Call ‘em like ya see ‘em
As I drove back
home from LaGuardia the other day, up the Hutchinson River Parkway and then by
way of Interstate 684, I was looking past the scar of highway for stone snakes,
the Great Serpents recalled in stories from all around Turtle Island for
thousands and thousands of years. It’s surprising how soon it happens, before you
see the rectangular quarried blocks fade out and the old stones begin to appear
on the late winter landscape, big stone snakes linking water to ridgetop,
connecting outcrop to outcrop, every once in a while the beginning of a stone
snake, a big triangular boulder, low rows and high rows. Said to be stone walls
built by European immigrants in a Golden Age of Stone Wall Building, I’ve been looking at how the stones were deliberately chosen and stacked so that they
resemble larger than life-sized snakes – and rattlesnakes in particular.
Above: a random
capture of just some of the many long stone rows seen from the highway, the
south facing view, the north side of the constructions in shadow. Below: an
overlay of horned serpent heads that a field observation may or may not prove
to actually be there...
If this spot was
more local, I’d go look tomorrow or maybe the day after – or meet you there
next Saturday to look for snake heads made of stone. And maybe small stones
that resemble rattles at the thin end of some of these stone snakes undulating
across the landscape (not that I have had much luck or experience finding that feature too often).
I glimpsed one bedrock out crop as a head stone, on a distant hillside, a body of stacked stones stretched out terrace-like upon the hillside, much like this similar Great Stone Serpent in Brian Cohen’s
image from the Eastern Highlands of CT:
Much like this at a Woodbury CT Land Trust:
I wouldn’t be surprised to find something like this along
the roadside in Washington CT:
I’d
be looking for something as striking as this in Bethlehem CT, on the former
estate of the first Puritan minister:
I'd be looking for signs of human enhancement using stone tools
And I'd be looking for more effigy-like inclusions, serpent stacking, and more:
And, lacking a boulder, I'd look to see if there is stacking that suggests the scales and other features, such as an oval stone for an eye:
And that's just for starters...
Squamation or Scalation:
Snake Effigy Petroforms:
Horned Serpent Overlays:
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