Burial Sites

Well I finally had a suspicion of mine confirmed today. I've found rock mounds while bushwhacking around here in the Ozarks. Several are close to where I live. To me, they looked like the perfect size and shape for a burial mound, but I never found authoritative info on the web to confirm it.

In an article in last week's Ozark Sentinel about an archeological site not far from here an archeologist from MSU described what I've seen.

There are other rock mounds I've seen too, but I suspect they were built by farmers clearing a plot of land, and still others that may have been built by armed forces during the Civil War.

But the mounds near my home are unique and they are placed in what was likely considered a sacred spot by the Osage that lived here.

I think I'll go back and take another look at them. I haven't been there in years and I doubt anyone else has either. It's on public land but it's not easily accessible from anywhere and it's a pretty vicious little bushwhack no matter how you approach it. I can't provide details on where they are, of course, but if I make the hike I'll snap a photo and post it here.

Bill

Here in the PNW the common trading language was the Chinook jargon. In the Chinook jargon the word for a burial spot was memaloose.

If you look at detailed maps you'll find, among other things, a Memaloose Island in the Columbia River and a Memaloose Lake above the Clackamas River. Whenever you see a landmark with this name, you know what it was used for.