10 Unsolved Native American Mysteries

10 Unsolved Native American Mysteries

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at unexplained phenomena and unresolved cases throughout the history of indigenous cultures in the modern-day United States.

Poverty Point Earthworks

Some 400 acres on northeastern Louisiana’s Macon Ridge are adorned with a sophisticated system of ridges and mounds. Named for a 19th century plantation, Poverty Point is believed to have been constructed by a hunter-gatherer community between 1700 and 1100 BCE. Agricultural advancements typically led to such complex engineering, and wouldn’t produce anything more complex for over 2,000 years. Never mind the impracticality of the project with contemporary tools and animal husbandry. Why go through the trouble? Was this site ceremonial, residential, a trading hub? Maybe it was all that and more before it was abandoned for some reason. The Poverty Point earthworks now serve as a protected monument of Louisiana and to the brilliance of earlier occupants.

Great Serpent Mound

A grassy effigy of a snake spans over 1,300 feet along the Ohio Brush Creek, and is dated to around 300 BCE. It wasn't until 2014 CE when the Adena people could be formally credited with the creation of the Great Serpent Mound. The exact reason for its creation, however, is still elusive. The chances are that it was some sort of sacred response to a connected meteor crater. Either way, something inspired the Adena to build what is still the largest serpent effigy in the world, and the Fort Ancient people to renovate it well over a thousand years later. They did a good enough job for the Great Serpent Mound to be a stunning National Historic Landmark today.

The Bighorn Medicine Wheel

A cairn-anchored circle of stones in Wyoming's Bighorn National Park aligns with the summer solstice. What this medicine wheel doesn't align with is a specific Native American culture. We don't even know if it was constructed between the 13th and 18th century, or if that was a renovation period for a solar calendar built thousands of years earlier. But since it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970, the area has been modified for security and tourism. It also accommodates ceremonies for the many tribes that have appropriated the Bighorn Medicine Wheel as sacred. It connects them as it's always been meant to connect the earth and the sky, even if we can’t identify the people who first stood between.

Origin and Abandonment of the Cahokia Mounds

Just outside of Collinsville, Illinois once stood North America’s most complex urban center prior to colonization. We know that the Mississippians completed the six-square-mile city around 1050 CE, but not what they called it. Nor do we know how they could have engineered something so massive with such precision. For centuries, the mounds hosted royalty, trade, politics and festivities. Then, after 1350, they were abandoned, with theories ranging from ecological concerns to internal or external conflicts. The site would be named after the Cahokia tribe that later occupied it. A similar, and similarly perplexing, fate would befall the likes of Moundville in modern-day Alabama. But the Cahokia mounds stand out for the foggy rise and fall of such a mighty place.

The Ancestral Puebloan Exodus

The myth that the Ancestral Puebloan people “vanished” from Mesa Verde is long disputed, but underscores compelling questions. We know that they abandoned their complex cliff dwellings in modern-day Montezuma County, Colorado amid the “Great Drought” of the late 1200s. This seemingly hurried migration was in fact meticulously planned. However, there is evidence of catastrophic social conflict following a population boom. Folklore even posits some sort of spiritual calling. The Puebloans were relatively quick to integrate with neighboring tribes in various directions, never to return with the rain to Mesa Verde. Could this bizarre communal collapse reflect the pattern of any civilization’s downfall? Certainly, the oral traditions of Puebloan descendants frame the migration as a cautionary tale.

Crow Creek Massacre

In 1978, Missouri River erosion near South Dakota’s Fort Randall Dam revealed a mass grave. It was later determined that almost 500 Arikara ancestors were killed in an assault on a village around 1325. Over half of the population was wiped out, regardless of gender and age. There was even evidence of mutilation. The perpetrators and their motivations for such a brutal attack were never determined, but evidence of malnutrition indicates desperation over resources. The fact is that this tragedy warranted a solemn reburial ceremony at the Crow Creek Reservation over 650 years later. And designation as a National Historic Landmark should ensure further respect for the site of a dark and murky tragedy.

1770s Smallpox Epidemic

Imported disease critically devastated the New World during colonization. But the smallpox outbreak from 1775 to ‘83 was unexpected, and largely unexplained. The most popular theory is that the virus came from a Spanish expedition around that time. Strong evidence also points to Russian explorers or a spread from Mexico. In any case, the epidemic was so severe that General George Washington launched an unauthorized and reckless inoculation program to save the American Revolution. Meanwhile, at least 30 percent of the indigenous population across the Pacific Northwest was lost. With so many Native American deaths going unreported, in addition to the origins of the outbreak, it’s a mystery how many more people died than the official toll of over 130,000.

The Disappearance of Henry Berry Lowrie

Few folklore figures unite American communities like the North Carolina outlaw Henry Berry Lowrie. While the Confederate Army conscripted members of the mixed-race Lumbee tribe, he formed an interracial gang in 1865 in service of the Union. They were venerated by Native Americans and farmers alike even as their bloody criminal exploits persisted long after the American Civil War. The so-called “Lowrie War” ultimately ended with a successful $28,000 heist in 1872, then Lowrie’s disappearance. One of his comrades later claimed that he accidentally shot himself while cleaning his gun, but many believe this report was fabricated to allow his escape. To this day, no one knows the true fate of the “Robin Hood of Robeson County.”

The Grave of Sitting Bull

It became common to hide the final resting place of Native American leaders following the attempted desecration of Tecumseh’s body in battle. Over a century after Sitting Bull was killed during a chaotic arrest in 1890, the question is of which resting place is his final. By 1953, his grave at Fort Yates, North Dakota was in such poor condition that his descendants had it secretly moved to Mobridge, South Dakota. However, it’s believed that they discovered multiple sets of bones due to grave reuse. Moreover, Sitting Bull’s remains were allegedly destroyed with quicklime. Any investigation was compromised by the grave’s immediate encasement in concrete. Thus, monuments were erected at both gravesites in Sitting Bull’s honor.

Murder of Anna Mae Aquash

Born to the Mi'kmaq people of Canada, Anna Mae Aquash was one of the American Indian Movement’s strongest voices. Then, in early 1976, she was found shot dead in South Dakota. It wasn’t until the 2000s when two AIM members were convicted of murdering her on the false belief that she was an FBI informant. But some accounts suggest that this was ordered by AIM leadership. The FBI’s secrecy and flimsy initial investigation fueled rumors of their involvement. The enduring ambiguities of Aquash’s death certainly speak to her outrage at the violence within and disregard for her community. She would become a symbol in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women movement, so that the fates of Native Americans today are not lost to history.

What are some other compelling mysteries in Indigenous culture? Share some stories in the comments below.