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THE LAND<br />
loose hay in the barn loft,<br />
every load had a snake in it.<br />
Huey Hayes later lived on<br />
that farm where his dog was<br />
bitten by two or three rattlers<br />
and even though he swelled<br />
up, the dog lived.<br />
My uncle, Mike Portz,<br />
on the home place south of<br />
Springbrook, was plowing<br />
corn in the river bottom<br />
when he heard his dog<br />
bark and found the dog had<br />
cornered a (non-venomous)<br />
blowing viper up against the<br />
bluffs, the snake with his<br />
head up and hissing. One of<br />
the family’s dogs would kill<br />
rattlesnakes and sometimes<br />
was bitten. They would put<br />
the dog in the cellar and give<br />
it sweet milk to draw out the<br />
poison. Hayes speculated<br />
that a dog could maybe stand<br />
a lot of poison, like hogs that<br />
would kill rattlers in a frenzy<br />
in spite of being bitten.<br />
The snakes Huey Hayes<br />
saw probably wintered on<br />
a ridge in the Hollow just<br />
above the Schroeder place.<br />
Andy Daniels went up there<br />
one fall to kill snakes, and<br />
snakes began coming from<br />
all around as their dying<br />
compatriots were rattling.<br />
Andy departed, lickety-split.<br />
It is something to consider<br />
now whether or not<br />
Native Americans engaged<br />
in such attempts to exterminate<br />
rattlesnakes from the<br />
environment. At the very<br />
least, I think native people<br />
would have regarded such an<br />
idea, that anyone would want<br />
to eradicate a creature with<br />
its protecting spirit from a<br />
landscape alive with spiritual<br />
power, as a malevolent phantasm<br />
of a deranged mind.<br />
In 1979, on our honeymoon,<br />
Nancy and I visited<br />
some archaeologist friends<br />
who were living and working<br />
in a rather sketchy neighborhood<br />
of East St. Louis, not<br />
far from Cahokia’s Monks<br />
QUALITY<br />
HAS NO<br />
Mound which 800 years ago<br />
was the epicenter of a Native<br />
American urban civilization<br />
of at least 10,000-20,000<br />
people, with more in outlying<br />
villages, based upon an<br />
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Cody Matthiesen, Chuck Matthiesen, Sandra Matthiesen, and Mackenzie Roberts<br />
Lester Marshall, resident, and Jim Steines,<br />
Maintenance, both share a great fondness<br />
for the mighty Mississippi River. Both<br />
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a beverage while boating on the river.<br />
Jack Marlowe, resident<br />
and Sally Davies, Community<br />
Relations Coordinator, both have a deep<br />
rooted love of community and enjoy<br />
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