Chucalissa Museum

Of all the museums in Memphis, Chucalissa Museum was among my first choices to visit. I became interested in anthropology and archaeology when I was an undergrad. C'mon yall must know the girl is a geek thru and thru by now. Right?? But I blame Nat'l Geo and their slick pages showing the excavation of Pompeii and Herculaneum as setting the hook for that to be so. I worked on a dig at Angel Mounds in Evansville in 1983 and as much as I loved that experience, part of me always felt like a graverobber. (Note: I was NOT excavating graves.....but midden heaps. Yunno the garbage pile. Mostly broken pots and discarded animal bones). There was just something about holding some tiny chert that someone else had held a thousand years ago that lit me up. Angel Mounds is part of the Native American Mississipian culture, middle Mississipian to be exact, and was occupied from 1100-1450 AD and then abandoned for no known reason. (No I didnt remember that factoid, but I did look it up). Chucalissa is from the same culture and about the same time period. Alternately abandoned and then re-inhabited for unknown reasons for centuries. Excavated in the 1940's and 50's - a fact that cleaves me in two - scientist and sensitive spiritual being.

The site was a bit disappointing in appearance. The elevated plaza, concreted to be held in place - ugh! But up there as I froze my fingers blue, I felt a familiar buzz and tingle - that feeling I get when I stand in places of ancient power. Slowly the modern time space slides away into that of a thousand years ago and I am standing above the village as it was then. Standing there with the Elders - generally the women Elders. Witness to what once was. I have had similar experiences when I have stood near the Adena mounds that dot the Ohio River valley. (Never ON the mound - that is forbidden). These are much older (1000 BC- 1300AD). So I have become kinda used to these events. In that altered state, I have danced. For anyone who knows me and my general lack of co-ordination and rhythm that is just too funny to imagine. But when the elders ask, I have learned to do what they want - at least most of the time. I have been honored with full journey visions - living snapshots of cultures whose footfalls no longer grace the Earth, but whose story is still whispered in the breeze of certain places for those who are attuned to hear it.

Special thanks to the knowledgeable young Native man from the Choctaw tribe who was the museum's docent and answered all my naive questions without ever making me feel less than or guilty for the whiteness of my skin. He was the gem of the afternoon as he spun out gracious story after story and I, starving being that I am, gobbled them down so they could live inside me and nourish me.