text:
Hohokam

Hohokam was a culture in the North American Southwest in what is now part of south-central Arizona, United States, and Sonora, Mexico. It existed between 300 and 1500 CE, with cultural precursors possibly as early as 300 BCE. Archaeologists disagree about whether communities that practiced the culture were related or politically united. According to local oral tradition, Hohokam societies may be the ancestors of the historic Akimel and Tohono Oʼodham in Southern Arizona.

The origin of the culture is debated. Most archaeologists either argue it emerged locally or in Mesoamerica, but it was also influenced by the Northern Pueblo culture. Hohokam settlements were located on trade routes that extended past the Hohokam area, as far east as the Great Plains and west to the Pacific coast. Hohokam societies received a remarkable amount of immigration. Some communities established significant markets, such as that in Snaketown. The harshness of the Sonoran Desert may have been the most influential factor on the society. Despite cultural exchange at trade centers, self-sufficiency and local resources were emphasized.

In modern-day Phoenix, the Hohokam are recognized for their large-scale irrigation networks. Their canal network in the Phoenix metropolitan area was the most complex in the pre-contact Western Hemisphere. A portion of the ancient canals has been renovated for the Salt River Project and helps to supply the city's water. The original canals were dirt ditches and required routine maintenance; those currently in use are lined with concrete. When Hohokam society collapsed, the dirt canals fell into disrepair. European-American settlers later infilled some canals, while others renovated, as with the Mormon pioneers settling the Lehi area of Mesa near Red Mountain.

According to the National Park Service, the word Hohokam is borrowed from the O'odham language, and is used by archaeologists to identify groups of people who lived in the Sonoran Desert. Other archaeologists prefer to identify ancient Arizona as part of the Oasisamerica tradition and instead call Hohokam the Oasisamericans. Nevertheless, Hohokam are one of the four major cultures of the American Southwest and Northern Mexico, according to Southwestern archaeology.

There are several official spelling variants for the name, including Hobokam, Huhugam, and Huhukam. The spellings are commonly thought to be interchangeable, but they have different meanings. In the 1930s, archaeologist Harold S. Gladwin differentiated Hohokam culture from others in the region. He applied the existing O'odham term for the culture, huhu-kam, in its common mistranslation as "all used up" or "those who are gone", to classify the remains that he was excavating in the Lower Gila Valley. Similarly, in the 1970s, archaeologist Hardy translated the O'odham word huhugam to mean "that which has perished." However, huhugam refers to past human life and not to objects such as ruins. Therefore, the archaeological term Hohokam should not be confused with huhugam, the reverence of ancestors and descendants.

Overview
Hohokam society is primarily associated with the Gila and lower Salt River drainages in the Phoenix basin.

The Phoenix Basin was the Hohokam Core Area, and the Hohokam Periphery were adjacent areas where the Hohokam culture extended. Collectively, the Core and Peripheries formed the greater Hohokam Regional System, which occupied the northern or Upper Sonoran Desert in Arizona. The Hohokam also extended into the Mogollon Rim.

The Hohokam Core was located along rivers, and as such inhabited a prime trade position. Trade occurred between the Patayan, who were situated along the Lower Colorado River and in southern California; the Trincheras of Sonora, Mexico; the Mogollon culture in Eastern Arizona; Southwest New Mexico; Northwest Chihuahua, Mexico; and the Ancestral Puebloans in Northern Arizona. From 900 to 1150 CE, neighboring Chaco society encouraged trade throughout northern Arizona and into southwest Colorado and southern Utah. These trade networks increased hand-to-hand trade throughout the region, with goods traveling throughout the Colorado Plateau, northern Arizona, and the Phoenix area.

Hohokam irrigation systems supported the largest population in the Southwest by 1300 CE. Archaeologists working at a major archaeological dig in the 1990s in the Tucson Basin, along the Santa Cruz River, identified a culture and people that may have been the ancestors of the Hohokam. This prehistoric group may have occupied southern Arizona as early as 2000 BCE, and in the Early Agricultural Period grew corn, lived year-round in sedentary villages, and developed sophisticated irrigation canals.

The Hohokam used the waters of the Salt and Gila Rivers to build an assortment of simple canals with weirs for agriculture. From 800 to 1400 CE, their irrigation networks rivaled the complexity of those of ancient Near East, Egypt, and China. They were constructed using relatively simple tools and engineering technology, yet achieved drops of a few feet per mile, balancing erosion and siltation. The Hohokam cultivated varieties of cotton, tobacco, maize, beans, and squash, and harvested a vast variety of wild plants. Late in the Hohokam Chronological Sequence, they also used extensive dry-farming systems, mainly to grow agave for food and fiber. Their agricultural strategies were vital in the inhospitable desert, and allowed the aggregation of rural populations into complex urban centers.

Many features of earlier Hohokam domestic architecture, such as rectangular pithouses, were apparently transplanted relatively intact from the Tucson basin during the early Formative Period. Throughout the Hohokam Chronological Sequence, individual homes were usually excavated approximately 40 cm below ground level, had plastered or compacted floors of 12 to 35 m2, and had a bowl-shaped, clay-lined hearth near the wall-entry. By 600 CE, a distinct Hohokam architectural tradition emerged that had similarities with Mesoamerica, such as ballcourts that also served as neighborhood gathering and trade spaces. By 1150 CE, pithouses were replaced by above-ground structures in the compound style with central courtyards. By 1200 CE, rectangular platforms mounds were being constructed.

Hohokam burial practices varied over time, but cremation was a defining cultural characteristic of the Hohokam Core. Cremation has been used by archaeologists to suggest cultural interaction through trade or immigration with neighboring communities. An example is the Mogollan, at the Continental site in Tucson. Initially, the main method was flexed inhumation, similar to the southern Mogollon culture neighboring to the east. By the late Formative and Preclassic periods, the Hohokam cremated their dead, very similar to the traditions documented among the historic Patayan culture to the west along the Lower Colorado River. Although the particulars of the practice changed somewhat, cremation remained the main practice in Hohokam until around 1300 CE.

History
Hohokam chronological sequence (HCS) is an archaeological construct that divides Hohokam history into phases of significant cultural changes. It uses two main methods of expression: Gladwinian and Cultural Horizon. The latter is an adaptation of the chronological scheme used in Mesoamerica applied to avoid the interpretive bias inherent in the Gladwinian scheme (i.e. Pioneer, Colonial, Sedentary periods).

The HCS and the methods to establish its calendrical reference are applied only to the Hohokam Core Area, which is the Gila-Salt River basin associated with Phoenix, Arizona, not to regions outside that area, called Hohokam Peripheries. Within these regions, the basic period designations are retained; however, local phases are often used to note significant differences, and, to some extent, represents communities influenced by their Ancestral Puebloan and Mogollon neighbors.

Pioneer/Formative period (1–750 CE)
As farmers of corn and beans, early Hohokam founded a series of small villages along the middle Gila River. The communities were located near arable land, and dry farming was common early in this period. Water wells, usually less than 10 ft deep, were dug for domestic water supplies. Early Hohokam homes were built of branches that were bent, covered with twigs or reeds and heavily applied mud, and other available materials.

Crop, agricultural skill, and cultural refinements increased between 300 and 500 CE as the Hohokam acquired a new group of cultivated plants, presumably from trade with peoples in the area of modern Mexico. These acquisitions included cotton, tepary bean, sieva and jack beans, cushaw and warty squash, and southwestern pigweed. Agave species had been gathered for food and fiber for thousands of years by southwestern peoples, and around 600, the Hohokam began cultivating agave, particularly Agave murpheyi ("Hohokam agave"), on large areas of rocky, dry ground. Agave became a major food source for the Hohokam to augment the food grown in irrigated areas. Engineering improved access to river water and the inhabitants excavated canals for irrigation. Evidence of trade networks include turquoise, shells from the Gulf of California, and parrot bones from central Mexico. Seeds and grains were prepared on stone manos and metates. Ceramics appeared shortly before 300 CE, with pots of unembellished brown used for storage and cooking, and as containers for cremated remains. Materials produced for ritual use included fired clay human and animal figures and incense burners.

Colonial/Preclassic period (750–1050/1150)
Growth is the major characteristic of the Colonial period. Villages grew larger, with clusters of houses opening on a common courtyard. Some evidence exists of social stratification in larger homes and more ornate grave goods. Area and canal systems expanded, and tobacco and agave production began. Mexican influence increased. In larger communities, the first Hohokam ball courts were constructed and served as focal points for games and ceremonies. Pottery was embellished by the addition of an iron-stained slip, which produced a distinctive red-on-buff ware.

Sedentary period/Sacaton phase (950–1050/1150)
Further population increase brought significant changes. Irrigation canals and structures became larger and required more maintenance. More land came under cultivation, and Southwestern pigweed was grown. House design evolved into post-reinforced pit-houses, covered with caliche adobe. Rancheria-like villages grew up around common courtyards, with evidence of increased communal activity. Large common ovens were used to cook bread and meat.

Crafts were greatly refined. By about 1000 CE, the Hohokam were the first to master acid etching, daubing shells with pitch and bathing them in acid most likely made out of fermented cactus juice. Artisans produced jewelry from shell, stone, and bone, and began to carve stone figures. Cotton textile work flourished. Red-on-buff pottery was widely produced.

This growth brought a need for increased organization, and perhaps authority. The regional culture spread widely, extending from near the Mexican border to the Verde River in the north. There appears to have been an elite class, as well as an increase in social status for craftsman. Platform mounds similar to those in central Mexico appear, and may be associated with an upper class and have some religious function. Trade items from the Mexican heartland included copper bells, mosaics, stone mirrors, and ornate birds such as macaws.

Classic period (1050/1150–1450 CE)

This period is generally considered as a time of growth and social change. The community of Snaketown, once central to the culture, was suddenly abandoned. Parts of this large village seem to have burned, and it was never reoccupied. This period also saw the construction of large and prestigious structures in the Salt-Gila Basin. These included large, rectangular, adobe-walled compounds with platform mounds and great houses, such as the example found at the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. Additionally, evidence of Hohokam influence in a broader context decreased significantly.

Santan phase (1050–1150 CE)
This phase was initially proposed as part of the Gladwinian scheme, but recently has fallen out of favor with many Hohokam archaeologists. The primary reason for this view is that the Hohokam buff ware type once classified as Santan red-on-buff is now listed as either a late form of Sacaton or Casa Grande red-on-buffs. The wide range of vessel forms used for decorated pottery was discarded for globular jars with necks. Production and use of Hohokam buff wares decrease significantly. So did the procurement and trade of raw shell from northern Mexico and its manufacture into jewelry. There was a transition from pithouses to pitrooms and an introduction of spherical spindle whorls similar to examples used in northern Mexico. Conceptually, this episode had the relatively sudden and widespread abandonment or relocation of many Hohokam villages and a short-lived population decline. Vast internal changes, the rejection of the Hohokam ballcourt system, and the peripheries' displaying overt indications of belligerence towards the core area, followed by their cultural realignment, suggests that this was a very important episode.

Soho phase (1050/1150–1300 CE)
The diagnostic ceramic type for this phase was Casa Grande red-on-buff. This Hohokam buff ware was characterized exclusively by jars with necks, decorated with a limited variety of geometric and textual designs. This pottery type appears to have been manufactured at several locales in the Gila River basin between Florence and Sacaton, Arizona. There was a major cultural retraction of territory, and two significant episodes of reorganization. The first reorganization occurred around 1150 CE and was typified by a modest increase in population and near-universal adoption of pitroom architecture. These early pitrooms were built of perishable material covered with a thick adobe plaster, and the basal portion of the interior walls was often lined with upright slabs. Similar to the Preclassic period villages, these early Classic period homes were clustered around open courtyards. These courtyard groups were clustered near a large central locus, which often included small platform mounds. These platform mounds were rectangular, faced by post-reinforced adobe walls, and were filled with either sterile soil or refuse from Preclassic trash mounds. In the largest villages, the central locus included small platform mounds. The number of small and medium-sized settlements seem to have declined as the larger communities became increasingly more densely occupied.

Civano phase (1300–1350/1375 CE)
Although Casa Grande red-on-buff continued to be produced, the pottery type that characterized this phase was Salado polychrome, primarily Gila polychrome. This ceramic type was either manufactured locally or procured as a trade ware. This phase also had the introduction the comal, similar to examples found in northern Mexico, and the production of bird-shaped effigy vessels. Examples of exotic stone and shell artifacts associated with high-status individuals – such as nose plugs, pendants, ear rings, bracelets, necklaces, and sophisticated shell inlays – indicate that the design and manufacture of jewelry reached its zenith during this phase. Other important developments were the significant increased procurement and manufacture of red ware, and the near-universal use of inhumation burial in the area north of the Gila River, both similar to the practices and traditions used by the historic O'odham.

Immediately after 1300 CE, Hohokam villages were reorganized along the lines experienced in the Lower Verde, Tonto Basin, and Safford Basin, in the 13th century. These compounds were composed of a large, rectangular exterior wall that partially (sometimes completely) enclosed a series of adjacent courtyards and plazas separated by partition walls. In turn, each courtyard may have contained one to four large, rectangular, adobe-walled pitrooms, possibly associated with several utility structures. Overall, these communities were characterized by relatively compact clusters of 5 to 25 adobe-walled compounds, which tended to be grouped around a single very large and well-built compound that often had some form of large community structure, such as a platform mound or great house. Great house structures, as with the one preserved at Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, were built only at the largest communities. These stone or adobe buildings had up to four stories, and were probably used by the managerial or religious elites. They may have also been constructed to align with astronomical observations. Trade with Mexico appears to have declined, but an increased number of trade goods arrived from Pueblo peoples to the north and the east.

Between 1350 and 1375 CE, the Hohokam tradition lost vitality and stability, and many of the largest settlements were abandoned. Climate change apparently greatly affected Hohokam agriculture and so dispersed its large communities. Repeated floods in the mid-14th century greatly deepened the Salt River bed and destroyed canal heads, which required their continuous extension upstream. Soon, additional flooding removed irreplaceable segments of these extensions, which effectively rendered hundreds of miles of canals virtually useless. Because of differences in hydrology and geomorphology, these processes had less impact on Hohokam irrigation systems in the Gila River basin, yet these were abandoned, as well. Hohokam split into smaller groups, and the population declined slightly, at a peak rate 2 per 100 people between 1350 and 1400. This decline was previously greatly overestimated because smaller groups are harder to identify. Evidence that the human population was maintained are the unchanged prey animal populations.

Polvoron phase (1350/1375–1450 CE)
This phase is characterized by widespread use and manufacture of Salado polychrome, with both Gila and Tonto polychromes. After 1375 CE, the Hohokam abandoned most villages and canal systems in the lower Salt River basin. The area continued to be occupied, but on a far smaller scale. The few villages that remained were quite small, and were concentrated along the Gila River, with the notable exception of the lower Queen Creek drainage. This period is the aftermath of the Hohokam cultural collapse and a critical stage in the ethnogenesis of modern O'odham.

Ceramic tradition

The earliest sedentary agricultural settlements in central Arizona date from 1000 to 500 BCE, yet the first ceramics appear just before the Hohokam rise in 300 CE.

Some archaeologists interpret the sudden appearance of pottery as new trade or immigration into the Phoenix area, resulting in the rise of the Hohokam. Other archaeologists classify many of the defining, cultural characteristics as already within the indigenous farming communities by Hohokam rise. Hence, pottery helps to fuel the controversy over Hohokam origins.

It was once thought that Hohokam pottery material varied by location, since communities used local resources. Recently, studies on the temper revealed a variety of origins where pottery was manufactured and traded. Several palettes, from different periods, were found in the Gila Bend Region. This is evidence that the Hohokam stayed in one area for a long time.

Hohokam ceramics are defined by a distinct Plain, Red, and Decorated buffware tradition, and were made using a technique called coiling. A small, fine clay base was connected to a series of coils. These coils were then thinned and shaped using a paddle and anvil. Hohokam Plain and Red wares were primarily tempered with a variety of materials including micaceous, phyllite, or Squaw Peak schist, as well as granite, quartz, quartzite, and arkosic sands. Analytically, based on the type of temper used, these are classified as to the geographic setting of their manufacture, and are referred to as Gila (Gila River basin), Wingfield (Agua Fria basin, the Northern Periphery, or Lower Verde area), Piestewa Peak (Phoenix metro area north of the Salt River), South Mountain (Phoenix metro area south of the Salt River), or Salt (Salt or Verde River basins) Plain and Red wares.

The surfaces of Plain wares were smoothed to some extent and many were polished, or slipped, with other minerals or clays. After the vessels were fired, these sometimes turned a color that ranged from light or dark brown, gray, to orange. Later, the interiors of bowls were slipped with a black carbonous material. Hohokam Red wares were slipped with an iron-based pigment that turned red after the vessel was fired. The manufacture of decorated Hohokam pottery was similar to that of the Plain wares. However, the clays tended to be of a finer quality and were tempered with caliche and limited amounts of very finely ground micaceous schist and small particles of vegetative material.

Major core area villages and cities
The true measure of the Hohokam can only be derived from the sum of their material culture. This is best gleaned from a review of their principal population centers, or more appropriately, major villages or giant cities. Although sharing a common cultural expression, each of these major villages has its own unique history of emergence, growth, and eventual abandonment. Including outlines of archaeological exploration, provided below are brief descriptions of the largest and most important prehistoric villages, towns, and cities found within the so-called Hohokam core area.

Snaketown
Snaketown was the archetypical Preclassic period settlement and preeminent community centered within the core of the Hohokam culture area. Today, Snaketown is situated within the Hohokam Pima National Monument, located near Santan, Arizona, which was authorized by Congress on October 21, 1972. Excavations conducted in the 1930s and again in the 1960s revealed that the site was inhabited from about 300 BCE to 1050 CE. At its height in the early 11th century, Snaketown was the center of both the Hohokam culture and the production of the distinctive Hohokam buff ware. Following the last excavations conducted by Emil Haury, the site was completely recovered with earth, leaving nothing visible above ground.

Overall, Snaketown boasted two ball courts, numerous trash mounds, a small ceremonial mound, a large central plaza, several large community houses, and hundreds of residential pithouses, and may have been home to at least several thousand people. After Snaketown was abandoned, several minor settlements were founded within the general vicinity and continued to be occupied until the early 14th century CE. The Hohokam Pima National Monument is located on Gila River Indian Community (GRIC) land and is under tribal ownership. It covers nearly 1700 acres (6.9 km²). The GRIC has decided not to open this extremely sensitive prehistoric site to the public.

Grewe-Casa Grande
Altogether, the greater Grewe-Casa Grande Site represented the largest Hohokam community located within the middle Gila River valley. Situated between two primary canals (on the north, Canal Casa Grande and to the south Canal Coolidge), over time, this community was recorded as several separate archaeological sites. These include the Casa Grande, Grewe, Vahki Inn Village, and Horvath sites. Occupied in the Preclassic and Classic periods, each of these sites was composed of between two and 20 large residential areas. Overall, the greater Grewe-Casa Grande archaeological site covered about 900 acre, centered on State Route 87 and immediately north of the modern city of Coolidge, Arizona.

Most observers are attracted to the four-story great house found near the center of the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. Akimel O'odham oral tradition records that before the appearance of the Coyote People appeared, this massive structure was built by an important chieftain called Sial Teu-utak Sivan, (turqoise Leader) or "Chief Turquoise". In the ancient hohokam language, the great house and the associated prehistoric ruins found north of Coolidge were collectively referred to as Sivan Vah'Ki, literally meaning the "Abandoned House", or "Village of the king/chieftain", respectively. As Frank Russell recorded in the early 20th century, several O'odham oral traditions note that Sial Teu-utak was an important leader of the Casa Grande community, before the overthrow of the Suwu'Ki O'odham, or "Vulture People". Eusebio Francesco Chini (Father Kino) arrived in the middle Gila River valley in 1694 to find the monumental great house abandoned and already in a state of decay and decomposition. Despite its condition, later Jesuit missionaries and he used the great house to hold Mass, between the late 17th and 18th centuries.

Adolph Bandelier provided one of the first detailed archaeological maps and descriptions of Classic period architecture at the central locus, or Compound A, of the Casa Grande site, in 1884. Jesse Walter Fewkes and Cosmos Mindeleff made further descriptions of this area. Between 1906 and 1912, Fewkes conducted excavations and stabilization of this portion of the site. In 1927, Harold Gladwin excavated stratified tests of several trash mounds at both the Grewe and Casa Grande sites. He also defined and excavated portions of Sacaton 9:6 (GP), an adobe-walled compound situated on the extreme edge of the Casa Grande site, east of State Route 87, near the current entrance to the monument. Relatively large-scale excavations were carried out between 1930 and 1931, by Van Bergen-Los Angeles Museum Expedition under the direction of Arthur Woodward and Irwin Hayden. This project concentrated on a 30 acre parcel at the Grewe site, and Compound F located within the northeast corner of the Casa Grande National Monument. Overall, including the recovery of 172 burials and hundreds of thousands of artifacts, about 60 pithouses, numerous pits, 27 adobe pitrooms, and a ballcourt were excavated or tested during the course of this project.

Additional excavations were performed in the southeast corner of the monument by the Civil Works Administration directed by Russell Hastings in 1933 and 1934. The excavation of 15 pithouses, three pits, 32 burials, and portions of four trash mounds demonstrated the presence of significantly large late Preclassic and early Classic period components within the area covered by the monument. Yet, by far the largest and most comprehensive archaeological endeavor was conducted by Northland Research Inc., from 1995 to 1997, on a 13 acre parcel within portions of the Casa Grande, Grewe, and Horvath sites that paralleled State Routes 87 and 287. This project was directed by Douglass Craig, and resulted in the identification and/or excavation of 247 pithouses, 24 pitrooms, 866 pits, 11 canal alignments, a ballcourt, and portions of four adobe-walled compounds, as well as the recovery of 158 burials and over 400,000 artifacts.

Based on the results of these projects, the history of the greater Grewe-Casa Grande site can be reconstructed with at least some degree of precision. The genesis of this important village appears to have been associated with several groups of pithouses organized around a series of relatively small, circular plazas. These appear to date to the sixth century CEand were located along and immediately upslope of the Coolidge Canal system. By the eighth century CE, this dispersed hamlet had expanded nearly a kilometer south and developed into a full-fledged summer home for the priests and chieftain. At this point, the settlement consisted of densely packed yet discrete groups of pithouses clustered around small open courtyards. In turn these structures delineated a large central plaza. Adjoining the plaza was a medium-sized ballcourt, and overall, the village was affiliated with several smaller outlying settlements.

In the 10th century, at least two large secondary villages and about a dozen new hamlets were founded to the west of the main settlement. With the abandonment of Snaketown and the transition from the Preclassic to Classic periods, the greater Grewe-Casa Grande community became one of the largest and most important Hohokam population centers. At its height, the Grewe-Casa Grande village boosted about 100 trash mounds, several hundred residential pithouses, and four or five ballcourts. Regardless of its size, complexity, and significance along the middle Gila River, this settlement never seemed to have attained the status enjoyed by Snaketown, as it pertained to the Hohokam culture, per se. As the western portion of this settlement grew, large sections of the eastern half declined and were abandoned. By 1300 CE, the village was composed of about 19 adobe-walled residential compounds, several pitroom clusters, a platform mound, a great house, and numerous trash mounds. With most of the village contained within what is now the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, after the middle of the 14th century, it began a rapid decline. Around 1400 or 1450 CE, the entire settlement was abandoned, except for a low-scale occupation associated with the Polvoron phase.

Today, about 60% of the Grewe-Casa Grande site has been either destroyed due to agricultural and commercial development, excavated, or remains relatively intact buried under fields used to grow cotton. About 40% of this once huge settlement can be found within the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, which was established as the nation's first archeological reserve in 1892, and declared a national monument in 1918. Visitors can enjoy an interpretative center, walk among the stabilized ruins of Compound A, and closely view the great house, which has been protected since 1932 from the elements by a distinctively modern-looking roof.

Pueblo Grande
Pueblo Grande Museum Archeological Park near central Phoenix contains preserved ruins and artifact exhibits. Archaeological finds have been recorded along the track of the adjacent Valley Metro light-rail construction.

Mesa Grande
The Mesa Grande ruin, located in Mesa, Arizona, represents another large Hohokam village that was occupied both in the Preclassic and Classic periods, from around 200 to 1450 CE. Although this settlement appears to have been very important, it has had little archaeological work, other than the mapping and stabilization projects conducted by the Southwest Archaeology Team (SWAT). The SWAT's indispensable volunteer work at the Mesa Grande ruin began in the middle 1990s and continues today.

At its peak in the late Preclassic and early Classic periods, this settlement may have consisted of as many as 20 discrete residential areas and covered several hundred acres. Today, due to massive urban development, the surface remains of the village have been reduced to a 6.4-acre parcel situated immediately west of the old Mesa Hospital. Within this plot are the ruins of a large adobe compound and a nine-meters-high, relatively intact, platform mound. This is only one of the last three remaining Hohokam platform mounds in the greater Phoenix metro area. This parcel was transferred into public ownership in the mid-1980s, therefore the compound and mound were not destroyed and a full visitor center exists on the enclosed site that is open October–May annually.

Las Colinas and Los Hornos
Located within the modern city of Tempe, Arizona, the Hohokam settlement of Los Hornos (from the Spanish los hornos, meaning 'the ovens') was initially investigated by Frank Cushing in 1887. With urban expansion, additional excavations were conducted in the 1970s, late 1980s, and throughout the 1990s. The results of these comprehensive archaeological projects have documented both a large Preclassic- and Classic-period village organized much the same as Snaketown and Pueblo Grande, respectively, yet on a somewhat smaller scale. Los Hornos appears to have started around 400 CE, as a small cluster of rectangular pithouses situated on the extreme western edge of the site, west of Priest Dr and south of US 60.

Over time, the Los Hornos settlement expanded along a series of large secondary canals to the east and southeast. At the height of the Preclassic occupation in the Sacaton phase, which was contemporary with the zenith of Snaketown, this settlement had one large ball court, a large central plaza, several formal cremation cemeteries, numerous trash mounds, and several hundred residential pithouses. The detailed excavation of 50 Preclassic period pithouses in the area located immediately south of US 60 and east of Priest Dr, provided invaluable information concerning residential architecture and the functional use of interior space. Additional information concerning the Archaeological Consulting Services Ltd. excavation of a Preclassic occupation at Los Hornos can be found at the following site.

After a short period of population loss and community reorganization in the late 11th and early 12th centuries CE, Los Hornos continued to shift east and south in the Classic period. This large village appears to have recovered somewhat and again became an important settlement late in the Soho or early in the Civano phases, from 1277 to 1325 CE. At this time, Los Hornos, now centered on Hardy Dr south of US 60 and north of Baseline Road, consisted of about 15 residential compounds, a large central plaza, a large rectangular platform mound with an associated compound, several large trash mounds, and numerous borrow pits and inhumation and cremation cemeteries.

Prior to the middle of the 14th century CE, with the rise of Los Muertos located several miles to the southeast, the Los Hornos community appears to have spiraled into a precipitous decline. Although greatly reduced in scale and importance, the city continued to be occupied until it was effectively abandoned between 1400 and 1450 CE, as was much of the Lower Salt River basin. Today, much of the Los Hornos village has been destroyed due to modern transportation, residential, and commercial development, or has been excavated. The only surface vestiges of this once significant Hohokam city are the remains of several low trash mounds found in the Old Guadalupe Village Cemetery.

Archaeological sites
The following Hohokam archaeological sites and museums are open to the public, except for Hohokam Pima National Monument.
 * Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, Coolidge, Arizona. Casa Grande Ruins National Monument
 * Hohokam Pima National Monument (Snaketown), Gila River Indian Reservation (closed to public).
 * Indian Mesa, Peoria, Arizona
 * Mesa Grande Ruins, Mesa, Arizona.
 * Painted Rock Petroglyph Site, Theba, Arizona
 * Park of the Canals, Mesa, Arizona.
 * Pueblo Grande Museum Archeological Park, Phoenix, Arizona.
 * Sears-Kay Ruin – Hohokam Fort on top of a foothill in Carefree, Arizona.
 * White Tank Mountain Regional Park, White Tank Mountains

title: Hohokam


text:
Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou ( born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American memoirist, poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou's series of seven autobiographies focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her life up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition and acclaim.

She became a poet and writer after a string of odd jobs during her young adulthood. These included fry cook, sex worker, nightclub performer, Porgy and Bess cast member, Southern Christian Leadership Conference coordinator, and correspondent in Egypt and Ghana during the decolonization of Africa. Angelou was also an actress, writer, director, and producer of plays, movies, and public television programs. In 1982, she was named the first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Angelou was active in the Civil Rights Movement and worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Beginning in the 1990s, she made approximately 80 appearances a year on the lecture circuit, something she continued into her eighties. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" (1993) at the first inauguration of Bill Clinton, making her the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961.

With the publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou publicly discussed aspects of her personal life. She was respected as a spokesperson for Black people and women, and her works have been considered a defense of Black culture. Her works are widely used in schools and universities worldwide, although attempts have been made to ban her books from some U.S. libraries. Angelou's most celebrated works have been labeled as autobiographical fiction, but many critics consider them to be autobiographies. She made a deliberate attempt to challenge the common structure of the autobiography by critiquing, changing, and expanding the genre. Her books center on themes that include racism, identity, family, and travel.

Early life
Marguerite Annie Johnson was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 4, 1928, the second child of Bailey Johnson, a doorman and navy dietitian, and Vivian (née Baxter) Johnson, a nurse and card dealer. Angelou's older brother, Bailey Jr., nicknamed Marguerite "Maya", derived from "My" or "Mya Sister". When Angelou was three and her brother four, their parents' "calamitous marriage" ended, and their father sent them to Stamps, Arkansas, alone by train, to live with their paternal grandmother, Annie Henderson. In "an astonishing exception" to the harsh economics of African Americans of the time, Angelou's grandmother prospered financially during the Great Depression and World War II, because the general store she owned sold basic and needed commodities and because "she made wise and honest investments".

Four years later, when Angelou was seven and her brother eight, the children's father "came to Stamps without warning" and returned them to their mother's care in St. Louis. At the age of eight, while living with her mother, Angelou was sexually abused and raped by her mother's boyfriend, a man named Freeman. She told her brother, who told the rest of their family. Freeman was found guilty but was jailed for only one day. Four days after his release, he was murdered, probably by Angelou's uncles. Angelou became mute for almost five years, believing she was to blame for his death; as she stated: "I thought, my voice killed him; I killed that man, because I told his name. And then I thought I would never speak again, because my voice would kill anyone." According to Marcia Ann Gillespie and her colleagues, who wrote a biography about Angelou, it was during this period of silence when Angelou developed her extraordinary memory, her love for books and literature, and her ability to listen and observe the world around her.

Shortly after Freeman's murder, when Angelou was eight and her brother nine, Angelou and her brother were sent back to their grandmother. She attended the Lafayette County Training School, in Stamps, a Rosenwald School. Angelou credits a teacher and friend of her family, Mrs. Bertha Flowers, with helping her speak again, challenging her by saying: "You do not love poetry, not until you speak it." Flowers introduced her to Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Georgia Douglas Johnson, and James Weldon Johnson, authors who would affect Angelou's life and career, as well as Black female artists such as Frances Harper, Anne Spencer, and Jessie Fauset.

When Angelou was 14 and her brother 15, she and her brother moved in once again with their mother, who had since moved to Oakland, California. During World War II, Angelou attended the California Labor School. At the age of 16, she became the first Black female streetcar conductor in San Francisco. She wanted the job badly, admiring the uniforms of the operators —so much so that her mother referred to it as her "dream job". Her mother encouraged her to pursue the position, but warned her that she would need to arrive early and work harder than others. In 2014, Angelou received a lifetime achievement award from the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials as part of a session billed "Women Who Move the Nation".

Three weeks after completing school, at the age of 17, she gave birth to her son, Clyde (who later changed his name to Guy Johnson).

Adulthood and early career: 1951–1961
In 1951, Angelou married Tosh Angelos, a Greek electrician, former sailor, and aspiring musician, despite the condemnation of interracial relationships at the time and the disapproval of her mother. She took modern dance classes during this time and met dancers and choreographers Alvin Ailey and Ruth Beckford. Ailey and Angelou formed a dance team, calling themselves "Al and Rita", and performed modern dance at fraternal Black organizations throughout San Francisco but never became successful. Angelou, her new husband, and her son moved to New York City so she could study African dance with Trinidadian dancer Pearl Primus, but they returned to San Francisco a year later. After Angelou's marriage ended in 1954, she danced professionally in clubs around San Francisco, including the nightclub The Purple Onion, where she sang and danced to calypso music. Up to that point, she went by the name of "Marguerite Johnson", or "Rita", but at the strong suggestion of her managers and supporters at The Purple Onion, she changed her professional name to "Maya Angelou" (her nickname and former married surname). It was a "distinctive name" that set her apart and captured the feel of her calypso dance performances. During 1954 and 1955, Angelou toured Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess. She began her practice of learning the language of every country she visited, and in a few years she gained proficiency in several languages. In 1957, riding on the popularity of calypso, Angelou recorded her first album, Miss Calypso, which was reissued as a CD in 1996. She appeared in an off-Broadway review that inspired the 1957 film Calypso Heat Wave, in which Angelou sang and performed her own compositions.

Angelou met novelist John Oliver Killens in 1959 and, at his urging, moved to New York to concentrate on her writing career. She joined the Harlem Writers Guild, where she met several major African American authors, including John Henrik Clarke, Rosa Guy, Paule Marshall, and Julian Mayfield, and was published for the first time. In 1960, after meeting civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and hearing him speak, she and Killens organized "the legendary" Cabaret for Freedom to benefit the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and she was named SCLC's Northern Coordinator. According to scholar Lyman B. Hagen, her contributions to civil rights as a fundraiser and SCLC organizer were successful and "eminently effective". Angelou also began her pro-Castro and anti-apartheid activism during this time. She had joined the crowd cheering for Fidel Castro when he first entered the Hotel Theresa in Harlem, New York, during the United Nations 15th General Assembly on September 19, 1960.

Africa to Caged Bird: 1961–1969
In 1961, Angelou performed in Jean Genet's play The Blacks (playing the part of the Queen), along with Abbey Lincoln, Roscoe Lee Browne, James Earl Jones, Louis Gossett, Godfrey Cambridge, and Cicely Tyson. Also in 1961, she met South African freedom fighter Vusumzi Make; they never officially married. She and her son Guy moved with Make to Cairo, where Angelou worked as an associate editor at the weekly English-language newspaper The Arab Observer. In 1962, her relationship with Make ended, and she and Guy moved to Accra, Ghana, so he could attend college, but he was seriously injured in an automobile accident. Angelou remained in Accra for his recovery and ended up staying there until 1965. She became an administrator at the University of Ghana and was active in the African American expatriate community. She was a feature editor for The African Review, a freelance writer for the Ghanaian Times, wrote and broadcast for Radio Ghana, and worked and performed for Ghana's National Theatre. She performed in a revival of The Blacks in Geneva and Berlin. In Accra, she became close friends with Malcolm X during his visit in the early 1960s. Angelou returned to the U.S. in 1965 to help him build a new civil rights organization, the Organization of Afro-American Unity; he was assassinated shortly afterward. Devastated and adrift, she joined her brother in Hawaii, where she resumed her singing career. She moved back to Los Angeles to focus on her writing career. Working as a market researcher in Watts, Angelou witnessed the riots in the summer of 1965. She acted in and wrote plays and returned to New York in 1967. She met her lifelong friend Rosa Guy and renewed her friendship with James Baldwin, whom she had met in Paris in the 1950s and called "my brother", during this time. Her friend Jerry Purcell provided Angelou with a stipend to support her writing.

In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. asked Angelou to organize a march. She agreed, but postponed again, and in what Gillespie calls "a macabre twist of fate", he was assassinated on her 40th birthday (April 4). Devastated again, she was encouraged out of her depression by her friend James Baldwin. As Gillespie states, "If 1968 was a year of great pain, loss, and sadness, it was also the year when America first witnessed the breadth and depth of Maya Angelou's spirit and creative genius". Despite having almost no experience, she wrote, produced, and narrated Blacks, Blues, Black!, a ten-part series of documentaries about the connection between blues music and Black Americans' African heritage, and what Angelou called the "Africanisms still current in the U.S." for National Educational Television, the precursor of PBS. Also in 1968, inspired at a dinner party she attended with Baldwin, cartoonist Jules Feiffer, and his wife Judy, and challenged by Random House editor Robert Loomis, she wrote her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, published in 1969. This brought her international recognition and acclaim.

Later career
Released in 1972, Angelou's Georgia, Georgia, produced by a Swedish film company and filmed in Sweden, was the first produced screenplay by a Black woman. She also wrote the film's soundtrack, despite having very little additional input in the filming of the movie. Angelou married Paul du Feu, a Welsh carpenter and ex-husband of writer Germaine Greer, in San Francisco in 1973. Over the next ten years, as Gillespie has stated, "She [Angelou] had accomplished more than many artists hope to achieve in a lifetime." Angelou worked as a composer, writing for singer Roberta Flack, and composing movie scores. She wrote articles, short stories, TV scripts, documentaries, autobiographies, and poetry. She produced plays and was named a visiting professor at several colleges and universities. She was "a reluctant actor", and was nominated for a Tony Award in 1973 for her role in Jerome Kilty's play Look Away. As a theater director, in 1988 she undertook a revival of Errol John's play Moon on a Rainbow Shawl at the Almeida Theatre in London.

In 1977, Angelou appeared in a supporting role in the television mini-series Roots. She was given a multitude of awards during this period, including more than thirty honorary degrees from colleges and universities from all over the world. In the late 1970s, Angelou met Oprah Winfrey when Winfrey was a TV anchor in Baltimore, Maryland; Angelou would later become Winfrey's close friend and mentor. In 1981, Angelou and du Feu divorced.

She returned to the southern United States in 1981 because she felt she had to come to terms with her past there and, despite having no bachelor's degree, accepted the lifetime Reynolds Professorship of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she was one of a few full-time African American professors. From that point on, she considered herself "a teacher who writes". Angelou taught a variety of subjects that reflected her interests, including philosophy, ethics, theology, science, theater, and writing. The Winston-Salem Journal reported that even though she made many friends on campus, "she never quite lived down all of the criticism from people who thought she was more of a celebrity than an intellect ... [and] an overpaid figurehead". The last course she taught at Wake Forest was in 2011, but she was planning to teach another course in late 2014. Her final speaking engagement at the university was in late 2013. Beginning in the 1990s, Angelou actively participated in the lecture circuit in a customized tour bus, something she continued into her eighties. She also taught at the University of California, the University of Kansas, and the University of Ghana and was recognized as a Rockefeller Foundation Scholar and a Yale University Fellow.

In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at the presidential inauguration of Bill Clinton, becoming the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961. Her recitation resulted in more fame and recognition for her previous works, and broadened her appeal "across racial, economic, and educational boundaries". The recording of the poem won a Grammy Award. In June 1995, she delivered what Richard Long called her "second 'public' poem", entitled "A Brave and Startling Truth", which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the United Nations.

Angelou achieved her goal of directing a feature film in 1996, Down in the Delta, which featured actors such as Alfre Woodard and Wesley Snipes. Also in 1996, she collaborated with R&B artists Ashford & Simpson on seven of the eleven tracks of their album Been Found. The album was responsible for three of Angelou's only Billboard chart appearances. In 2000, she created a successful collection of products for Hallmark, including greeting cards and decorative household items. She responded to critics who charged her with being too commercial by stating that "the enterprise was perfectly in keeping with her role as 'the people's poet. More than thirty years after Angelou began writing her life story, she completed her sixth autobiography A Song Flung Up to Heaven, in 2002.

Angelou campaigned for the Democratic Party in the 2008 presidential primaries, giving her public support to Hillary Clinton. In the run-up to the January Democratic primary in South Carolina, the Clinton campaign ran ads featuring Angelou's endorsement. The ads were part of the campaign's efforts to rally support in the Black community; but Barack Obama won the South Carolina primary, finishing 29 points ahead of Clinton and taking 80% of the Black vote. When Clinton's campaign ended, Angelou put her support behind Obama, who went on to win the presidential election and become the first African American president of the United States. After Obama's inauguration, she stated, "We are growing up beyond the idiocies of racism and sexism."

In late 2010, Angelou donated her personal papers and career memorabilia to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. They consisted of more than 340 boxes of documents that featured her handwritten notes on yellow legal pads for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a 1982 telegram from Coretta Scott King, fan mail, and personal and professional correspondence from colleagues such as her editor Robert Loomis. In 2011, Angelou served as a consultant for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C. She spoke out in opposition to a paraphrase of a quotation by King that appeared on the memorial, saying, "The quote makes Dr. Martin Luther King look like an arrogant twit", and demanded that it be changed. Eventually, the paraphrase was removed.

In 2013, at the age of 85, Angelou published the seventh volume of autobiography in her series, entitled Mom & Me & Mom, which focuses on her relationship with her mother.

Personal life
Evidence suggests that Angelou was partially descended from the Mende people of West Africa. In 2008, a DNA test revealed that among all of her African ancestors, 45 percent were from the Congo-Angola region and 55 percent were from West Africa. A 2008 PBS documentary found that Angelou's maternal great-grandmother, Mary Lee, who had been emancipated after the Civil War, became pregnant by her white former owner, John Savin. Savin forced Lee to sign a false statement accusing another man of being the father of her child. After Savin was indicted for forcing Lee to commit perjury, and despite the discovery that Savin was the father, a jury found him not guilty. Lee was sent to the Clinton County poorhouse in Missouri with her daughter, Marguerite Baxter, who became Angelou's grandmother. Angelou described Lee as "that poor little black girl, physically and mentally bruised."

The details of Angelou's life described in her seven autobiographies and in numerous interviews, speeches, and articles tended to be inconsistent. Critic Mary Jane Lupton has explained that when Angelou spoke about her life, she did so eloquently, but informally, and "with no time chart in front of her." For example, she was married at least twice, but never clarified the number of times she had been married, "for fear of sounding frivolous." According to her autobiographies and to Gillespie, she married Tosh Angelos in 1951, and Paul du Feu in 1974, and began her relationship with Vusumzi Make in 1961, but never formally married him. Angelou held many jobs, including some in the sex trade working as a prostitute and madam for lesbians, and describes so in her second autobiography, Gather Together in My Name. In a 1995 interview, Angelou said:

"I wrote about my experiences because I thought too many people tell young folks, 'I never did anything wrong. Who, Moi? – never I. I have no skeletons in my closet. In fact, I have no closet.' They lie like that and then young people find themselves in situations and they think, 'Damn I must be a pretty bad guy. My mom or dad never did anything wrong.' They can't forgive themselves and go on with their lives."

Angelou had one son, Guy, whose birth she described in her first autobiography; one grandson, two great-grandchildren, and, according to Gillespie, a large group of friends and extended family. Angelou's mother Vivian Baxter died in 1991 and her brother Bailey Johnson Jr., died in 2000 after a series of strokes; both were important figures in her life and her books. In 1981, the mother of her grandson disappeared with him; finding him took four years.

Angelou did not earn a university degree, but according to Gillespie it was Angelou's preference to be called "Dr. Angelou" by people outside of her family and close friends. She owned two homes in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and a "lordly brownstone" in Harlem, which was purchased in 2004 and was full of her "growing library" of books she collected throughout her life, artwork collected over the span of many decades, and well-stocked kitchens. The Guardian writer Gary Younge reported that in Angelou's Harlem home were several African wall hangings and her collection of paintings, including ones of several jazz trumpeters, a watercolor of Rosa Parks, and a Faith Ringgold work entitled "Maya's Quilt Of Life".

According to Gillespie, she hosted several celebrations per year at her main residence in Winston-Salem; "her skill in the kitchen is the stuff of legend—from haute cuisine to down-home comfort food". The Winston-Salem Journal stated: "Securing an invitation to one of Angelou's Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas tree decorating parties or birthday parties was among the most coveted invitations in town." The New York Times, describing Angelou's residence history in New York City, stated that she regularly hosted elaborate New Year's Day parties. She combined her cooking and writing skills in her 2004 book Hallelujah! The Welcome Table, which featured 73 recipes, many of which she learned from her grandmother and mother, accompanied by 28 vignettes. She followed up in 2010 with her second cookbook, Great Food, All Day Long: Cook Splendidly, Eat Smart, which focused on weight loss and portion control.

Beginning with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou used the same "writing ritual" for many years. She would wake early in the morning and check into a hotel room, where the staff was instructed to remove any pictures from the walls. She would write on legal pads while lying on the bed, with only a bottle of sherry, a deck of cards to play solitaire, Roget's Thesaurus, and the Bible, and would leave by the early afternoon. She would average 10–12 pages of written material a day, which she edited down to three or four pages in the evening. She went through this process to "enchant" herself, and as she said in a 1989 interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation, "relive the agony, the anguish, the Sturm und Drang". She placed herself back in the time she wrote about, even traumatic experiences such as her rape in Caged Bird, to "tell the human truth" about her life. She was quoted as saying: "The way I deal with any pain is to admit it – let it come." Angelou stated that she played cards to get to that place of enchantment and to access her memories more effectively. She said, "It may take an hour to get into it, but once I'm in it—ha! It's so delicious!" She did not find the process cathartic; rather, she found relief in "telling the truth".

In 2009, the gossip website TMZ erroneously reported that Angelou had been hospitalized in Los Angeles when she was alive and well in St. Louis, which resulted in rumors of her death and, according to Angelou, concern among her friends and family worldwide.

Death
Angelou died on the morning of May 28, 2014, at age 86. Although Angelou had been in poor health and had canceled recent scheduled appearances, she was working on another book, an autobiography about her experiences with national and world leaders. During her memorial service at Wake Forest University, her son Guy Johnson stated that despite being in constant pain due to her dancing career and respiratory failure, she wrote four books during the last ten years of her life. He said, "She left this mortal plane with no loss of acuity and no loss in comprehension."

Tributes to Angelou and condolences were paid by artists, entertainers, and world leaders, including President Obama, whose sister was named after Angelou, and Bill Clinton. Harold Augenbraum, from the National Book Foundation, said that Angelou's "legacy is one that all writers and readers across the world can admire and aspire to." The week after Angelou's death, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings rose to number 1 on Amazon.com's bestseller list.

On May 29, 2014, Mount Zion Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, of which Angelou was a member for 30 years, held a public memorial service to honor her. On June 7, a private memorial service was held at Wait Chapel on the campus of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem. The memorial was shown live on local stations in the Winston-Salem/Triad area and streamed live on the university web site with speeches from her son, Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, and Bill Clinton. On June 15, a memorial was held at Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco, where Angelou was a member for many years. Rev. Cecil Williams, Mayor Ed Lee, and former mayor Willie Brown spoke.

Works
Angelou wrote a total of seven autobiographies. According to scholar Mary Jane Lupton, Angelou's third autobiography Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas marked the first time a well-known African American autobiographer had written a third volume about her life. Her books "stretch over time and place", from Arkansas to Africa and back to the U.S., and take place from the beginnings of World War II to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. In her fifth autobiography, All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986), Angelou tells about her return to Ghana searching for the past of her tribe. She published her seventh autobiography Mom & Me & Mom in 2013, at the age of 85. Critics have tended to judge Angelou's subsequent autobiographies "in light of the first", with Caged Bird receiving the highest praise. Angelou wrote five collections of essays, which writer Hilton Als called her "wisdom books" and "homilies strung together with autobiographical texts". Angelou used the same editor throughout her writing career, Robert Loomis, an executive editor at Random House; he retired in 2011 and has been called "one of publishing's hall of fame editors." Angelou said regarding Loomis: "We have a relationship that's kind of famous among publishers."

Angelou's long and extensive career also included poetry, plays, screenplays for television and film, directing, acting, and public speaking. She was a prolific writer of poetry; her volume Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie (1971) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and she was chosen by U.S. president Bill Clinton to recite her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" during his inauguration in 1993.

Angelou's successful acting career included roles in numerous plays, films, and television programs, among them her appearance in the television mini-series Roots in 1977. Her screenplay, Georgia, Georgia (1972), was the first original script by a Black woman to be produced, and she was the first African American woman to direct a major motion picture, Down in the Delta, in 1998.

Chronology of autobiographies

 * I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969): Up to 1944 (age 17)
 * Gather Together in My Name (1974): 1944–48
 * Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas (1976): 1949–55
 * The Heart of a Woman (1981): 1957–62
 * All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986): 1962–65
 * A Song Flung Up to Heaven (2002): 1965–68
 * Mom & Me & Mom (2013): overview

Influence
When I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was published in 1969, Angelou was hailed as a new kind of memoirist, one of the first African American women who were able to publicly discuss their personal lives. According to scholar Hilton Als, up to that point, Black female writers were marginalized to the point that they were unable to present themselves as central characters in the literature they wrote. Linguist John McWhorter agreed, seeing Angelou's works, which he called "tracts", as "apologetic writing". He placed Angelou in the tradition of African American literature as a defense of Black culture, which he called "a literary manifestation of the imperative that reigned in the black scholarship of the period". Writer Julian Mayfield, who called Caged Bird "a work of art that eludes description", argued that Angelou's autobiographies set a precedent for not only other Black women writers, but also African American autobiography as a whole. Als said that Caged Bird marked one of the first times that a Black autobiographer could, as he put it, "write about blackness from the inside, without apology or defense". Through the writing of her autobiography, Angelou became recognized and highly respected as a spokesperson for Blacks and women. It made her "without a doubt, ... America's most visible black woman autobiographer", and "a major autobiographical voice of the time". As writer Gary Younge said, "Probably more than almost any other writer alive, Angelou's life literally is her work."

Als said that Caged Bird helped increase Black feminist writings in the 1970s, less through its originality than "its resonance in the prevailing Zeitgeist", or the time in which it was written, at the end of the American Civil Rights Movement. Als also claimed that Angelou's writings, more interested in self-revelation than in politics or feminism, have freed other female writers to "open themselves up without shame to the eyes of the world". Angelou critic Joanne M. Braxton stated that Caged Bird was "perhaps the most aesthetically pleasing" autobiography written by an African American woman in its era. Angelou's poetry has influenced the modern hip-hop music community, including artists such as Kanye West, Common, Tupac Shakur, and Nicki Minaj.

Critical reception
Reviewer Elsie B. Washington called Angelou "the black woman's poet laureate". Sales of the paperback version of her books and poetry rose by 300–600% the week after Angelou's recitation. Random House, which published the poem later that year, had to reprint 400,000 copies of all her books to keep up with the demand. They sold more of her books in January 1993 than they did in all of 1992, accounting for a 1,200% increase. Angelou famously said, in response to criticism regarding using the details of her life in her work, "I agree with Balzac and 19th-century writers, black and white, who say, 'I write for money'." Younge, speaking after the publication of Angelou's third book of essays, Letter to My Daughter (2008), has said, "For the last couple of decades she has merged her various talents into a kind of performance art—issuing a message of personal and social uplift by blending poetry, song and conversation."

Angelou's books, especially I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, have been criticized by many parents, causing their removal from school curricula and library shelves. According to the National Coalition Against Censorship, some parents and some schools have objected to Caged Bird's depictions of lesbianism, premarital cohabitation, pornography, and violence. Some have been critical of the book's sexually explicit scenes, use of language, and irreverent depictions of religion. Caged Bird appeared third on the American Library Association (ALA) list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000 and sixth on the ALA's 2000–2009 list.

Awards and honors
Angelou was honored by universities, literary organizations, government agencies, and special interest groups. Her honors included a Pulitzer Prize nomination for her book of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie, a Tony Award nomination for her role in the 1973 play Look Away, and three Grammys for her spoken-word albums. She served on two presidential committees, and was awarded the Spingarn Medal in 1994, the National Medal of Arts in 2000, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011. Angelou was awarded more than fifty honorary degrees. In 2021, the United States Mint announced that Angelou would be among the first women depicted on the reverse of the quarter as a part of the American Women quarters series. The coins were released in January 2022. She is the first Black woman to be depicted on a quarter.

Uses in education
Angelou's autobiographies have been used in narrative and multicultural approaches in teacher education. Jocelyn A. Glazier, a professor at George Washington University, has trained teachers how to "talk about race" in their classrooms with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Gather Together in My Name. According to Glazier, Angelou's use of understatement, self-mockery, humor, and irony have left readers of Angelou's autobiographies unsure of what she left out and how they should respond to the events she described. Angelou's depictions of her experiences of racism have forced white readers to either explore their feelings about race and their own "privileged status", or to avoid the discussion as a means of keeping their privilege. Glazier found that critics have focused on the way Angelou fits within the genre of African American autobiography and on her literary techniques, but readers have tended to react to her storytelling with "surprise, particularly when [they] enter the text with certain expectations about the genre of autobiography".

Educator Daniel Challener, in his 1997 book Stories of Resilience in Childhood, analyzed the events in Caged Bird to illustrate resiliency in children. He argued that Angelou's book has provided a "useful framework" for exploring the obstacles many children like Maya have faced and how their communities have helped them succeed. Psychologist Chris Boyatzis has reported using Caged Bird to supplement scientific theory and research in the instruction of child development topics such as the development of self-concept and self-esteem, ego resilience, industry versus inferiority, effects of abuse, parenting styles, sibling and friendship relations, gender issues, cognitive development, puberty, and identity formation in adolescence. He found Caged Bird a "highly effective" tool for providing real-life examples of these psychological concepts.

Poetry
Angelou is best known for her seven autobiographies, but she was also a prolific and successful poet. She was called "the black woman's poet laureate", and her poems have been called the anthems of African Americans. Angelou studied and began writing poetry at a young age, and used poetry and other great literature to cope with her rape as a young girl, as described in Caged Bird. According to scholar Yasmin Y. DeGout, literature also affected Angelou's sensibilities as the poet and writer she became, especially the "liberating discourse that would evolve in her own poetic canon".

Many critics consider Angelou's autobiographies more important than her poetry. Although all her books have been bestsellers, her poetry has not been perceived to be as serious as her prose and has been understudied. Her poems were more interesting when she recited and performed them, and many critics emphasized the public aspect of her poetry. Angelou's lack of critical acclaim has been attributed to both the public nature of many of her poems and to Angelou's popular success, and to critics' preferences for poetry as a written form rather than a verbal, performed one. Zofia Burr has countered Angelou's critics by condemning them for not taking into account Angelou's larger purposes in her writing: "to be representative rather than individual, authoritative rather than confessional".

In the view of Harold Bloom, Professor of Literature (Yale University and New York University) and literary critic:

"Her poetry has a large public, but very little critical esteem. It is, in every sense, 'popular poetry,' and makes no formal or cognitive demands upon the reader. Of Angelou's sincerity, good-will towards all, and personal vitality, there can be no doubt. She is professionally an inspirational writer, of the self-help variety, which perhaps places her beyond criticism. [...] Angelou seems best at ballads, the most traditional kind of popular poetry. The function of such work is necessarily social rather than aesthetic, particularly in an era totally dominated by visual media. One has to be grateful for the benignity, humor, and whole-heartedness of Angelou's project, even if her autobiographical prose necessarily centers her achievement."

Style and genre in autobiographies
Angelou's use of fiction-writing techniques such as dialogue, characterization, and development of theme, setting, plot, and language has often resulted in the placement of her books into the genre of autobiographical fiction. Angelou made a deliberate attempt in her books to challenge the common structure of the autobiography by critiquing, changing, and expanding the genre. Scholar Mary Jane Lupton argues that all of Angelou's autobiographies conform to the genre's standard structure: they are written by a single author, they are chronological, and they contain elements of character, technique, and theme. Angelou recognizes that there are fictional aspects to her books; Lupton agrees, stating that Angelou tended to "diverge from the conventional notion of autobiography as truth", which parallels the conventions of much of African American autobiography written during the abolitionist period of U.S. history, when as both Lupton and African American scholar Crispin Sartwell put it, the truth was censored out of the need for self-protection. Scholar Lyman B. Hagen places Angelou in the long tradition of African American autobiography but claims that Angelou created a unique interpretation of the autobiographical form.

According to African American literature scholar Pierre A. Walker, the challenge for much of the history of African American literature was that its authors have had to confirm its status as literature before they could accomplish their political goals, which was why Angelou's editor Robert Loomis was able to dare her into writing Caged Bird by challenging her to write an autobiography that could be considered "high art". Angelou acknowledged that she followed the slave narrative tradition of "speaking in the first-person singular talking about the first-person plural, always saying I meaning 'we'". Scholar John McWhorter calls Angelou's books "tracts" that defend African American culture and fight negative stereotypes. According to McWhorter, Angelou structured her books, which to him seem to be written more for children than for adults, to support her defense of Black culture. McWhorter sees Angelou as she depicts herself in her autobiographies "as a kind of stand-in figure for the Black American in Troubled Times". McWhorter views Angelou's works as dated but recognizes that "she has helped to pave the way for contemporary black writers who are able to enjoy the luxury of being merely individuals, no longer representatives of the race, only themselves". Scholar Lynn Z. Bloom compares Angelou's works to the writings of Frederick Douglass, stating that both fulfilled the same purpose: to describe Black culture and to interpret it for their wider, white audiences.

According to scholar Sondra O'Neale, Angelou's poetry can be placed within the African American oral tradition, and her prose "follows classic technique in nonpoetic Western forms". O'Neale states that Angelou avoided using a "monolithic Black language", and accomplished, through direct dialogue, what O'Neale calls a "more expected ghetto expressiveness". McWhorter finds both the language Angelou used in her autobiographies and the people she depicted unrealistic, resulting in a separation between her and her audience. As McWhorter states, "I have never read autobiographical writing where I had such a hard time summoning a sense of how the subject talks, or a sense of who the subject really is". McWhorter asserts, for example, that key figures in Angelou's books, like herself, her son Guy, and mother Vivian do not speak as one would expect, and that their speech is "cleaned up" for her readers. Guy, for example, represents the young Black male, while Vivian represents the idealized mother figure, and the stiff language they use, as well as the language in Angelou's text, is intended to prove that Blacks can use standard English competently.

McWhorter recognizes that much of the reason for Angelou's style was the "apologetic" nature of her writing. When Angelou wrote Caged Bird at the end of the 1960s, one of the necessary and accepted features of literature at the time was "organic unity", and one of her goals was to create a book that satisfied that criterion. The events in her books were episodic and crafted like a series of short stories, but their arrangements did not follow a strict chronology. Instead, they were placed to emphasize the themes of her books, which include racism, identity, family, and travel. English literature scholar Valerie Sayers has asserted that "Angelou's poetry and prose are similar". They both rely on her "direct voice", which alternates steady rhythms with syncopated patterns and uses similes and metaphors (e.g., the caged bird). According to Hagen, Angelou's works were influenced by both conventional literary and the oral traditions of the African American community. For example, she referenced more than 100 literary characters throughout her books and poetry. In addition, she used the elements of blues music, including the act of testimony when speaking of one's life and struggles, ironic understatement, and the use of natural metaphors, rhythms, and intonations. Angelou, instead of depending upon plot, used personal and historical events to shape her books.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Maya Angelou


text:
Superior, Wisconsin

Superior (Gete-oodenaang) is a city in, and the county seat of, Douglas County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 26,751 at the 2020 census. Located at the western end of Lake Superior in northwestern Wisconsin, the city lies at the junction of U.S. Route 2 and U.S. Route 53 immediately north of, and adjacent to, both the Village of Superior and the Town of Superior.

Bordered by Saint Louis, Superior, and Allouez bays, the city is framed by two rivers: the Nemadji and the Saint Louis. Superior and the neighboring city across the bay, Duluth, Minnesota, form a single metropolitan area called the Twin Ports. They share a harbor that is one of the most important ports on the Great Lakes. Both cities feature museum ships (SS William A. Irvin in Duluth and SS Meteor (1896) in Superior), devoted to the local maritime heritage. Superior was the final port of call for SS Edmund Fitzgerald before her sinking on November 10, 1975. It is an industrial city, with ship harbors along two sides, several large rail yards, an oil refinery, and shipyard.

History
The first log cabin in Superior was erected in September 1853 on the banks of the Nemadji River, at the same time that ground was broken for construction of the locks and ship canal at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. This was intended to allow ships to bypass the rapids at that site. Superior was incorporated as a city on March 25, 1889. Around the same time Superior became the seat of newly formed Douglas County. Immediately there was eagerness for a railroad from Lake Superior to the Pacific Coast, and investment flowed in, but then the Panic of 1857 hit, investment slowed, and the population of the new city collapsed from 2500 to 500.

25 years later the Northern Pacific Railway and other rail lines finally arrived, fulfilling the dream of a rail and water highway from coast to coast. In 1883 General John H. Hammond formed the Land and River Improvement Company, which developed much of West Superior, including the West Superior Iron and Steel plant. Numerous grain, coal and lumber businesses formed in the same period.

In the Boom Period from 1888 to 1892, Land and River Improvement and others built impressive architect-designed business blocks on Tower Avenue, seeing Superior as the "new Chicago". Many of the investors were from out East, so the buildings received names like the New Jersey Block and the Maryland Block. By 1892, population was 34,000. Then the Panic of 1893 hit, and development slowed again.

Between 1890 and 1920, the city was heavily settled by migrants from the eastern United States as well as immigrants from over 15 countries, including England, Scotland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Poland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Hungary, and Croatia.

Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 55.65 sqmi, of which, 36.96 sqmi is land and 18.69 sqmi is water. Most of Superior is level with a gradual slope toward Lake Superior.

2020 census
As of the census of 2020, the population was 26,751. The population density was 730.5 PD/sqmi. There were 12,593 housing units at an average density of 343.9 /sqmi. The racial makeup of the city was 87.7% White, 2.1% Native American, 1.8% Black or African American, 0.9% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 0.6% from other races, and 6.7% from two or more races. Ethnically, the population was 2.1% Hispanic or Latino of any race.

2010 census
As of the census of 2010, there were 27,244 people, 11,670 households, and 6,548 families residing in the city. The population density was 737.1 PD/sqmi. There were 12,328 housing units at an average density of 333.5 /sqmi. The racial makeup of the city was 91.5% White, 1.4% African American, 2.6% Native American, 1.2% Asian, 0.2% from other races, and 3.1% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino people of any race were 1.4% of the population.

There were 11,670 households, of which 28.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 37.2% were married couples living together, 13.5% had a female householder with no husband present, 5.4% had a male householder with no wife present, and 43.9% were non-families. 34.6% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.23 and the average family size was 2.84.

The median age in the city was 35.4 years. 21.3% of residents were under the age of 18; 13.4% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 26% were from 25 to 44; 25.9% were from 45 to 64; and 13.5% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 49.0% male and 51.0% female.

2000 census
As of the 2000 census, there were 27,368 people, 11,609 households, and 6,698 families residing in the city. The population density was 740.9 people per square mile (286.1/km2). There were 12,196 housing units at an average density of 330.2 per square mile (127.5/km2). The racial makeup of the city was 94.26% White, 0.68% Black or African American, 2.23% Native American, 0.84% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 0.26% from other races, and 1.69% from two or more races. 0.83% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 15.8% were of German, 13.6% Norwegian, 10.9% Swedish, 9.3% Irish, 7.2% Polish, 6.9% Finnish and 5.3% American ancestry.

There were 11,609 households, out of which 27.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 41.3% were married couples living together, 12.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 42.3% were non-families. 34.2% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.26 and the average family size was 2.91.

The city's median household income was $31,921, and the median family income was $41,093. Males had a median income of $33,712 versus $22,073 for females. The per capita income for the city was $17,253. 13.4% of the population and 9.6% of families were below the poverty line. 16.0% of those under the age of 18 and 7.8% of those 65 and older were living below the poverty line. In the city, the population was spread out, with 22.7% under the age of 18, 12.9% from 18 to 24, 27.9% from 25 to 44, 21.6% from 45 to 64, and 15.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 92.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 88.8 males.

Economy

The transportation industry accounts for more than 1,000 jobs. The Twin Ports of Duluth–Superior, the largest in the Great Lakes, welcomes both domestic and foreign vessels. Bulk solids (such as grain) make up much of the tonnage handled by the port, and the silos of such port facilities are visible on the Superior waterfront. In 2004, the port's busiest year since 1979, more than 41.4 million metric tons were shipped out of the port. BNSF Railway has an operations hub in Superior.

Cenovus Energy operates a refinery in Superior. The refinery is located along a pipeline connecting western Canada and the Midwest. On April 26, 2018, there was an explosion at the refinery. Douglas County issued a state of emergency due to heavy smoke, and then an evacuation order for local residents and workers. There were 20 injuries, and five were taken to hospital in Duluth. No fatalities were reported.

Growing area manufacturers include FenTech, Inc., which manufactures vinyl doors and windows; Charter NEX Films, a producer of plastic films; Genesis Attachments, manufacturer of shears and grapples; Amsoil, a producer of synthetic motor oil and lubricants; and Crane Song Ltd., a manufacturer of discrete Class A electronics for recording studios. Fraser Shipyards also provides many jobs to local residents. They repower and repair commercial vessels.

Arts and culture
Superior Public Library is located in downtown Superior.

Superior City FC, a semi-professional soccer club, compete in the United Premier Soccer League (UPSL). Founded in 2023, the club supports a Men's UPSL Premier team, a Women's UPSL Premier team, and multiple amateur adult teams. The club plays their home games at the NBC Spartan Sports Complex, located at Superior Senior High School.

Parks and recreation
There are several parks in the city, including the second largest municipal forest in the United States, located in the city's Billings Park neighborhood.

Government
The current mayor of Superior is Jim Paine, who was first elected in 2017.

Education

Superior is served by the Superior School District, which has one high school, one middle school, and six elementary schools, with a total enrollment of over 5,000 students. Superior High School enrolls more than 1,500 students. Its mascot is Sparty the Spartan. Over 1,400 students are also enrolled in the Maple School District. Parochial schools include the Catholic Cathedral School, the Protestant-based Maranatha Academy and Twin Ports Baptist School.

The University of Wisconsin–Superior (UWS) is a public liberal arts college. Originally opened as a state Normal School (teacher's college), UWS became part of the University of Wisconsin System in 1971.

Northwood Technical College (formerly WITC) offers skill development and technical education, with an enrollment of over 2,200.

Print media

 * The Superior Telegram, local twice-weekly print newspaper
 * The Superior Catholic Herald, published by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Superior
 * Positively Superior, a bi-monthly business-to-business magazine that focuses exclusively on Superior and Douglas County

Radio
Superior is part of the Duluth radio and television market.
 * KDKE 102.5 FM – classic Country
 * KUWS 91.3 FM – Ideas network of Wisconsin Public Radio
 * WDSM 710 AM – News Talk Information
 * WDUL 970 AM – Sports
 * WGHF-LP 93.7 FM – Superior Seventh-Day Adventist Church
 * WSSU (FM) 88.5 FM – WPR News & Classical

Television

 * 6 KBJR-TV (NBC/CBS) – Superior
 * 3 KDLH (The CW) – Duluth
 * 8 WDSE (PBS) – Duluth
 * 10 WDIO-DT (ABC) – Duluth
 * 21 KQDS (Fox) – Duluth
 * 27 KCWV (Family Chanel) – Duluth

Major highways
The following routes are located within the city of Superior.

 * [[Image:I-535.svg|24px]] Interstate 535 – John Blatnik Bridge
 * [[Image:US 2.svg|20px]] U.S. Highway 2 – Belknap Street(western portion) E. 2nd Street/US Highway 53 (eastern portion)
 * [[Image:US 53.svg|20px]] U.S. Highway 53
 * [[Image:WIS 35.svg|20px]] Wisconsin Highway 35 – Tower Avenue
 * [[Image:WIS 105.svg|20px]] Wisconsin Highway 105 – Central Avenue

Airport
Richard I. Bong Airport (KSUW) serves the city and surrounding communities. Duluth International Airport in Duluth is the nearest commercial airport, with service on three commercial and two cargo airlines, as of December 2018.

Bus
The Duluth Transit Authority provides Superior and nearby Duluth with fixed-route and dial-a-ride public bus service. Intercity bus service to the city is provided by Indian Trails.

Rail
A proposed Amtrak route running between Duluth and the Twin Cities has a planned stop in Superior and is the final stop before arriving in Duluth or the first stop after departing from Duluth. Previously, Superior was served by passenger rail until 1984 at the Superior Union Station.

Notable people

 * James H. Agen, Wisconsin State Representative
 * Wallace W. Andrew, Wisconsin State Representative
 * Morrie Arnovich, MLB All-Star outfielder
 * Dave Bancroft, MLB player and manager, member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame
 * David Francis Barry, photographer of the American West
 * David L. Bazelon, Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals
 * Kris Benson, Major League Baseball player
 * Niko Bogojevic, professional wrestler for WWE
 * Richard Bong, Medal of Honor recipient and top flying ace of the U.S. in World War II
 * C.A. Bottolfsen, 17th and 19th Governor of Idaho
 * Charles J. Bouchard, Wisconsin State Representative
 * Dave Bronson, Mayor of Anchorage, Alaska
 * Esther Bubley, photographer
 * Anthony Bukoski, short story writer
 * Solanus Casey, priest and a "blessed" of the Catholic Church
 * Carl Cashion, MLB player
 * Agnes Charbonneau, Wisconsin State Representative
 * Frank Christopherson Jr., Wisconsin State Representative
 * Paul Clemens, U.S. Army general
 * Charles H. Crownhart, Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court
 * Albert W. Durley, Wisconsin State Representative and lawyer
 * Russ Ennis, MLB player
 * Daniel R. Fitzpatrick, editorial cartoonist
 * William R. Foley, Wisconsin State Representative
 * James B. French, Wisconsin State Representative
 * Bud Grant, head coach of the Minnesota Vikings from 1967–1983; 1985, member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame and Pro Football Hall of Fame
 * Lawrence M. Hagen, Wisconsin State Representative
 * Ogden H. Hammond, diplomat and New Jersey politician
 * Christine Hoberg, singer-songwriter and music producer
 * William E. Hoehle, Wisconsin State Representative
 * George Hudnall, Wisconsin State Senator
 * Eastman Johnson, artist, co-founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
 * Doc Kelley, NFL player
 * Bill LaBounty, songwriter/musician
 * Tuffy Leemans, NFL player, member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame
 * Irvine L. Lenroot, U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and Judge of the U.S. Court of Customs and Patents Appeals
 * Victor Linley, Wisconsin State Senator
 * Robert J. MacDonald, Michigan State Senator
 * James S. Mace, Wisconsin State Representative
 * Gordon MacQuarrie, journalist and outdoors writer
 * Bruce Mathison, NFL player
 * Edgar G. Mills, Wisconsin State Representative and Senator
 * Thomas Brooks Mills, Wisconsin politician
 * Thomas B. Murray, Wisconsin State Representative
 * Ernie Nevers, member of both College and Pro Football Halls of Fame
 * Marian Nixon, actress
 * Ray J. Nye, Wisconsin State Senator
 * Scott O'Brien, special teams coordinator of the New England Patriots
 * Bob Olson, football player
 * Byron C. Ostby, Wisconsin State Representative
 * Dave Peterson, coach of the United States men's national ice hockey team
 * Angus B. Rothwell, Superintendent of Public Instruction of Wisconsin
 * Augustine Francis Schinner, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Superior and Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane
 * Lewis B. Schwellenbach, U.S. Secretary of Labor
 * Frank D. Sheahan, Wisconsin State Representative
 * Mike Sislo, NHL
 * Henry Clay Sloan, Wisconsin State Representative
 * Edward Stack, Wisconsin State Representative
 * James S. Stack, Wisconsin State Representative
 * Don Stivers, artist
 * Doug Sutherland, NFL player
 * Tarzan Taylor, NFL player
 * David Tipton, NFL player
 * Leonard Patrick Walsh, United States District Court judge in Washington, D.C.
 * Albert D. Whealdon, Wisconsin State Representative
 * Jarvis White, Wisconsin State Representative
 * Jeffrey Williams, NASA astronaut
 * Oliver E. Williamson, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in economics
 * F. A. Woodward, Superior mayor, Arizona State Senator

Religion
Superior is the episcopal see of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Superior, and the Cathedral of Christ the King in Superior is the mother church of the diocese. Saint Francis Xavier Catholic Church, located in the East End of Superior, has been noted for its architecture. Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church is the only congregation of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod located in Superior. It recently moved from its original location on Belknap Street to a new campus on North 28th Street. Pilgrim Lutheran Church is located along Belknap Street near the University of Wisconsin–Superior. United Presbyterian Church represents the Presbyterian Church U.S.A as a merger of three churches in a new church building. Faith United Methodist Church is the result of a merger of the city's original three Methodist Churches: First, Central and Trinity. Many small churches dot the city's neighborhoods, representing most major denominations.

title: Superior, Wisconsin


text:
User talk:Reidman~enwiki

Greetings! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. You can sign your name with ~. If you have questions or doubts of any sort, do not hesitate to post them on the Village Pump, somebody will respond ASAP. Other helpful pages include: Have fun! --Jiang 22:09, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)
 * Welcome, newcomers
 * Manual of style
 * Naming conventions

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Reidman. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Reidman~enwiki that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name. If you think you might own all of the accounts with this name and this message is in error, please visit Special:MergeAccount to check and attach all of your accounts to prevent them from being renamed.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 02:22, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 18:02, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Reidman~enwiki


text:
User talk:Mjb59

Greetings! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. You can sign your name with ~. If you have questions or doubts of any sort, do not hesitate to post them on the Village Pump, somebody will respond ASAP. Other helpful pages include: Have fun! --Jiang 22:10, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)
 * Welcome, newcomers
 * Manual of style
 * Naming conventions

title: User talk:Mjb59


text:
Mount Nemrut

Mount Nemrut or Nemrud (Nemrut Dağı; Çiyayê Nemrûdê; Նեմրութ լեռ; Greek: Όρος Νεμρούτ) is a 2134 m mountain in southeastern Turkey, notable for the summit where a number of large statues are erected around what is assumed to be a royal tomb from the 1st century BC. It is one of the highest peaks in the east of the Taurus Mountains.

It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.

Location and description
The mountain lies 40 km north of Kahta, near Adıyaman. In 62 BC, King Antiochus I of Commagene built on the mountain top a tomb-sanctuary flanked by huge statues 8 - 9 m of himself, two lions, two eagles, and various composite Greek and Iranian gods, such as Heracles-Artagnes-Ares, Zeus-Oromasdes, and Apollo-Mithras-Helios-Hermes. When constructing this pantheon, Antiochus drew heavily from Parthian and Armenian traditions in order to reinvigorate the religion of his ancestral dynasty. The statues were once seated, with names of each god inscribed on them. At some point the heads of the statues were removed from their bodies, and they are now scattered throughout the site.

The pattern of damage to the heads (notably to noses) suggests that they were deliberately damaged as a result of iconoclasm. The statues have not been restored to their original places. The site also preserves stone slabs with bas-relief figures that are thought to have formed a large frieze. These slabs, or stelae, depict Antiochus' Greek and Persian ancestors.

The same statues and ancestors found throughout the site can also be found on the tumulus at the site, which is 49 m tall and 152 m in diameter. It is possible that the tumulus of loose rock was devised to protect a tomb from robbers, since any excavation would quickly fill in. The statues appear to have Greek-style faces, but Persian clothing and hair-styling.

The western terrace contains a large slab with a lion, showing an arrangement of stars and the planets Jupiter, Mercury, and Mars. The composition was taken to be a chart of the sky on 7 July 62 BCE. This may be an indication of when construction began on this monument. The eastern portion is well preserved, being composed of several layers of rock, and a path following the base of the mountain is evidence of a walled passageway linking the eastern and western terraces. Possible uses for this site are thought to have included religious ceremonies, owing to the astronomical and religious nature of the monument.

The arrangement of such statues is known by the term hierothesion. Similar arrangements have been found at Arsameia on Nymphaios at the hierothesion of Antiochus' father, Mithridates I Callinicus.

Ancient history
The religious sanctuary established in Mount Nemrut was part of Antiochus' political program to revive the Persian traditions of Commagene. In order to do so, he merged and adjusted the political and religious traditions of Cappadocia, Pontus, and Armenia.

Following the practice of the Mithridatic rulers of Pontus, Antiochus stressed his descent from the Achaemenids and Seleucids, and also claimed the royal legacy of Armenia. One of the essential parts of this identity was the then newly established Greco-Iranian pantheon, which was worshipped at specific sanctuaries in Commagene.

Modern history
The site was excavated in 1881 by Karl Sester, a German engineer assessing transport routes for the Ottomans. After her first visit in 1947, Theresa Goell dedicated her life to the site, starting campaigns in 1954. Subsequent excavations have failed to reveal the tomb of Antiochus. This is nevertheless still believed to be the site of his burial. The statues, all of them "beheaded", have not been restored to their original condition.

World Heritage Site
In 1987, Mount Nemrut was made a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Tourists typically visit Nemrut during April through October. The nearby town of Adıyaman is a popular place for car and bus trips to the site, and one can also travel from there by helicopter. There are also overnight tours running out of Malatya or Kahta.

The UNESCO entry states: "The mausoleum of Antiochus I (69–34 B.C.), who reigned over Commagene, a kingdom founded north of Syria and the Euphrates after the breakup of Alexander's empire, is one of the most ambitious constructions of the Hellenistic period. The syncretism of its pantheon, and the lineage of its kings, which can be traced back through two sets of legends, Greek and Persian, is evidence of the dual origin of this kingdom's culture."

title: Mount Nemrut