Sunday, August 07, 2022
Monday, August 01, 2022
Re-Reading a Forested Landscape
Reading a Landscape
sometimes involves going back to before the times of appropriation and colonization,
before the introduction of the rat and the pig, and everything that followed. Reading
a Landscape sometimes involves as much unlearning as it does learning, as myths
and misconceptions fall away like autumn leaves that reveal a big stone snake
along an ancient Indian road…
Unlearning a Zig Zag Row of Stones:
The carefully constructed pre-contact zigzag stone row at the bottom of layers and layers of the post-contact field clearing stones tossed from the former field above...
Monday, July 11, 2022
Larry Harrop (RI)
Norman Muller photo
Lawrence A. Harrop, 73, of Newport, passed away at home
Monday, June 6, 2022. He was the husband of Katherine (Virion) Harrop.
https://whatsupnewp.com/2022/06/obituary-lawrence-a-harrop/
Ceremonial Stone Landscapes, by Larry Harrop
Katherine Harrop has graciously granted permission to NEARA to host the contents of his web site, restyled for easier viewing.
Click below on a category name to see thumbnail images for that category. For now, we only have thumbnail images, but we hope to get all of the full photographs soon. See also his videos on YouTube.
All of these photos are Copyright by Larry Harrop.
Friday, July 08, 2022
The Rain Maker
“Once upon a time on the shores of the Big Water Where Daylight Appears, certain heroes captured the great horned serpent that lives in the depths of the sea and, while they held him captive, scraped some of the scales from his back and placed them in a little pouch woven from Indian hemp, with symbolical designs representing the lightning (Fig. 33). There is enmity between the Thunders and the great horned serpent who cannot show his head above the waters without provoking the wrath of the Thunders who immediately gather to attack him with their bolts of lightning. Therefore, when the scales taken from the back of the serpent, were exposed on a rock, beside the sea, or on the shore of a lake or stream, thunder clouds would immediately gather and the cornfields would presently be refreshed by rain. The owner of the charm must remove it before the first rain drops fell or he was in danger of being struck by lightning...”
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Fig. 33 - Old Medicine Pouch of Woven Indian hemp containing
flakes of mica,
said to be scales of horned water serpent and used for rain
making. – Heye Collection
Thursday, June 30, 2022
Thursday, June 16, 2022
Nonnewaug is an Indigenous Place Name (CT)
The Nonnewaug Diagonal Stone Fish Weir (1996)
“Nonnewaug” is a much misunderstood word, despite how often
it is used in and around Woodbury CT. Modernly, Nonnewaug is the name of the local high school, the regional school system, a river, a road, and a waterfall. Nonnewaug is
said to be the name of “an Indian chief” but that may not be quite accurate.
There was a person was known as the Sachem Nonnewaug. His paper trail is limited
to signatures to be found on treaties with the earliest settler colonists, made
after the Pequot or First Puritan War, in the Housatonic River valley, in what is
now known as Western Connecticut. Nonnewaug is an Indigenous
place name, in the Quiripi or “R” dialect of the Algonquian Language group. The word most likely literally refers to a stone fish weir of undetermined age, damaged in the 1990s by a tree washing down stream, remnants of a diagonal row of boulders now barely recognizable a a fish weir.
I often see social media
posts about Nonnewaug Falls, a favorite place of mine, in Woodbury CT.
I appreciate that people
enjoy the beauty of the place – I’ve been doing the same for well over fifty
years. I’ve sought out and read many stories about the Falls in local histories
and newspaper clippings, had people hand deliver or mail me copies of Nonnewaug
Falls related material in the past, and that continues to this day when I’m
more likely to get an email or enter a discussion about the place on Face Book.
There are many versions of the
“History of Nonnewaug Falls” as well as the “Legends of Nonnewaug Falls.” Just
about all of them could be considered “firsting and lasting” stories that erase
and then memorialize Indian peoples, as Jean O’Brien writes about in “Firsting
and Lasting: Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England.” The exception to that thought is the first
bit of writing I ever came across on my first visit to Nonnewaug Falls in the
early 1970s. There’s a brass plaque above the Upper Falls that implies that a
“Nonnewaug tribe” still existed in Seymour CT about a hundred years ago. Here
are two 21st century blog posts about Nonnewaug Falls for example:
“The falls are named after
one of the last chiefs of the Nonnewaug tribe who was buried nearby. A plaque
on the southern side of the upper falls keeps the chief’s memory alive. The
plaque was placed there in 1916 by members of the Nonnewaug tribe of Seymour.
It reads: “To the memory of Nonnewaug last chief of his tribe, friend of his
white neighbors, who sleeps with his fathers near these falls which bear his
name.” https://www.ctmq.org/nonnewaug-falls/
“Nonnewaug Falls was
formed by glacial melt streaming over bedrock, carving a path into the
landscape during the Last Glacial Period (LGP aka last ice age). So named for
Chief Nonnewaug, the final leader of the territory’s long-vanished aboriginal
inhabitants, Nonnewaug Falls has been a familiar and locally-celebrated
landmark for nearly two centuries. Woodcuts published in the 1800’s portray
Nonnewaug Falls with much the same rugged and secluded character that it
possesses today.
On the opposite bank near the top of the falls, is a bronze
tablet mounted on the face of a rock outcrop. It was placed there in 1916 by
members of the Nonnewaug tribe of Seymour to memorialize the chief. It reads:
“To the memory of Nonnewaug last chief of his tribe, friend of his white
neighbors, who sleeps with his fathers near these falls which bear his name.”
Nonnewaug is Mohican for “dry land.”
https://scenesfromthetrail.com/2022/05/09/nonnewaug-falls
The Nonnawauk Tribe #9 of The
Improved Order of Red Men is actually “a fraternal organization established in
North America in 1834. Their rituals and regalia are modeled after those
assumed by men of the era to be used by Native Americans. Despite the name, the
order was formed solely by, and for, white men,” according to Wikipedia,
although by 1974 people of Indigenous descent were finally allowed to be
“improved” by the group.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improved_Order_of_Red_Men
“Chief Nonnewaug” refers to the Sachem Nonnewaug, the Indigenous
leader’s title rather than the person’s personal name. One little reference
from one slim volume of Woodbury History (the name of which momentarily escapes
me) implies the man’s name may have been Wonowax, suspiciously similar to
Womoqui whose name appears on an early treaty with a pictograph signature that
looks like a reverse image of a later image of what John Minor records as
“Nunawauk – his marke.”
William Cothren, in the second
volume of his Woodbury History, offers a translation of the word Nonnewaug, as
“the fresh pond or fresh water fishing place,” as implied by the “(am)aug”
ending of the word, a variation of “Paug,” denoting “water at rest.” In a 1962 publication, Indian Place Names of
New England, Charles C. Huden translates the word Nonnewaug to “dry land,” also
noting that it may be a sort of Yankee farmer humorous translation alluding to the
“stream drying up in summer.” Huden has many tips on translating these badly
recorded place names and below is a map cobbled together on an old map that I’m
probably in trouble with someone about making “corrections” to the original:
John Hammond Trumbull, in Indian
Geographical Names (1870) writes, “Every name described the locality to which it was
affixed. The description was sometimes topographical; sometimes historical,
preserving the memory of a battle, a feast, the dwelling-place of a great
sachem, or the like; sometimes it indicated one of the natural products of the
place, or the animals which resorted to it; occasionally, its position or
direction from a place previously known, or from the territory of the nation by
which the name was given,—as for example, 'the land on the other side of the
river,' 'behind the mountain,' 'the east land,' 'the half-way place,' &c. The
same name might be, in fact it very often was, given to more places than one;
but these must not be so near together that mistakes or doubts could be
occasioned by the repetition. With this precaution, there was no reason why
there might not be as many 'Great Rivers,' 'Bends,' 'Forks,' and 'Water-fall
places' as there are Washingtons, Franklins, Unions, and Fairplays in the list
of American post-offices.”
Trumbull cites quite a few
names that resemble Nonnewaug, when he relates that “Names of fishes supply the
adjectival components of many place-names on the sea-coast of New England, on
the lakes, and along river-courses. The difficulty of analyzing such names is
the greater because the same species of fish was known by different names to
different tribes. The more common substantivals are -amaug, 'fishing place; -tuk
or sipu, 'river;' ohke, 'place;' Abn. -kantti, 'place of abundance;' and -keag,
-keke, Abn. -khigé, which appears to denote a peculiar mode of
fishing,—perhaps, by a weir; possibly, a spearing-place.
From the generic namaus (namohs, El.; Abn. namés; Del. namees;) 'a
fish'—but probably, one of the smaller sort, for the form is a diminutive,—come
such names as Nameoke or Nameaug (New London), for namau-ohke, 'fish country;'
Namasket or Namasseket (on Taunton River, in Middleborough, Mass.) 'at the fish
place,' a favorite resort of the Indians of that region; Namaskeak, now
Amoskeag, on the Merrimack, and Nam'skeket or Skeekeet, in Wellfleet, Mass.
Nahanm[oo], the Abnaki name of the 'eel,' is found in "Nehumkeag,
the English of which is Eel Land, ... a stream or brook that empties itself
into Kennebec River," not far from Cobbissecontee. This brook was
sometimes called by the English, Nehumkee. The Indian name of Salem, Mass., was
Nehumkeke or Naümkeag, and a place on the Merrimac, near the mouth of Concord
River (now in Lowell, I believe,) had the same name,—written, Naamkeak.
J. Hammond Trumbull
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/18279/18279-h/18279-h.htm
Margaret Bruhac cites Trumbull for a possible
translation of Nonotuck as "far away land" (Nauwut-ucke) in the
Massachusetts dialect as the Indigenous name for modern Northampton Ma.”
Nonnewaug is just such a
place name, a fishing place, perhaps specifically an eeling place, that in 1673
was occupied by a group of Indigenous People, often referred to as the “Nonnewaug
tribe of the Pootatuck.” Pootatuck is another place name that’s also a known contact
era village referred to as the Pootatuck Wigwams also a fishing place at the Falls
near the mouth of the Pomperaug River on the Housatonic River. “Nonnewaug” could
be a fish weir “far away” up the Housatonic River from the Pootatuck Wigwams.
Monday, June 13, 2022
Saturday, June 04, 2022
Our Vanishing Ceremonial Stone Landscape (CT)
Apparently, I’m documenting Our Vanishing Ceremonial Stone Landscape more than anything else these days. Similar to Eric Sloane writing and sketching about a romantic colonial past, I’m instead blogging about and photographing disappearing features of an Indigenous Cultural Landscape that only a tiny percentage of people are aware of, think is somehow “interesting,” much less worthy of recognition, study, and preservation. I’ve been documenting for years the disappearing Nonnewaug Stone Fish Weir, miles and miles of stonework under powerlines being ground up for road beds, stones popping out of retaining walls at the family home, and now a simple tree fall that knocked apart a formerly very beautiful “Stone Prayer” on a hillside somewhere close to the Madison/Killingworth town line.
In a
recent Face Book post, Karen Lucibello Daigle recorded a bit of video, perhaps in
late winter or early spring, of some tree damage to this Káhtôquwuk or Stone
Prayer that I took a look at once back in 2016:
Captures from Karen’s
video, cobbled into a single image:
Káhtôquwuk or Stone
Prayer on S-Hill:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/34580529@N04/albums/72177720299519377
Mid S-Hill:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/34580529@N04/albums/72157665915629962
Upper S-Hill:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/34580529@N04/albums/72157665814497872
http://rockpiles.blogspot.com/2019/04/some-lines-from-hammonasset-story.html
https://rockpiles.blogspot.com/2022/06/our-vanishing-ceremonial-stone.html
The photo of the large cairn on the boulder is not Platform B, but probably the backside of Platform Cairn B at the same site."
Wednesday, May 25, 2022
Talking about Nonnewaug (Woodbury CT)
(For the nice fellow at the Senior Center yesterday)
My street address includes a Paugussett Place Name
That some people think is the name of the road
That the local high
school is on,
But it isn’t
- and the man who looks at my driver’s license
(so I can vote)
Knows that.
He says: “Chief Nonnewaug - he’s buried over by there somewhere.”
And I have to answer truthfully,
So I say “Well, no - not
anymore.”
“But there’s that plaque that says that,” he says.
“Sachem Nonnewaug, he was known as,” I say, walking away...
I could have talked for a while about that, but I didn't.
I feel like I owe the fellow an apology for not explaining further,
So here's some other things I've said about that name, "Nonnewaug:"
From 2005: http://nonnewaugfalls.blogspot.com/2010/09/word-nonnewaug.html
http://nonnewaugfalls.blogspot.com/2010/08/nonnawauk-9.html
https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2021/12/nonnewaug-fresh-water-fishing-place.html
https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2021/04/update-on-nonnewaug.html
Monday, May 23, 2022
Stone Shelters in the Sierras and New England
Posted on May 11, 2022 by Thorson Robert
Stone Shelter in White Mountains, CA, USA in the glacial high Sierras. Elizabeth Wing.
"Years ago," writes Robert Thorson, "I was traveling through the small town of Putre in northern Chile, when I saw something astonishing. The shape, size, and composition of its ancient stone walls in the high Andes at an elevation of 3500 meters (11,060 feet) were remarkably similar to those I’d seen in the lowland hills of interior New England. Though the inhabitants of pre-Columbian South America were raising camelids rather than sheep and cows, and though they were worlds apart from post-Columbian North American Yankees, their primitive farmstead stonework was remarkably similar. Why? Because the same three fundamental factors came together in time and space: the need to enclose grazing animals in heavily glaciated terrain underlain by crystalline igneous and(or) high-grade metamorphic rock.
Similarly, The Distinctively Basque Stone Shelters of California’s White Mountains, are remarkably similar to some I’ve seen in New England because the same three factors were controlling the outcome: animal enclosure, glaciated terrain, and hard crystalline rock. This new, 2022, article by Michael R. Wing, Elizabeth H. Wing, and Amin M. Al-Jamal, describes the shelters built during the mid 19th century to protect sheep grazing in the high meadows of the White Mountains of high eastern Sierras of California. The phrase “distinctly Basque” refers not to a cultural style of construction, but to the certain historic knowledge that they were built by Basque (or adjacent French) herders.
The captioned illustration above reproduces their Figure 1, a photo of Big Stone Shelter, which located above tree line at an elevation of 3840 meters (12,600 feet), even higher than in Putre, Chile. Its features –a glacially rounded boulder, a mix of angular and milled stones, the overall form, and the pattern of stacking– are identical to those of primitive fieldstone walls in New England. And though this shelter is a small enclosure rather than a wall around a land parcel, New England has many such small enclosures in its formerly de-forested highlands, or as niches attached to walls. Whether some or all of these were roofed with organic material that has since decomposed is unknown.
The similarities in expedient stone construction built by indigenous inhabitants in the high Andes, Basque herders in California Sierras, and farmers in New England demonstrate the adage that form follows function, regardless of historic or cultural setting. Such walls are ecofacts as much as they are artifacts.
Of course, the story of stone structures everywhere is much more complex than the simple connections made above. And these three connections are only a few among many. But the conclusion is always the same. Beneath cultural overlays, the expedient architectural requirements of herding animals in rocky glaciated landscapes produces similar results."
Accessed from: https://stonewall.uconn.edu/2022/05/11/stone-shelters-in-the-sierras-and-new-england/
The Distinctively Basque Stone Shelters of California’s
White Mountains
Abstract
"Basque and French shepherds in California’s White Mountains
built dry stone shelters that persist today. Despite French names carved on
logs associated with a few of these structures, the typical pattern for these
shelters is Basque: they closely resemble the cabañas pastoriles (shepherd’s
huts) of Bizkaia. A square floor plan with walls about one meter high enclose a
single chamber. The stone work is carefully laid to make one wall face. A
narrow doorway, often in a corner, faces downhill in any direction except west
and can be flanked by low stone “spurs”. A fireplace is usually built into the
south wall. Boulders too large to move are usually in the western wall or
northwest corner. Metal, glass, wood, bone or leather artifacts are present.
Typically Basque arborglyphs (carvings in aspen trees) are found nearby at
lower elevations. It is unclear whether the White Mountains shelters originally
had roofs."
Recommended Citation
Wing, Michael R.; Wing, Elizabeth H.; and Al-Jamal, Amin M.
(2022) "The Distinctively Basque Stone Shelters of California’s White
Mountains," BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal: Vol. 9 : Iss. 1 ,
Article 4.
https://doi.org/10.18122/boga.9.1.4.boisestate
Available at: https://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/boga/vol9/iss1/4
Tsektsel (Yurok), a "prayer seat"
Aboriginal Alpine Ceremonialism in the White Mountains, California
Abstract: “At 3,609 m. (11,840 ft.) elevation in the White
Mountains of Eastern California is a site containing 216 rock features
consisting of cairns, pits, and other stacked-rock constructions but very few
artifacts. Two obsidian bifaces, two milling tools, and lichenometric dating
point towards site occupation between 440 and 190 cal B.P., contemporaneous
with the White Mountains Village Pattern, which was marked by intensive
seasonal occupations of multi-family groups in the alpine ecozone of the range.
Though the site’s features are similar to facilities associated with
artiodactyl hunting across the American West, their diversity, abundance, and
distribution are more consistent with ceremonially-oriented sites on the
Plains, in the Mojave Desert, and especially on the Plateau. This, in
conjunction with the site’s setting, suggests that there were ritual functions
associated with the site, and that the ceremonial use of high-altitudes has
been overlooked in the region’s research history.”
https://escholarship.org/content/qt71d2g30s/qt71d2g30s_noSplash_0005b610d8eb3ffac3aaad128f8c8aff.pdf
"When the novice had recovered she was taken into the high mountains in the summertime by her mentor and her male relatives (as many as ten of them). They went to a prayer seat, cekce>l, a semicircular enclosure of rock – sometimes river rock brought from below ... . ... the novice and her teacher swept the seat carefully [http://texts.00.gs/Standing_Ground,_5.htm]." ~ Thomas Buckley : Standing Ground : Yurok Indian Spirituality. U of CA Pr, Berkeley, 2002.
A Rock Feature Complex from Northwestern California
Joseph L. Chartkoff: "
American Antiquity
Vol. 48, No.
4 (Oct., 1983), pp. 745-760 (16 pages)
Published By: Cambridge University Press
https://www.jstor.org/stable/279774
níswonki - an enclosure, "three bends" (Nipmeuw, shwihwakuwi, Narragansett). https://www.academia.edu/40876479/Assessing_Stone_Relics_in_Western_Massachusetts_Part_II_Patterns_of_Site_Distribution
Here in the Northeast, an other Algonquian language term:
świhwákuwi (viz. świk+wāgawi, ‘it grows around,’ Unami Lenapeuw, Zeisberger 1995:151, 173; świ, ‘three’ for 3-sided - Mohegan Nation 2004:98) form open ellipses that the author considers roughly equivalent to the “nave” of a Christian church…”
Sunday, May 22, 2022
LiDar and Aerial Stone Snake Gateways (Bethlehem/Washington CT)
Above: Interesting Stonework, one of many places I'd love to "groundcheck the stone walls."
Now and then, I drive that presently paved Wood Creek Road that cuts across the bottom left of the LiDar image. I drive it slowly, looking at the way the stones are stacked along (often both sides of) the roadside, and sometimes I stop to capture a photo of those "cart path gateways," Serpent Gateways hidden in plain sight on the edge of two present day towns in Western CT:
Above: Looking to the East, or really, "a little south of east."
"Farmers' Fences," some might say, "Leading into Farmers' Fields:"
Above: 1934 Aerial Image (Apple Orchards, Cow Pastures and Hay Fields)
Below: Same place, in the early 21st century.
(Deja vu: https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2015/01/another-possible-ophiomorphic-petroform.html)
An used (un-blogged) photo in that batch of photos causes me to pause, first trying to use the row of stones in the distance to place it in perspective on the aerial images, and then suddenly I find myself looking at a certain shadow:
I'll use that "Uktena" description, the "knows your intentions" description, because the head is at an angle and not "straight on," like quite a few others at certain "gateways," including the one on the other side of the "barway" opening into the enclosure:
The Overlay:
The other "gateways" along this little stretch, I've blogged them before - one of these days I'll go back when I'm feeling better, I keep telling myself...
The very wide opening:
A "cow run?" An Indigenous Game Drive?
Guarded by a Stone Serpent:
A small "bowl" just might be a place to offer some tobacco:
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