Mound celebration is not disrespectful

I was dismayed by the recent news that the Ohio History Connection (OHC) has canceled the annual “Lighting the Serpent” celebration conducted at Serpent Mound in southern Ohio at this winter’s solstice on Dec 21. I attended last year’s family- friendly event conducted by the Friends of Serpent Mound with hundreds of people interested in the history of the mound and neighboring meteor crater, and was inspired to construct a smaller version in my front yard, which was featured in Sunday’s Dispatch.

The event was respectful and peaceful with luminaria outlining the mound, a native American drum circle, and a procession around the mound followed by homemade treats, coffee and cider. The OHC reasoned that such a celebration is “inauthentic.” Since the mound was built more than 2,000 years ago with no links to modern native American groups, no one really knows what its “authentic” use involved. At least we are not playing golf on mounds as allowed at the OHC’s Newark Earthworks.

The chief of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma said the behavior of visitors to the mound “is not consistent with the sacred expectations of such a site.” I say let the Oklahoma Eastern Shawnees worry about Oklahoma and let Ohioans determine what is appropriate and respectful in Ohio.

The website of the Arc of Appalachia, which manages the park, includes a Feast of the Setting Sun: A Solstice Dinner and Celebration on June 23, 2018, at Serpent Mound.

If celebrating the summer solstice allows us “to anchor our personal connection to the peoples of our past, and the infinity and majesty of our ever mysterious universe,” why is the winter solstice celebration considered disrespectful?

Let’s keep lighting the serpent! Columbus