Mishipishu and Danger in the Inland Waterway Landscape of Northern Michigan

Summary

The Inland Waterway is a series of lakes, rivers, and streams that creates an inland route between Lakes Michigan and Huron. During the 1970’s, Lovis helped lead the NSF-funded Inland Waterway Project which involved survey and test excavations. The results of this research have been vital in advancing understandings of hunter-gatherer-horticulturalist social, economic, and ideological processes in the region and beyond. In a 2001 article, Lovis argued a set of clay products found at the Johnson site, a Late Woodland site from the Inland Waterway Project, were clay effigy representations of bear and Mishipishu. In this paper, inspired by this work, I examine a set of clay products recovered from other sites in the Inland Waterway region as similar possible Mishipishu effigies. Mishipishu is a complexly powerful, seductive, and dangerous underwater panther known as the head of all water spirits. Ethnohistoric accounts indicate this manitou was a malevolent figure in dreams of hunters as well as one that received special prayers for protection when ricing or fishing. I interpret these figurines as features connected to the need for accurate socioecological information among hunter-gatherers occupying physically and socially dangerous landscapes, another important concept reiterated by Bill throughout his career.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20948