Michael R. Hall is a Harvard Law School graduate with a passion for botany and Native American culture. The author is an amateur naturalist who has lectured extensively on Ohio's native plants and animals both past and present. He was born and has lived in Ohio most of his life and is familiar with the historical sites and archeology of the Ohio Hopewell Indians as well as other Native American peoples. The author's extensive research of the literature on the Ohio Hopewell culture and his knowledge of Native American stories and spirituality made it possible to make reasonable and educated inferences of the belief system of these remarkable people. These inferences are based on the archeological record and the beliefs of their genetic linear descendents: Algonquian and Siouxian speaking peoples.