Helpful Hints on Identifying Native American Stonework

Look for:
    1.) Stones that resemble Turtles 

a. - Artistically added into  Káhtôquwukansh or “Stone Prayers” - those so-called "Field Clearing Heaps" or "Rock Piles" or "Stone Mounds" - as well as larger Turtle Effigies on boulders.

b. - incorporated into Qusukqaniyutôkansh  - those  rows of stacked stones known colloquially as "Stone Walls," misidentified more often than not as Yankee Farmer Walls. 

c. - anywhere else that I can't think of at the moment. 

Trying to decide about this one, in a never plowed "boulder field," was easy:

I did have to look at the other side:

I walked closer, looked down and saw a composite turtle - a carapace, head and forelegs with a plastron below -  artistically stacked into the mound.

It's especially true if there are more turtle-like stones placed on nearby boulders - or even a single stone that resembles a turtle like this one:

Or this sort of "single stone turtle:"

(All above photos are from Woodbridge CT 2009, the ones below from Woodbury, various years)

The inclusion of a quartz stone is often mentioned by people who look for Indigenous Stonework;

then again a partial quartz turtle head with a rind of granite for a carapace or upper shell with a separate piece of that dark stone as a plastron or lower shell is another clue:

Sometimes these are small, possibly baby turtles, "pipping" out of an egg, shells nearby:

Again it helps if other turtles made like it are nearby:

Like these other larger sized turtles made by adults:

Smaller, perhaps made by a child:

And, nearby, a larger boulder, with those sunbursts, or "Beaver's Footprints," just like all box turtles carry, just as the local Creation Story says, how Beaver Helped the Great Turtle make the world:

Don't see the turtle? 

Match the colors of the construction's foreleg, head and shell, add an eye, some nostrils, and look for that "vee"-shaped beak that goes with a turtle smile:

And one of my new favorites, a diamondback terrapin in Madison CT:

There's more turtle examples that may follow, but be on the watch for some Bears, Deer, and even some Great Serpents to follow...