Re-creation of Monacan Town

Since 2000, the Monacan Tribe has re-created an interpretive village at Natural Bridge. This was done in partnership with the commercial owners of the tourist site, who are trying to offer more attractions. For the tribe, the site offers an excellent opportunity to educate far more people about Monacan culture and heritage, beyopnd the small number of people who visit the Monacan Ancestral Museum in the Blue Ridge. The building materials and construction techniques in the village reflect the technology and culture of the 1700's, except the reeds are not the local cane that would have been used 300 years ago. That cane is rare, due to overgrazing. The phragmites reeds used in most Indian village recreations is a non-native invasive species that is overwhelming natural marshes in the Chesapeake Bay. The authenticity of the re-creation is affected by the location in the valley of Cedar Creek at Natural Bridge. The number of dwellings, the distance between structures, the size of the garden, and even the garbage midden are affected by the constraints of being a tourist attraction. At a modern tourist site, do you think you'll see a re-creation of how Monacans extracted sinews from a deer carcass, or experience the flies and other insects that must have been associated with human settlements? And do you think any tribe would have built a village in such a valley? The palisade of sticks and woven branches surrounding the village was major investment in security infrastructure, to deter attackers from racing directly into the village. (No, even before European settlement in North America, everyone did not live in peace and harmony.) Today, reenactors and others debate whether a wall around the village would have included the horizontal branches woven to make a tight barricade. Village walls may have been just a loose fence of vertical logs with no horizontal branches, slowing an attack but allowing residents to escape by slipping through the gaps. Archeological evidence does not tell us; the postholes preserved in the soil do not document the design of the wall above the posts. No matter how the wall was built, village leaders would have been conscious about locating the village in an easy-to-defend place. Putting a village in a dead-end narrow valley under Natural Bridge, where enemies could easily fire arrows and throw rocks from above, would have been foolish 300 years ago - but a recreated village at that location may be a brilliant outreach/marketing decision today.

Monacan palisade and "ati" (house)