The Hard Road to the Happy Hunting Grounds

This is the victim's skull.  A visible crack can be seen

running from behind the right eye ridge to the base of

the cranium.  This is evidence of the tremendous force

of the death blow.  

This is the story of a brutal, premeditated murder.  It happened on a high ridge overlooking a deep hardwood bottom near Limestone Creek just outside of Sandersville, Georgia in Washington County.  The victim had been marched up a foot path winding through towering pine and white oak trees to the site where he would lose his life and the men who would soon kill him walked only a few steps behind.  He knew very well that his fate was sealed.  He need not run for the men in the execution party were all capable of catching him with ease.  All of them were lean, muscular and built for the kill.  One of those men walking behind him was carrying a large ax and this was no coincidence.  To a man, they knew what the ax would be used for once they reached the top of the high bluff.  

 

This is the skeleton of the executed Creek

Indian as he lay in his grave immediately

prior to excavation.

The soon-to-be victim knew this land well.  It was where he grew up.  He had fished in Limestone Creek as a boy and came of age as a highly skilled hunter of the elusive whitetail deer which was a staple of his family's diet.  His youth was a distant memory now.  He had walked many trails before as far west as the Ocmulgee River and to the east all the way to the Savannah River.  He had walked this exact trail before, in fact, but never under these circumstances and it would be the last trail he would ever walk in life.   

 

The terrible weight of what was about to befall him may have brought tears to his eyes but he fought them back and tried to exude what little bit of bravery he could muster.  Cowardice even as he faced his own death would bring shame upon his family and this he desperately hoped to avoid. 

 

As the execution party topped the hill, he saw his mother weeping and his father was there too trying to maintain composure.  They were standing over a shallow, open grave at the bottom of which there was already one dead body which had been washed and bound into fetal position.  The family of the deceased had placed personal items in the grave around the body including a handmade clay bowl that had been filled with kernels of corn.  The items would never again serve any earthly purpose but placing them there helped the family better cope with seeing the dead body of their loved one covered with dirt and committed to the earth for all time to come.  But there was also the belief that the soul of the deceased now walked invisibly within their midst or hovered just above observing the respect that was afforded to the body which it had recently abandoned.  And so it was that these last rites and acts of earthly affection were performed by the survivors to ensure that the spirit would not morph into a malevolent force that would bring them havoc for the remainder of their days in this land. 

 

This is the skeleton of another Creek Indian

found buried beside the one who was

executed.  The clay Muscogee Creek bowl

is seen here as well.

The scene was finally set as the condemned, the executioner and his party and the onlookers gathered in a circle around the other open grave at the bottom of which there was no body.  Yet.  The executioner was the largest man among them all.  The expression on his face was deadly serious as he abruptly outstretched a muscular arm toward the man holding the ax.  The instrument of death was handed over to the lead man and the other men in the party took a few steps back.  The executioner then grabbed the upper arm of the condemned man and walked him a step closer to the edge of the pit then kicked the back of his legs and he fell to the ground on his knees.  One last act of human kindness or comfort was offered though.  At the nod of the executioner, a woman approached and opened her hand in which there were two crude fired balls of clay with small stems attached.  The condemned man took them from her and placed them in each of his ears.  They were ear plugs meant to prevent him from hearing the whir of the wind that would be produced at the moment the ax came down towards the back of his skull.

This is an artist's rendering provided by the

archaeologists who studied the site showing

how this sort of execution would have been

conducted by the Creek Indians.

The executioner then took the ax handle in both hands and centered himself standing directly over his victim.  The doomed man took a helpless last look around at his family and the others gathered to witness his death.  He then filled his lungs with a final breath and looked down toward the earth.  When his head became steady, the executioner lifted the ax high above his head and with all the strength of his upper body, brought it crashing down and buried its blade deep in the man's head with a dull crack.  At the same time, a fine spray of blood, brain matter and small fragments of his skull was cast in all directions landing on the feet of the observers and the bases of the nearby pine trees.  The force of the blow was so great that it shattered the skull along its cranial lines and bright red blood oozed out from the hole over his black hair.  His spirit sprang out and soared upward far above the virgin timber, creeks and rivers in its ascent to the Happy Hunting Ground and his now dead body slumped forward and twitched as the nerves continued to fire at random with no corresponding instruction from the brain.  The executioner then straddled the body and pulled the ax head from its point of rest and the sound of stone scraping against skull bone broke the silence that had descended upon the ridge. 

 

The entry point of the ax can be seen at 

the rear of the cranium in this picture. 

Fractures along the cranial lines are also

visible.  

 

The sentence was now complete and the dead man's mother with the help of some of the other women at the scene brought water from the creek in clay bowls and gourds to wash his body and the blood from his now contorted skull.  After that task was completed, the men remaining at the site of the execution arranged his body into fetal position and bound it with ropes made of natural fibers and vines so that it would not outstretch as rigamortis set in.  The corpse was then lowered into the hole directly facing the other body and the dark, lifeless eyes of both bodies seemed to stare at each other even in death.  The only thing between them was the ceremonial clay bowl filled with corn.  The bodies were then covered with the loamy soil of Georgia's Fall Line and there they remained for all time to come underneath the towering pines.

 

Examples of stone axes found in

Washington County, Georgia.

This case will never be featured on a news network, the GBI will not issue a press release announcing that the body in a cold case investigation has been found and the District Attorney will never bring murder charges against the responsible parties.  The reason?  This murder took place likely before the year 1600 just outside of the city limits of modern-day Sandersville, Georgia.  Now, whether he met his end exactly as described above is anyone's guess. Even so, it's likely the first documented case of murder in Washington County.  The victim was a Muscogee Creek Indian.  The executioners were members of his tribe.  He really was found buried in a grave alongside another Creek Indian with a clay bowl placed between the bodies.  There were remnants of particulate grains in the bowl believed to have been indian corn.  Also found in the grave was a clay ball with a small stem attached which was believed to have been an ear plug to prevent him from hearing the sound of the ax coming down on him.  A matching piece was not found so this is not a certainty but the ear plug theory is the most plausible explanation.  It was clearly not jewelry and was found at the side of the skull near to where the ear would have been.      

 

Savannah Complicated Stamp pattern clay bowl

found between the Indian skeletons.

 

The bowl found at the burial site is of key importance to unlocking its secrets.  It is known as Savannah Complicated Stamp pottery and the design was made by pressing a wooden paddle with the design carved into it against the bowl while the clay was still wet.  The same basic pottery design has been unearthed throughout middle and south Georgia and it is the calling card of the Muscogee Creek Indians.  When you find pottery bearing the concentric circle design, you are standing on or are very near a Creek Indian site.  The Muscogee Creeks were the direct descendants of the Mississippian Moundbuilder culture that constructed the huge mounds outside of Macon at what is now the Ocmulgee National Monument. 

 

Sandersville and Washington County was a stronghold of the Creeks and there are sites littered throughout the area.  The mysterious Indian trade route known as the Uchee Trail ran through southern parts of the county.  The victim of this execution may have been a long term resident of Washington County or he may simply have been here temporarily as he navigated along the Uchee Trail.  However, one thing is certain: something occurred here in which he was involved and it led to his brutal death and burial within walking distance of the Courthouse Square.  

 

Clearly, he was executed but the reason will forever remain shrouded in mystery.  The archeologists who studied his grave concluded that his execution could have been in retribution for a bad act he was responsible for.  Perhaps adultery.  But there is also the possibility that his death was the end result of ritual sacrifice.  If he was sacrificed, there is an implication that the other Creek who he was buried with was the Muscogee Creek equivalent of royalty or a high ranking member of the Chiefdom.  The other skeleton showed no sign of death by force.  The skull was found in pieces but it probably collapsed over time after becoming waterlogged after the brain decomposed.  Upon being unearthed, the skull cavity of the executed Creek had been filled with sand over time - probably thanks to the gaping ax blade hole at its rear and that is what maintained its intact structure.

 

There are many variations of early Creek Indian beliefs about the afterlife.  It is thought that they believed a body had two souls. One soul akin to the breath of the body died when the body died.  The other soul was the eternal, spiritual soul which departed the body at death.  Important in this context is the fact that they believed that the one could capture or harness the eternal soul of another to the captor's benefit.  Thus, it is plausible that the royal Indian here died of natural causes and the victim was sacrificed in order to release his eternal soul from the body so that it could be captured and used by the other to cross successfully into the afterlife.  And that afterlife may have been known as The Happy Hunting Ground, where the game was plentiful and the spears and arrows of warriors always found their mark.