I just said to
someone: You could call the Indigenous Cultural Landscape, the Ceremonial Stone Landscape, "a combination
of an open air cathedral and rock garden - a really BIG cathedral and really
BIG rock garden..." There's more - and it involves the cycle of the sun
and moon and stars and life itself, all those animate beings- stars stones
trees animals and humans - balanced in the Dance of Creation and Renewal and
Tradition, the Knowledge that comes from a long memory..."
Undulating Serpent Row of Stones - Qusukqaniyutôk
(‘stone row, enclosure’ Harris and Robinson, 2015:140,
‘fence that crosses back’ viz. qussuk, ‘stone,’ Nipmuc or quski, quskaca,
‘returning, crosses over,’ qaqi, ‘runs,’)
You need an
artist’s eye to see it sometimes; sometimes having a child along with you helps,
particularly a child with a good imagination, unembarrassed to say, “That’s a
snake, that’s a turtle and that’s a bear made of stone,” rather than just
repeat something read in a book or online about New England’s Stone Walls, a
child who hasn’t acquired the prejudice and bigotry that form the bias against
the thought that these Stone Monuments and Stone Prayers are part of the Indigenous Cultural Landscape, here at the Eastern Gate of Turtle Island...
"Eek! A Snake!!"
You need to know
the stories, told by the fire in the wigwam or long house during the story-telling
season of winter – although more often it’s “Stories from the Neighbors,” since
many of the Stories across Southern New England aren’t known or are tinged with
Christian elements, filled with Puritan devils rather than, for example,
stories of that Spirit Being whose aspect is most often a snake or a Great
Serpent, sometimes with Horns, sometimes with feathers...
You need to know
the landscape you see, formed (transformed) by Giant White Glaciers, reflects
the Sky above and an Underground and Underwater World below, a three tiered
world populated by each and every kind of living thing – stars and stones and
trees, animals and humans – in a big cathedral not unlike a big rock garden...
Kids:
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