The Sagamore at the Place Known as Weekeepeemee (CT)

 

  We were looking for zucchini plants and a farmstand called the Farm on Weekeepeemee Road just the other day. We had a few guesses as to where this farmstead could be since we’d been driving on Weekeepeemee Road, the road my sister and cousin Glen live on, for our entire lives, my wife and I. But then next thing you know, we suddenly ran out of Weekeepeemee Road – or so we thought. Our GPS suggested we turn left and continue on Weekeepeemee Road, onto what is also known as route 132, as we’ve thought that stretch of road was called all these years.

  We headed downhill, passing by some more of the recent and most ugliest of stone wall rebuilds that have become so popular around here, down to a floodplain nestled into the hills.

   That’s when finally Weekeepeemee made sense to me, as another Pootatuck person and a placename switcheroo.

   It’s entirely possible and very probable that Sagamore Weekeepeemee, like Sachem Nonnewaug or Sachem Waramaug, was the leader of a group of people who were living at the place of the linden or basswood trees, Indian cornfields, and house sites above the flood zone that had been used for perhaps thousands of years by generations of Indigenous People.

  Drew Shuptar- Rayvis writes: “Among Algonkian-speaking people, the governing body was led by a Sachem/Sakima and often included (as found in New England) a vice chief called a Sagamore, War Chiefs and Peace Chiefs, whose official titles have been lost to time."

https://encyclopedia.nahc-mapping.org/sites/default/files/2024-04/AlgonkianGovernanceStructures_DrewShuptarRayvis_2024.pdf

 

“Weekeepeemee is a little hamlet in the north-west part of the town,” writes William Cothren in his History of Ancient Woodbury, Connecticut. 

“Weekeepeemee was a sagamore , and was buried somewhere near the village of that name in Woodbury ; but the locality is not now known,” William Cothren also writes in his History of Ancient Woodbury Connecticut. 

Mr.Cothren claimed Weekeepeemee or Wecupemee meant “twisted river,” but Mr. John C. Huden disagrees with that and tells us “wikopi” refers to the twisted inner bark of the Linden or Basswood tree, used to make cordage for making string or netting, probably known as Bastewood to the Europeans.

 

   I’m guessing that the fields and house sites last used by the Sagamore at a place known as Weekeepeemee were acquired by the early English settler colonists as field and house sites.

The planting lands, my friend Nohham writes of, hakihakanink, “garden/farmlands,”

Kuttinakish in Nipmuk, here and other places:

 https://www.academia.edu/74035468/Framing_Intercultural_Discourse_Within_Ethics

 ,

I’m guessing there are interesting “stone walls” or Qusukqaniyutôkansh in the area to be observed for some cultural clues as to who may have created the oldest of rows of culturally stacked stones - and some modern vandalism... 

…

More Bunker Hill Serpent Images (CT)

 

Shadow becomes an Eye On the Old Road to Woodbury CT

 The Seven Hills Serpent Entrance

   The road was spoken of as "The Seven Hills," and every once in a while I'll hear someone from Watertown CT call it that. I was even very surprised one time last year to hear a young country songwriter mention "The Seven Hills" in a song. The road's present day name is Bunker Hill Road in Watertown because it's the extension of a road of that name that begins by the Naugatuck River in Waterbury. I know it well because my grandmother lived near the Waterbury end of the road and my parent's home about halfway between Grandma Rose's house and her parent's farm at the end of the road - and my Uncle Bob's house built on the last remnant of the family farm that has finally sold. 

  How many times have I ridden or driven past this little segment of culturally stacked stones in 70 years? I can answer that quite quickly: "I don't know."

 I've written something before on this blog about this "stone wall," as the world seems determined to call it. I've shown some photos of it, documented some wooden pieces broken off in it that I suspect are from maintaining this old row of culturally stacked stones along a long-used Indigenous road that led from the Village Mattatuck that connected to another road that led to Lake Quassapaug and the Village known in early settler colonial days as the Nonnewaug Wigwams.

Wooden Pieces in Walls | Flickr

  I've suggested that this segment shown is a gateway or entrance in that row of stones, guarded by a stone serpent on either side, aware of the intentions of whoever enters, waiting perhaps for a gift of tobacco to ensure safe passage, just like those snakes on certain rivers in Indigenous stories.

  I've lifted an image from the Gages web pages to compare this entrance or gateway to in the past, and now I add this image as well:

 

  A long way around to say it, but after years of puzzling about it, I passed by this gateway on the way to the grocery store at just at the right time of day, at the right time of year, to see a shadow "become" a snake's eye, a phenomenon seen at a few other sites I know of and probably at a greater unknown number of sites than I'll probably ever know. 

  

Some old aerial and some LiDAR images as well: 

Below, an older photo, showing the flat-topped triangular boulder.

as it appears looking west: 

The "Old Woodbury Rd." | Flickr 

The "Old Woodbury Rd." | Flickr

Actual Zigzag Images

 A collected bunch of Zigzag 'Stone Fences" images - and then some...

A questionable image:

: 

Actual photographs of actual wooden rails on actual culturally stacked zigzag rows of stones:

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2023/10/old-baird-road-zig-zags.html

South Facing Guardian Serpent in Deep Snow (Nonnewaug)

 

Under the Snow (Nonnewaug CT)

The "forward point" of a Zigzag Row of Culturally Stacked Stones, along a road thousands of years old, a Big Snake keeping an eye on me from under a blanket of snow...

Please note that this is not how I usually view the stone feature but that morning it seemed to "transform" under the light and weather conditions, a foot and a half of snow blanketing the landscape.