The Builders of the Mounds

Water Panther/ Water Spirit - Devil's Lake (Baraboo, Wisconsin)

The water panther shaped mound is believed to be an effigy representative of the great spirit of the underworld in their sky/earth belief system. These mounds took an awful lot if time to make - beginning with a ditch that was built in the shape of the mound, so that the mounds actually have a 3-D shape, that is, they are just as deep in the ground as they were high off the ground around them. Also - some of the earth that was used quite possibly was brought in from another sacred space. Lastly, different colored earth is commonly found in layers of these mounds as well, such as red, yellow and blue clays. Some burials are commonly found in these mounds as well, and many of these have never been excavated, so that while it is quite possible, I am not able to tell you whether any of these have any in them.

Click here to watch a video we did of an intaglio (carved) effigy mound in Madison, Wisconsin and that I refer to in the video below.