Read People of the Morning Star Online

Authors: Kathleen O'Neal Gear,W. Michael Gear

Tags: #Fiction, #Historical, #Native American & Aboriginal

People of the Morning Star

 

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To Margaret Withey

For the gift of our best friend,

the Saratoga Tedi Bear,

and

your help when Michael needed it most

during those hard times in graduate school.

We haven’t forgotten.

 

Acknowledgments

First we’d like to recognize our superb team at Tor/Forge books. Our publisher, Tom Doherty, has supported the First North Americans, or “People” series since the beginning. Tom has always believed in telling our nation’s story as a means of perpetuating an understanding of what it truly means to be “an American.” Especially when that story spins out of our Native American heritage.

Linda Quinton, Tor’s associate publisher, has served as our guiding light for over twenty-five years. This is our chance to express our thanks for the times that she’s listened patiently while we ranted, reassured us when we cried on her shoulder, and always given it to us straight. Bless you, Linda.

Our editor, Susan Chang, is the strong third leg of our Tor tripod. How can we ever thank you for your enthusiasm, critical eye, and endless support for our work? Susan, without you we’d be lost.

Special mention must go to Dr. Laura Scheiber for helping us to establish connections. To Dr. Tim Pauketat, we say thanks for your time at the Society for American Archaeology in Memphis; we didn’t forget Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies and the immense influence she had on Cahokia. When we mentioned the possibility of a new Cahokia book, an ebullient Dr. David Anderson grinned across his glass of beer and said, “Great! Go for it!” Thanks for your support over the years, David.

In writing
People of the Morning Star,
we have relied heavily on the research of many, but would like to specifically single out Tim Pauketat, James Brown, Robert L. Hall, F. Kent Reilly III, George Lankford, James F. Garber, John Kelly, William Iseminger, Thomas Emerson, George Holley, and so many others.

We were struggling over how to interpret Cahokia’s political structure, when at the 2012 Society for American Archaeology meetings in Memphis, Dr. Gerardo Gutierrez, backed by Dr. Stephen Lekson, provided us with a viable hypothesis: something similar to the Altepetl system of political organization. From it we have postulated the Cahokian “Houses” used in the novel. To Dr. Gutierrez, and Steve Lekson (again), our most sincere thanks.

Finally we extend our thanks to the Cahokia Mounds Museum Society. Not only do they manage one of the greatest archaeological sites in North America, but the museum shop has carried our books and supported our work for more than twenty years now. We urge everyone to visit the Cahokia Mounds site and to tour the magnificent museum. You can contact them at
www.cahokiamounds.org
.

 

Contents

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Frontispiece

Map of the greater city of Cahokia

Map of Central City/Morning Star Town

Nonfiction Introduction

Introduction

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

The Spider

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

The Fly

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

The Serpent

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

The Resurrection

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

The Lizard

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Where Tie Snakes Lurk

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

Chapter Thirty-seven

The Falcon

Chapter Thirty-eight

Chapter Thirty-nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-one

Chapter Forty-two

Chapter Forty-three

Chapter Forty-four

Chapter Forty-five

Chapter Forty-six

Chapter Forty-seven

Chapter Forty-eight

Chapter Forty-nine

The Web

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-one

Chapter Fifty-two

Chapter Fifty-three

Chapter Fifty-four

Chapter Fifty-five

Chapter Fifty-six

Chapter Fifty-seven

Chrysalis

Chapter Fifty-eight

Chapter Fifty-nine

Chapter Sixty

Chapter Sixty-one

Chapter Sixty-two

Chapter Sixty-three

Chapter Sixty-four

Chapter Sixty-five

Chapter Sixty-six

Chapter Sixty-seven

Epilogue

Historical Note

Bibliography

Tor and Forge titles by Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear

About the Authors

Copyright

 

Nonfiction Introduction

Archaeological research has revolutionized our understanding of the great site at Cahokia since we wrote
People of the River
in 1991. Today that novel still describes what researchers now call “Old Cahokia” at the end of the Edlehardt cultural phase, which ended at 1050
C.E.

At that time, we went out on a controversial limb and referred to Cahokia as a state because it made sense. Today researchers talk in terms of “imperial” Cahokia; as research has advanced, that, too, now makes sense.

A younger generation of archaeologists, such as Tim Pauketat, John Kelly, Kent Reilly, and others have beaten their way out of “processual” archaeology’s straightjacket and taken a new look at Cahokia and its impact. In many ways, Cahokia was to North America as Rome was to Europe. Even today its stamp on Native American culture remains.

Cahokia, at its height, consisted of a series of mound centers built in strategic locations across the American Bottom on the eastern floodplain of the Mississippi and at St. Louis itself. Each appears to have been a semi-autonomous politico-religious center tied to its peers through a shared mythology.

At the beginning of the Lohmann phase at around 1050
C.E.
, something miraculous happened at Cahokia; what Dr. Tim Pauketat calls the “Big Bang.” People, in the tens of thousands, from all over the American Midwest picked up and migrated to Cahokia. They brought their traditional designs, pottery, and household architecture, along, with their peculiar styles of clothing, kinship, and languages, and settled every bit of arable land in and around Cahokia.

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