Wisconsin Mound Builders

The article Indian Mounds of Wisconsin discusses a crucial aspect of religion, ritual burial. Burial suggests a belief in some sort of higher being or deity. More importantly, it suggests a belief in an afterlife. Both the Neanderthals and the Homo sapiens displayed evidence of burying their dead; however, Native Americans from Wisconsin created effigies and rituals for their dead to further their own beliefs and to give assurance of the sanctuary of their loved ones. These effigy mounds are also beautiful works of art, and the sheer size of them is astounding. It is interesting to me that although there is a large location change and a gap of time between Wisconsin mound builders and the prehistoric artists we already studied, all of the cultures still use art to further their spiritual purposes. The prehistoric cultures used certain cave art, totem designs, symbols, etc. to help explain symbolic stories and to aid ritualistic belief, while the Wisconsin Native Americans actually incorporated their art into their burials. Also, the pottery created by these people is similarly comparable to the art of the prehistoric species. All of these helped aid ritualistic belief by beginning to define the afterworld (upper/lowerworlds).