Ceremonial Stone Landscapes - National Park Services

BY RYAN WARE ON MAY 4, 2017 
Doug Harris: "I would ask that those of you who have ceremonial stones of this sort in your region, persevere. Use the National Historic Preservation Act. It is a great tool and in some instances, a wonderful weapon. I would also like to acknowledge Robert Thrower the chairman of the Cultural and Heritage Committee of the United South Eastern Tribes. Robert is the THPO for the Poarch Band of Creek Indians and recently they went into an agreement with the U.S. Forest Service to examine ceremonial stone landscapes on Forest Service land. I was honored to joined them down at the Talladega National Forest in Alabama at the tail end of the Appalachian range. We found ceremonial stones in many ways like the ones that we have here and in many ways quite different. The Creek were doing what we were doing, but they were doing it in a different way.

We also know that the Yurok in Northern California had a ceremonial stone tradition. We know that in the National Forest Service areas, Arkansas in Washoe National Forest there are ceremonial stones. This we believe to be a part of the ancient tradition that was shared from the Atlantic to the Pacific by the ancient tribal people..."

https://www.ncptt.nps.gov/blog/ceremonial-stone-landscapes/

TAGGED WITH → Ceremonial Stone Landscapes • Doug Harris • NPS • NRHP • NRLI • Tribal Perspectives on Cultural Landscapes 

TRADITIONAL CULTURAL LANDSCAPE PROJECT: CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF GRAND RONDEENERGY DEVELOPMENT: LANDSCAPE ISSUES & IMPACTS

Images from: https://youtu.be/oZIwbvYddQs

or

https://youtu.be/35hswwxcIFI

or ???

English Style Stone Wall (Madison CT)

The General's Residence

    I had always intended to stop by a house down on the CT shoreline, just to grab a photo of an actual example of a stone wall using an English style of stone stacking that may go back to the early 1700’s. I still haven’t done that but looking at some on-line images, I found that the place has a name and a story I'd been unaware of...

Gen. William W. Harts House (1729)

May 20th, 2017 Posted in Colonial, Houses, Madison ` 

    "The house at 908 Boston Post Road in Madison, currently in a dilapidated condition, was recently subject to a foreclosure. The first person to build on the property was Ensign Nathaniel Dudley, c. 1729-1730, and the building was then expanded over time with several additions. Capt. Edward Griffin (1762-1802), who sailed schooners between between Boston and Haiti, acquired the house in 1799 from Lyman Munger. On one voyage, Capt. Griffin once threw his son Harry overboard after a quarrel. The cook threw over a chicken coop to keep Harry afloat and the young man was later rescued by a passing ship. Capt. Griffin was a slave owner who committed a heinous act. Hearing that revenue officers were coming to his house to assess his property, he entombed two of his slaves by walling them in the basement and leaving them to die.

   The house had a number of owners after Capt. Griffin. Unoccupied from 1895 until 1909, it then became the summer home of Martha Hale and her husband, William Wright Harts (1866-1961). An 1889 graduate of West Point, Harts served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, eventually rising to the rank of Brigadier General. He oversaw a number of large construction projects, involving fortifications and river and harbor engineering. In 1901, he was sent to the Philippines, where he built roads and designed and constructed Fort McKinley (now Fort Bonifacio).

    During World War I, Harts served in France and was appointed military governor of the Paris District and then Chief of Staff of the Army of Occupation in Germany. He was also a military aide to President Woodrow Wilson. Back in the United States, he supervised construction of the Lincoln Memorial and the Arlington Memorial Amphitheater. He lived in Madison full time after 1930. The general’s uniform is now in the collection of the Madison Historical Society. In the years since his death in 1961, the house, which came to be called the “General’s Residence,” has been a wedding dress shop, a restaurant, and a bakery."  http://historicbuildingsct.com/?p=27210

"The General's Residence on 2/25/2017, the scheduled day of the Foreclosure Auction. It was suddenly delayed until early May. See www.shorelinetimes.com/opinion/days-of-yore-general-s-res...

For more images of this home see flic.kr/s/aHskRMYGsL.

(Photo credit - Bob Gundersen www.flickr.com/photos/bobphoto51/albums)"

Headed North in Street View, some interesting curves:

So, there you go, a Post Contact Stone Wall.

Compare to the possible Indigenous constructions,

Ceremonial Stone Landscape Features, of past posts from Madison.

One great example of a "species specific" effigy can be found not too much farther north along that Old Indian Shoreline Path, a Diamondback Terrapin, a small spot to burn tobacco below it before making use of the salt marsh resource zone where these turtles can sometimes still be found:

And then there's Hammonasset

(Stone Fish Weir)

and

Westbrook

(Split and Filled Boulder)

Another Look, Another Uktena (Looking Sideways)

(2017:)

http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2015/03/another-serpent-looking-sideways.html

Laughing

Comparing Bears

http://explore-art.pem.org/theme/native-american-art/na-inspired-by-nature/16670

     "Wild animals, as pointed out by F.G. Speck (1931: 28-29), are in general considered to exist in clan relationship with humans. The latter are said to be "kings among animals." Clean pure animals of the forest are referred to in terms of human relationship and their spirits must be propitiated before they can be sought for food. If the supernaturals are appeased through sacrifices, the animals will allow themselves to be taken, but if the proper ceremonies are not carried out, they can never be approached by humans. 

      Therefore, a hunter is obliged to pray and sacrifice tobacco before starting on the hunt...The Delaware consider the bear and deer to be the greatest of all animals. The bear is also called "Our Grandfather." Both animals are considered closely akin to the Indian, but the Delaware believe that the bear has the most human-like traits..."

Gladys Tantaquidgeon in "Folk Medicine of the Delaware and Related Algonkian Indians(1972, 1995)" (pg. 60) 

Pinned Serpent

Surveyors iron pin behind a flat topped triangular boulder.

Locating the spot.

Turning the map so east is at the top. There's a slight difference between the property lines on the map and the aerial image that shows the row of stones that became the property line.

Wider view.

Closer...

Next boulder pair with another small gap

Another pin.

A change in the row of stones, leading into thicker brush and I turn around and head back down...

A quick look here...

At home with my imagination:

 Follow the stones, passing many interesting places...

...and you come to this eventually:

 http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2016/09/a-boulder-split-into-four-quarters.html

From a local history: