Roadside Segment of Stones (Watertown CT)

Indigenous Stonework, a Qusukqaniyutôk, in the Paugussett Homeland

   Driving the four wheel drive shortcut to my sister's house, I glanced to the right just before the stop sign at the junction of a road named for an "Artists' Colony" long ago in my hometown and another, the one I was on, called "No Winter Maintenance." I had to reverse the vehicle and get out to capture the autumn image of that "Indian Look" of the stones stacked not like bricks or blocks but in an artistic manner that recalls Indigenous Iconography, particularly Snakes and Turtles as well as stones with certain shapes, unusual colors, stones with inclusions of crystals of other types of rock, et cetera.

 

I'd seen this "stone wall" before, having driven past this I don't know how many times in my life,

 but I just hadn't observed the stones as probably Indigenous made before...

Probably Turtle Effigies

I suspect this one was chosen because of a resemblance to perhaps possibly a turtle or maybe a flat topped rattlesnake head:

An apparent eye for the effigy head:

A "marking," reminiscent of the "crystal" or the "carbuncle" found on the forehead of a Spirit Being from many Indigenous cultures sometimes called a "Great Serpent" or "Big Snake" in English language terms, Misi-Ginebig (Anishinabe),  or "Gitaskog (Abenaki),

the Ulstitli Mooney describes on the head of an Uktena (Cherokee)

(Lifted from: http://www.native-languages.org/horned-serpent.htm )

(Please pardon me for using those terms before the winter solstice.) 

Looking East:

("They are Singing:" https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2021/12/they-are-singing.html )

Refining Single Stone Effigies

 

“While some of these ideas are open to dispute and refinement (as should be the case with all of science). Most are widely accepted by geologists and archaeologists today.” – Dr. Curtis Hoffman (Pandemic Power Point Presentation:  Ceremonial Stone Landscapes).

    Curtiss writes: “Effigies: These are collections of stones – always more than two – which appear to form the shape of animals or – more rarely – humans. As noted above, they often include “serpent” walls as well as turtle effigies…all effigies are additive, in that they are all collections of stones assembled so as to form a shape.”

   In my experience, I sometimes find that the effigy may be a single stone sometimes, but of course the placement of that certain stone on another stone shows a human intention to create an effigy, have others perceive the stone as an effigy.

   Perhaps two stones is the minimum, like a statue and a pedestal:

A Bear's Head Balanced on a Boulder, with a Fire Starer Base:

 

A Deer Head Effigy on Boulder 

Probable Single Stone Turtle Effigies:

Subtractive Turtles with material removed to create the shape? 

Pipping Turtle and eggshells??

Probable Turtle on a Probable Snake Effigy

 Probable Anthropomorphic Effigy

Near the "Forward Point" of a segment of a Zigzag row of stones:

As one stone, from on point of view, a bear effigy...

..on a snake effigy...

...which, from another point of view, adding a second stone,

a turtle head,

  the bear becomes/transforms before your eyes, a probable "two stone turtle effigy:"

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2015/01/thorson-what-grampa-didnt-tell-you.html

 

Who and When?

 

Singing (Under the Turtle)?

By the Healing Diamonds??

Who, and When, I wonder

Left this signature in stones

In what some would designate

"An Estate Wall?"

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2014/10/little-turtle-with-rhombiodals.html

Heavy Machinery at the Nonnewaug Wigwams Again

     As I write this, I hear heavy machinery somewhere close by in this Archaeologically Sensitive area, the site of the Nonnewaug Wigwams.

Hear about any Tribal Historic Preservation Officers being notified in order to monitor construction near this Indigenous Sacred Site??

Nonnewaug, perhaps the "Farthest Away Fishing Place:"

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2022/06/nonnewaug-is-indigenous-place-name-ct.html

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2013/10/sacred-site-operational-definition.html

The Fathers' Monument (Part One)

 Or: Searching for an “impressive structure of native boulders, 44 feet high,” according to William Cothren.

   Over thirty years ago, Woodbury CT's favorite historian William Cothren got me curious about Indigenous made stone constructions when he included absolutely no information about our family home (that I was looking for) but did include a woodcut of a stacked stone monument over what he claimed was the Grave of the Sachem Nonnewaug (that I wasn't looking for). 

Sachems' Stones illustrations from Cothren, by Curtiss

   Just a few weeks ago, in the last of the summer of 2022, while looking for something else, I came across a reference to a "boulder monument" that I thought I had somehow missed, even though Mr. Cothren relates that it was quite tall, almost fifty feet tall and composed of "native boulders."

   I'm very disappointed with Mr. Cothren who chose to describe these quarried rectangular blocks of stone as "native boulders." I didn't measure the structure and thus can neither confirm nor deny the "44 feet" part of the description. It is the tallest monument in the old Puritan burial grounds:

   "The Old Burial Ground lies on a 3.8 acre shelf to the West of Main Street, sloping to the Hollow. This location was considered ideal for burials as the area was not good for farmland, and the original section, on the southern end, was near the site of the first Congregational meetinghouse. Stones date back to 1678 with many gravestones, monuments and sarcophagi from the 17th, 18th & early 19th century. Early graves in New England were customarily marked with uncut boulders and many have become a piece of the stone wall that lines the east side of the land. In 1785, construction of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church was begun on the northerly section of this parcel and a burial ground was developed in the church’s shadow. In time the two grounds expanded to merge, with no division line.

   The thin soil on this parcel has been kind to seedling pines and hemlocks, some of which have reached majestic proportions. In this cemetery each small plot holds its own story, all part of the warp and woof of the tapestry that is Woodbury.

   The Fathers’ Monument stands proudly at this site. It was dedicated during the Bicentennial Celebration of the organization of the First Church as the Second Church of Stratford, held May 5, 1870. This impressive structure of native boulders, 44 feet high, was erected in memory of the first three Congregational ministers in Woodbury: Zechariah Walker, Anthony Stoddard and Noah Benedict , whose united ministry covered a period of one hundred forty three years. The benefactors of this monument include William Tecumseh Sherman of Civil War fame. One third of the more than $1,500 cost was donated by an anonymous contributor.

   At the base of the monument is an old mill wheel that was brought from Stratford by Woodbury’s earliest settlers. It was carried between two horses on their journey and was used to grind the grain and corn for the whole settlement at the rate of one bushel per day..."

   "A flat, irregular slab of pasture granite lies at the foot of the monument. This original grave marker of Rev. Zachariah Walker, who passed away in 1699, is one of the oldest burial markers in the region..."

   Whether one is a Woodbury native, or a New England enthusiast, a slow walk through this ancient burial ground will evoke a strong sense of Woodbury’s heritage…” 

http://www.woodburycemetery.com/history/

  I pondered a bit about a similarity in shape to some Manitou Stones while standing there, as well as some that resemble single stones that might be "two horns" on certain Stone Snake Effigies...

Town Mowing Crew