Honoring Our Roots
“I'm reminded about how important it is for me to honor my ancestors and those that are buried here to come back and keep telling their stories. There is a Macon to Muscogee connection and understanding and appreciating each other's culture is so, so important for us and creating a landscape for everyone to come and enjoy...”
History of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation
The Muscogee People are descendants of the Mississippian culture that spanned the entire Mississippi River valley and floodplain. Ancestral Muscogee (800-1540 CE) constructed monumental earthen pyramids along the rivers of the area as part of their elaborate ceremonial complex extending regionally from the Macon plateau near present-day Macon, Georgia.
Chronicles of Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto's expedition in the 1540s write the first descriptions of the ancestors of the historic Creek and other Southeastern people. They note that many of the towns feature open plazas, earthen temple mounds, public buildings and homes constructed of upright logs, interwoven with vines or cane and plastered with clay (wattle and daub).
Upon the arrival of Europeans, disease and warfare lead to the decimation of populations. The indigenous people scatter among separate, related or allied "towns."
Population shifts, town survivors and refugees from other tribes, pressure from slave traders, and changes in trade practices lead to the combination of groups for stability. Member tribes are tribal towns, numbering at least fifty with a population of more than twenty thousand. Within this political structure, each tribal town, having its own leader, maintains political autonomy and distinct land holdings; however, the language and the culture of the founding tribal towns becomes dominant. Collectively the towns consider themselves a confederacy consisting of distinct provincial groups.
-- by: Brian OntheHill
More Representation in Macon
Words of Muscogee (Creek) take prominent perches on Macon street signs
Barely a mile west of the Great Temple Mound, a sacred, handmade mountain of earth that peeks above treetops near the Ocmulgee River here, words from its Indigenous builders’ language now appear…
Ocmulgee Indigenous Celebration
The Ocmulgee Indigenous Celebration is more than an event – it's a unique opportunity to foster understanding, appreciation, and connections across cultures.
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