“Serpent Stones is
an interpretation of an ancient game believed to have been played by the Aztecs
over 600 years ago.” ~ https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/119165/serpent-stones
“Stone Great
Serpent” in the search box brings me to some Google Images.
No surprise at the image, but check the sources using the photo
of the Great Serpent Mound. Lots of ancient mysteries types (insisting anyone
but Indians made it), a bunch of New Age opportunists, and the obligatory aliens
from space people chiming in.
But here’s the
credible people (maybe), saying, “Serpent Mound...is the largest documented
surviving example of an ancient effigy mound in the world. While part of the
tradition of effigy building among some American Indian cultures in what is now
the eastern United States, this site is the greatest masterpiece of that
tradition both here and elsewhere in the world. The sinuous,
artistically-striking monumental sculpture is more than 1,200 feet long. Its
scale and elegance are without peer. It embodies fundamental spiritual and
cosmological principles that still resonate with many today, including
astronomical alignments that mark the seasons.” http://worldheritageohio.org
“The entire worldwide list of around 1,000 properties can be
explored on an interactive
map, the main page claims, so I take a look at the USA section. I end up
here, reading, “Poverty Point Monumental Earthworks bear exceptional testimony
to a vanished cultural tradition, the Poverty Point culture, centered in the
Lower Mississippi Valley during the Late Archaic period, 4,000-2,500 years ago.
This site, which dates to 3,700-3,100 BP, is an outstanding example of
landscape design and monumental earthwork construction by a population of
hunter-fisher-gatherers. The mound complex is a singular achievement in earthen
construction in North America: it was not surpassed for at least 2,000 years
(and only then by people supported by a farming economy). The particular layout
of the complex is unique to this site. The natural setting of this inland
settlement was an important factor in the site’s establishment and longevity.
The location provided easy access to the Mississippi River valley and the
hardwood forests along its margins. Although rich in edible resources, the
setting lacked stone, a critical raw material for tools and other objects.
Thus, an extensive trade network for rocks and minerals from hundreds of
kilometres away played a key role in the Poverty Point phenomenon.”
Now I live
somewhere where stone was readily available.
Peppered into
those Google Image results are quite a few of my photos, as well as others who
have been kind enough to allow me to use their photos.
Newly added 1/30/2021:
Just like Matt
Bua in Talking Walls, I am suggesting that we pass by the
stone remnants of a World Heritage Site, everyday and everywhere, here at the Eastern Gate of Turtle
Island, once one of the world’s largest gardens, guarded by Stone Great Serpents
in a setting that didn’t lack stone.
I’m suggesting
taking another look at all those "stone walls" again with 12,000 years of
Traditional Ecological Knowledge in mind, an Indigenous Homeland tended with Prayers in Stone and Fire, watched over by and protected by Great Serpents, "Big Snakes" in a hundred different dialects...
(Larry Harrop photo)
...while remembering the many Great Serpent stories.
(Also a Larry Harrop photo)
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