. I appreciate that, Cliff, 952 01:28:15.680 --> 01:28:17.199 I need some encouragement. It's hard to write a book. It is. 953 01:28:20.199 --> 01:28:25.760 Call to arms is typically what I like to think about with this That's the 954 01:28:25.880 --> 01:28:30.560 title of the work. For indigenous peoples. You need to rediscover your own 955 01:28:30.720 --> 01:28:33.680 histories, and that's what this book is for. May it serve as a 956 01:28:33.760 --> 01:28:40.840 model for the leaders of the seventh generation to do their job, and I 957 01:28:41.000 --> 01:28:45.600 try to do my part to add something meaningful to society. For the rest 958 01:28:45.680 --> 01:28:51.239 of the world, I think it's really important to listen to indigenous peoples as 959 01:28:51.319 --> 01:28:57.399 we reclaim our own histories and understandings of the world, because I do think 960 01:28:57.520 --> 01:29:09.119 that we have a structure in our mindset as indigenous peoples to love the earth 961 01:29:10.039 --> 01:29:15.239 and to respect all of the different aspects. We don't think of ourselves as 962 01:29:15.319 --> 01:29:18.840 human as above the plants and the animals. It's all a sacred balance. 963 01:29:19.880 --> 01:29:24.960 And if there's one thing I want people to take away is to understand that 964 01:29:25.600 --> 01:29:30.079 this model, even in spirit, should be embraced by everyone. The tangible 965 01:29:30.159 --> 01:29:36.000 takes away. Wherever you're from in America. Look around. There's sacred geography 966 01:29:36.359 --> 01:29:43.359 geography around you everywhere. If you don't know what stories are being told there, 967 01:29:43.439 --> 01:29:46.399 do the research. You can find it. Every single inch of this 968 01:29:46.600 --> 01:29:53.319 continent has been inhabited by indigenous peoples for at least twenty three thousand plus years 969 01:29:53.439 --> 01:29:58.039 and probably closer to one hundred thousand. People tell me all the time about 970 01:29:58.079 --> 01:30:00.560 the arrowheads they found, and they think there's something very rare. Every single 971 01:30:00.680 --> 01:30:05.000 inch of this continent has arrowheads on It depends on how far down you go 972 01:30:05.359 --> 01:30:12.039 to see how old they are. Amazing, All right, fantastic Rediscovering Turtle 973 01:30:12.119 --> 01:30:16.439 Island. My guest has been Taylor Taylor Keen and I want to give everyone 974 01:30:16.560 --> 01:30:25.000 your web address. It is www seed Sacred seed dot org. And do 975 01:30:25.000 --> 01:30:29.640 you have social media? You got a YouTube page and an Instagram page? 976 01:30:29.680 --> 01:30:33.720 What else do you got? Yeah, I've could point people towards www dot 977 01:30:33.840 --> 01:30:40.960 Rediscovering Turtle Island dot com. And also if folks want to follow me on 978 01:30:41.079 --> 01:30:47.399 Instagram, that's Taylor Keene seven on Instagram and I'm on basically all forms of 979 01:30:47.520 --> 01:30:51.600 social media. You can look up Taylor Keen or Rediscovering Turtle Island and people 980 01:30:51.680 --> 01:30:57.800 can look at my little nonprofit website, Sacred Seed and a Sacred Seed where 981 01:30:57.840 --> 01:31:00.319 you have your lectures posted and where you or events are and things. Or 982 01:31:00.399 --> 01:31:04.079 is that another site. I'm trying to figure that out right now. Probably 983 01:31:04.119 --> 01:31:10.199 it's going to be on a Rediscovering Turtle Island, but I should probably incorporate 984 01:31:10.279 --> 01:31:14.239 that into Sacred Seed too. But I'm not hard to find. People want 985 01:31:14.239 --> 01:31:18.800 to contact me, You can contact me through the Rediscovering Turtle Island site or 986 01:31:19.800 --> 01:31:24.039 most people figure out a way to find me. So fantastic, Hey, 987 01:31:24.239 --> 01:31:27.079 much success on this book. I thank you so much for having me. 988 01:31:27.239 --> 01:31:38.239 Cliff a wonderful, wonderful experience. Thank you. It's so wonderful to have 989 01:31:38.479 --> 01:31:45.479 the Indigenous American perspective on ancient American sites, earth mounds, what they call 990 01:31:45.560 --> 01:31:50.920 earthen works. And you know, this is why Cliff and Mahoodi and these 991 01:31:51.000 --> 01:31:57.680 other elders who have been on this program are so insightful because we get the 992 01:31:58.199 --> 01:32:01.319 we get two sites. We have the academic science side, which is looking 993 01:32:01.399 --> 01:32:10.920 at you know, structures and artifacts and traditions from a very rigid point of 994 01:32:11.000 --> 01:32:14.520 view, and then we have an Indigenous American point of view, which is 995 01:32:14.720 --> 01:32:19.399 very fluid and insightful because these are the people who established these sites, who 996 01:32:19.520 --> 01:32:26.800 built the mounds, who discovered and were sensitive to these spots where or these 997 01:32:28.359 --> 01:32:34.199 places like Kahokia were built. You know, so wonderful. We're going to 998 01:32:34.239 --> 01:32:39.079 have to have Taylor back, and I strongly urge you to get his book, 999 01:32:39.159 --> 01:32:44.920 Rediscovering Turtle Island. It just came out and I was just when we 1000 01:32:45.000 --> 01:32:49.640 finished this interview, I was mentioning to Taylor that, you know, he 1001 01:32:49.720 --> 01:32:55.479 needs to get on the circuit, the conference circuit, and I'm going to 1002 01:32:55.560 --> 01:32:59.760 speak to people that I know. And he's got the reason. This book 1003 01:32:59.840 --> 01:33:02.079 is really nice as that it's not like five hundred pages, it's a couple 1004 01:33:02.199 --> 01:33:09.960 hundred pages, but it's packed with information. And he has excellent graphs on 1005 01:33:10.920 --> 01:33:15.800 these mounds and how they designed them, the male and the masculine and feminine 1006 01:33:15.840 --> 01:33:23.319 principles behind these mounds, and you know, there's so much unknown energetic work 1007 01:33:24.159 --> 01:33:32.359 and enhanced work using magnetic fields to lurk energy that is the basis for them. 1008 01:33:33.000 --> 01:33:38.560 I mean, people just didn't walk up and build a city nowhere. 1009 01:33:39.239 --> 01:33:44.039 There were special attributes and this is all presented in this book. What are 1010 01:33:44.119 --> 01:33:50.560 these attributes? Why would they build these huge cities? I mean, Kahokia 1011 01:33:51.239 --> 01:33:58.760 at its peak apparently was around ten thousand people. So anyhow, real fun. 1012 01:33:59.439 --> 01:34:01.560 Best of life to Taylor on this book, and I really suggest you 1013 01:34:01.640 --> 01:34:05.479 get it. I saw it on I just saw it on Amazon. It's 1014 01:34:05.520 --> 01:34:14.399 on Amazon and it's a good read. Hey, summer is here and it's 1015 01:34:14.479 --> 01:34:18.039 time to think about vacation. We got one in the fall. If you're 1016 01:34:18.199 --> 01:34:25.520 prepared to come with us to Mexico. It's our Sacred Mayan Temples of Yucatan, 1017 01:34:25.680 --> 01:34:30.479 Mexico, November eighth through the seventeenth. It's a one week tour and 1018 01:34:30.800 --> 01:34:33.319 it is going to be fantastic. For more information on the full light itenerary, 1019 01:34:33.960 --> 01:34:39.880 go to earth Agents dot com Forward slash Tours and check it out. 1020 01:34:39.920 --> 01:34:43.680 And check out all of our tours because we're going to be listing our twenty 1021 01:34:43.760 --> 01:34:48.079 twenty five tours at the end of July and next year is going to be 1022 01:34:48.159 --> 01:34:57.239 a blast as well, So Earth Ancients dot com Forward slash Tours. All 1023 01:34:57.279 --> 01:34:59.600 right, that's it for this program. I want to thank my guest today, 1024 01:35:00.000 --> 01:35:04.560 Taylor Keen, coming to us from Omaha, Nebraska, USA, as 1025 01:35:04.600 --> 01:35:11.520 always the team of Gail tour, Mark Foster, and everyone who makes this 1026 01:35:11.640 --> 01:35:16.960 thing happen. Thanks, I appreciate it. All right, take care and 1027 01:35:17.000 --> 01:36:04.159 be well and we will talk to you next time. H