It was near zero degrees and calm when eleven of us gathered before sunrise in the plowed parking lot of Lizard Mound Park on the morning of Winter Solstice Sun Rise (WSSR), Saturday December 21, 2024.
Our purpose was not to co-opt traditional ritual or promote a new one, but rather to document the sun-rise’s alignment with the unique Lizard Mound. We talked about an ancient Menomini legend that serves as a mnemonic for mounds and features of the site.
Observing winter solstice sun-rise at the horizon during Wisconsin's gray-sky Decembers is uncertain. Almost an hour before sunrise the extended eastern horizon had a rosy glow. And, a few minutes after “official” sunrise, the sun cleared the distant tree canopies. We were rewarded with clear sight of the early sun over the tail of the 260-foot-long Lizard Mound.
A highlight of this WSSR gathering was the commentary of a Menominee Tribal leader who not only knew from childhood the legend that we met to discuss, but expanded on how tribal beliefs and practice about gender roles build on the legend. His message made our time at the Lizard Mound particularly significant and memorable. Good relations were strengthened.
The morning’s walk ended as the story recounts, in grandfather Winter Hawk’s bosom, where we gathered as a group.
Based on Milwaukee Audubon Society’s land management recommendations for the park and lessons from MAS’s adjacent Bear’s Head Springs property, after snowmelt the Friends intend to mark naturally seeded white-oak-type seedlings that the carry the site’s genetics and can become the next generation of anthropogenic oak savanna trees. This work will be done in co-operation with Kettle Moraine State Forest staff and once located, these seedlings will be fitted with tree protectors to become the site’s future open-grown trees. As few as twenty-five small, white-oak-type seedlings would be adequate stocking for this site’s savanna future.
Although some of the current mature white oak have forest-grown form or suffer defects, it is important that they are retained as seed trees because their genetics hold essential data for future genetics and biogeographic research of the Lizard Mound group as a distance-pilgrimage destination.
Information on upcoming Friends of Lizard Mound Park events will be posted on Milwaukee Audubon Society’s web site.
Original construction of the site’s unique Lizard Mound has preserved its angular relationship with winter solstice sun rise (WSSR) for many centuries. The morning sun seemed to linger beyond the Lizard Mound’s tail on Saturday December 21, 2024.
Menominee leader, Bryant Wapoose, explained that the mound’s lizard form, symbolic of boy, is consistent with the Menomini legend of “The Boy Who Caught the Sun.”
