From Rhombus to Rhomboidal

And Back to Testudinate

 

   The proper term is "Rhomboidal," as Dr. Luci Lavin suggested to me (via an email), noting that the shape often occurs in other forms of Indigenous Artwork, such as ceramic pottery.

   The Mohegan Tribal Museum has a rhomboidal stone incorporated into the (stone) chimney on the (stone) building and is referred to as the "Mohegan Healing Diamond."

   Turns out that there are multiple meanings associated with the shape, this feature of Indigenous Iconography found in other media such as the ceramics Dr. Luci mentions but also as well as in basketry and fabrics, wampum and quillwork, not just “decorative” but also to imbue spiritual power into a basket or a garment, a wooden corn mortar or soapstone bowl, a Stone Prayer of stacked cobbles or a boulder headed Snake Effigy with a body made of stacked stones with a rhomboidal 7th Scale, stones stacked as a form of prayer.

   And I look at an old photo of stone feature I’ve been looking at for a long time and recall Jannie and Curtiss mentioning the turtle, the tortoise and see this familiar very differently today for the first time, just after an old post where I used the word “testudinate” incorrectly, changed it to turtle effigy because testudinate refers to the shell part of the turtle…

 

Rhombus/Rhomboidal

Diamond/Healing Diamond 

7th Stone/ Seventh Scale/ Serpent's Heart