Skunk Hill

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A Native Ceremonial Community in Wisconsin

Robert A. Birmingham

The little-known story of a First Nations community that fought to preserve Native culture and values in the face of forced assimilation.

128 pages, 6 x 9, 45 b&w photos, 6 maps
Paperback: $14.95 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-705-1
Ebook: $9.99 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-706-8
Publication Date: 4/13/2015

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Front cover of Skunk Hill by Robert A. Birmingham

Description

Rising above the countryside of Wood County, Wisconsin, Powers Bluff is a large outcrop of quartzite rock that resisted the glaciers that flattened the surrounding countryside. It is an appropriate symbol for the Native people who once lived on its slopes, quietly resisting social and political forces that would have crushed and eroded their culture. A large band of Potawatomi, many returnees from the Kansas Prairie Band Potawatomi reservation, established the village of Tah-qua-kik or Skunk Hill in 1905 on the 300-foot-high bluff, up against the oddly shaped rocks that topped the hill and protected the community from the cold winter winds. In Skunk Hill, archeologist Robert A. Birmingham traces the largely unknown story of this community, detailing the role it played in preserving Native culture through a harsh period of US Indian policy from the 1880s to 1930s.

The story’s central focus is the Drum Dance, also known as the Dream Dance or Big Drum, a pan-tribal cultural revitalization movement that swept the Upper Midwest during the Great Depression, emphasizing Native values and rejecting the vices of the white world. Though the community disbanded by the 1930s, the site, now on the National Register of Historic Places with two dance circles still visible on the grounds, stands as testimony to the efforts of its members to resist cultural assimilation.

Author Bios

Robert Birmingham

Robert Birmingham is the former Wisconsin State Archaeologist and lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha. Now retired, he continues to research and write on various historical and archaeological topics. The Wisconsin Historical Society Press has published three of his books: Aztalan: Mysteries of an Ancient Indian Town (with Lynne Goldstein), Life, Death and Archaeology at Fort Blue Mounds, and Skunk Hill: A Native Ceremonial Community in Wisconsin. He currently serves as the Executive Director of the Friends of Aztalan State Park.

The Skunk Hill settlement, Tah-qua-kik, is considered a sacred place by the Prairie Potawatomi Nation because it is here many of our ancestors visited, lived, and died. Birmingham explains the important role that the community played in maintaining traditional values during a time of religious and cultural suppression.

Rey Kichkumme

Former Vice Chairman, Prairie Potawatomi Nation

“A respectful history that goes far beyond what is usually written about Native people and into sacred ways.”

—Art Shegonee (Potawatomi/Menominee), dance performer and Skunk Hill descendant

“In Skunk Hill, Birmingham has done a great service to Indian people, scholars of ethnohistory, and the general public interested in indigenous life in Wisconsin.”

—Larry Nesper, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and American Indian Studies, University of Wisconsin–Madison