Introduction
I grew up in the Northwestern Corner of Connecticut, close to an area known for the legend of haunted woods known as Dudley town. When I moved to the Carolinas I was introduced to the legend of another haunted woodsy location, the devils stomping ground. It seems that just about every area across the country and very possibly the world has some sort of legend attached to haunted woods. The reason behind that may lie in the fact that woods can be creepy places. However, I feel that the actual reason behind what makes woods so creepy and why so many wooded areas are known/thought/believed to be haunted actually lies with the fact that many (if not all) areas know for haunted woods were once frequented by Native Americans.
Native American spiritual belief was very earth based (or pagan if you will). It is my belief that at the very least during Native American religious rituals portals to the other side were opened and some of that residual energy may still exist in haunted wooded areas.
The Story of the Bell Witch haunting is traditionally called a poltergeist. And while most (ok all) of the activity is similar to what one would expect to find in a poltergeist case. I feel that the activity began for another reason. It’s my belief that the land John Bell and his family owned had at one point belonged to Native American’s and that these individuals may have inadvertently left a portal to the other side open.
The Story of the Bell Witch
The story of the Bell Witch is one of the most enduring paranormal legends in the country and has been the subject of countless books and movies. Because this story is so popular with the media, I’m sure that some of the accounts of activity have been embellished over the years.
Sometime in the early 1800s John Bell and family moved from North Carolina to Robertson County Tennessee (later Adams Tennessee). Mr. Bell owned a large farm (338 acres) and was an elder with the Red River Baptist Church.
Strange events began to occur in and around the Bell homestead in 1817. While John Bell was inspecting his fields he noticed a strange looking animal/creature. According to accounts the animal had the body of a dog and the head of a rabbit. The animal reportedly disappeared after Bell shot at it.
After that event the Bell family began to hear beating and banging sounds on the walls of their home. The sounds would increase with frequency and force each night. “Several weeks after this event the Bell children began waking up complaining that rats were gnawing at their bed posts”(Fitzhugh, P. (2008) The Bell Witch Haunting)
That activity continued to escalate until the children began to complain that their bed covers were being pulled from them and their pillows were being tossed onto the floor by some unseen entity.
Eventually, the Bell family began hearing faint whispering voices that were to week to understand but sounded like an old woman singing hymns.
“The encounters escalated and the Bells youngest daughter Betsy began experiencing brutal encounters with the invisible entity. It would pull her hair and slap her relentlessly often leaving welts and hand prints on her face and body” (Fitzhugh, P. (2008) The Bell Witch Haunting)
What makes this case even more interesting is the fact that the entity involved in the Bell haunting claimed responsibility for the death of John Bell.
The disturbances decreased after Betsy ended the engagement but the entity continued to express its dislike for John Bell and vowed relentlessly to kill him
Bell had been experiencing episodes of twitching in his face and difficulty swallowing for almost a year and the malady seemed to grow worse with time
By the fall of 1820 his declining health had confined him to the house where the entity commenced removed his shoes when he tried to walk and slapping his face when he experienced seizures. Her loud shrill voice could be heard all over the farm cussing and chasting old Jack Bell
John Bell died December 20, 1820 after slipping into a coma the day before
Immediately after his death the family found a small vial of unidentified liquid in the cupboard. John Bell J.R. gave some it to the cat which died instantly’
The entity’s presence was almost non-existent after John Bell’s demise(Fitzhhugh, P. (2008) The Bell Witch Haunting)
Analysis
While the case of the Bell Witch does manifest in the manner of a traditional poltergeist disturbance would, there are also several differences. The first and major difference between the cases is the fact that before any sort of disturbances started John Bell reported seeing a strange creature. It was not until he shot at/possibly killed the creature did any sort of disturbance begin to manifest. It is my opinion that the Bell family were living in an area that was paranormally active because of residual energy left behind by Native American spiritual practices.
Mound Builders
It is now known that the Mound Builders were prehistoric Indians whose cultures lasted many centuries. The mound builders had been classified as found different cultural groups:
1. Poverty Point
2. Adena
3. Hopewell
4. Mississippian
The Various Mound Builders lived during the phase of North American prehistory known as Formative period which followed the Paleolithic and Archaic periods. The Formative period lasted from about 1000 BC until AD 1500 and was characterized by farming, house building, village life, pottery, weaving, plus other advances in technology. (Waldman, C (2006) p. 178)
For the purpose of this article the focus will be on the Mississippian Culture. The reasoning behind this, the Mississippian Mound Builders were also known as Temple Mound Builders.
Starting in about AD 70 around the time of the demise of the Hopewell culture, a new culture evolved throughout much of eastern North America. It was centered along the Mississippi River and therefore referred to as the Mississippian culture... Mississippian sites can be found from Florida to Oklahoma as far north as Wisconsin. Mississippian Indians constructed mounds for a new purpose. They situated their places of worship on top of them. As a result, Mississippian Indians are also known as Temple Mound Builders (Waldman, C. (2006) p 180)
A typical Mississippian mound had sloping sides and a flat top where the temple stood. Log steps ran up one side to a pole-and-thatch structure. Some of the mounds had terraced sides where other, smaller structures stood. These were homes of priests and nobles. The higher the rank of an individual, the higher he lived on the mound. (Waldman, C. (2006) p 181)
Many of the ceremonial objects found at the Mississippian sites reveal symbols of death and human sacrifice- skulls, bones, buzzards and weeping eyes. It is thought that the Temple Mound religion called the death cult (or buzzard cult of southern cult) and its powerful priests served to unify the various villages (Waldman, C. (2006) p 182)
Conclusion
This Native American culture was known for its temple building and has been connected to human sacrifice. Blood and sacrifice are powerful ceremonial ingredients. Based on those facts alone, any area built on or near a former temple mound location will be powerfully paranormally??? Charged. It is my theory that the Bell family farm was build on or near a Temple Mound location or near a location that had an open doorway to another dimension. This doorway would have been opened because of the Mound Builders religious practices.
References:
Fitzhugh, P. (2008). The Bell Witch Haunting. Reterived November, 2, 2009 from http://www.bellwitch.org/story.htm
Waldman, C. (2006). Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes (3rd edition). New York, NY: Checkmark Books
