I’ve never been to
Burnt Hill, pictured on the cover of Manitou; The Sacred Landscape of New England's Native Civilizations by James mavor and Byron Dix, but over the years I’ve collected a bunch of photos from there, intrigued by the rows of
stones as fuel breaks separating blueberry fields:
The dark areas
have been “Thermally Pruned,” another way to say that the area was intentionally
burned. Early colonists learned from Indigenous Peoples that a low bush or wild
blueberry field or “barren” benefits greatly by setting it on fire about every
four years. The larger tan lines you see are dirt road fuel breaks that
separate the burned areas from the areas still “in production,” as they say.
It’s those rows of
stones that capture my interest, the ones casually dismissed as field clearing
stones by post-colonial farmers, “linear lines of refuse,” according to “reliable
sources."
Here’s one of the first I found, too small to see much
detail:
“The farm crew took a
field trip to The Benson Place in Heath to pick 600 lbs of low-bush blueberries
for the dining hall! http://hampshirecollegefarm.tumblr.com/”
Another that’s way
too small came my way once I found the present day name of the place:
“Stone Stack”
There were more too:
“Burning”
“A recent implementation of our ongoing
pollinator habitat project. Here you see a "virginia rose", planted
along our stone row, with a mason bee nest box on the stake, and an artificial
bumble bee nest site - the upside-down terra cotta planter.”
(Whoever wrote this, I just noticed, didn’t say “stone wall,” but used
the term “stone row.”)
I don’t know
exactly where on the Benson Place (or in Heath MA) this little stone segment shown above is
located, but here’s either just a bunch of randomly stacked stones or a good
example of some interesting intentional stacking of stones that is probably a
diagnostic indicator of Indigenous Stonework, used as an "Eye Test" illustration by my associate Sherlock Stones.
Both Sherlock and I know that “Pareidolia (/pærɪˈdoʊliə/
parr-i-DOH-lee-ə) is a psychological phenomenon in which the mind responds to a
stimulus, usually an image or a sound, by perceiving a familiar pattern where
none exists,” and Wikipedia confirms this so you know it has got to be true.
For some strange reason people send me this definition all the time. The word I’m
looking for is the one related to the definition of the pattern that exists,
the pattern that has become familiar because it can be seen repeated over and over, from place to
place, and could be used as a Cultural Clue in a case such as this, determining
if the pattern is either from a Celtic Culture that forgot to leave any other
evidence that they lived there or perhaps the Indigenous People who started
leaving evidence all over the place once they started living there since the
glaciers started retreating enough for the “there” to be there.
The pattern I’d
suggest that this stone stacking resembles is this:
If you’d like
some scientific nomenclature to use, I’d suggest this illustration:
I think the answer
quickly becomes obvious, overlaying a rattlesnake eye onto the photo:
The name that I would
suggest for this is The Squamation Variation: cobblestones stacked to resemble
the scales of a Timber Rattlesnake.
Author of "Talking Walls," Matt Bua might agree
with me. A photo of his in his book was the original stimulus that triggered my snake eye
response one (long) day at the DMV where I do a lot of reading.
The stones that once
were above that Rattlesnake Eye Colored Stone may have fallen backwards and are
out of place or something, but I suspect a similar Cultural Clue...
A couple links:
and another
Indigenous berry:
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