Tuttle Turtle Step Gateway (Woodbury CT)

The Manitou Stone on the top of the rise caught my eye:

And then I remembered a winter day when I first noticed these stones on a boulder, just around the curve of this roadside row of stones:

   Nohham Rolf Cachat-Shilling in  A Quantitative Assessment of Stone Relics in a Western Massachusetts Town ( Massachusetts Archaeological Society 2016) designates "stones on a boulder" such as these as: “wawanaquassik ("honoring stones") ” and also mentions  “higher, boulder-based cairns (skuguisu káhtqwk: A type of "boulder-based cairn" aka an Emerging Serpent Effigy on a Boulder.).” 

In Part II of "A Quantative Assessment," Wâunonaqussuk are described as  "long, low boulder with many small, round stones on top “…boulders with many small, round stones on top. Those are prayers to the spirit of someone who died violently...There are also standing cairns on rocks {nípaü kodtonquag(kash)} . These are invested with prayers for the balance of the universe.”

wâunon, ‘honor’ + qussuk, ‘stone’ = Wâunonaqussuk: ‘honoring stone’

(Natick Nipmuc wâunonukhauónat – ‘to flatter,’ Trumbull 1903:202, verb stem wâunon- ‘honor’ + qussuk ‘stone’ = wâunonaqussuk – ‘honoring stone’ + quanash pl., also Narragansett wunnaumwâuonck – ‘faithfulness, truthfulness,’ wunna, ‘good,’ wáunen, ‘honor,’ + onk, abstract suffix, O’Brien 2005:37, Wawanaquas- sik, ‘place of many honoring stones,’- Nochpeem Mahikkaneuw/Wappinger, Ruttenber 1992b:373). 

He also mentions the Narragansett traditionally refer to as káhtôquwuk  as "stone groupings," citing Harris and Robinson  in Ancient Ceremonial Landscape and King Philip’s War. Northeast Anthropology (2015:140).

https://www.academia.edu/40876479/Assessing_Stone_Relics_in_Western_Massachusetts_Part_II_Patterns_of_Site_Distribution

On April 1st, 2022 (and this is no joke), I'll edit this to say:

   As I understand it, Káhtôquwuk  means, allegorically, a 'Stone Prayer.'

   A káhtôquwuk is a kind of stone pile, a kind of stone heap, something that is heaped high, ceremonially, religiously, prayerfully, by placing one stone above another stone.

    Káhtôquwukansh is the plural of “Stone Prayers.”

   Kahtoquwuk in Narragansett, kodtuquag in Massachusett, Kodtonquag in Nipmuk, and many more variations all mean "stones that have been stacked up."

   Nohham writes, “There are several types of kodtonquagkash (kodtuhquag in Massachusett), including effigies.  Most kodtonquagkash are not more than 2 m (6.56 feet) wide and less than 1.8 m. (5.9 feet) tall.  They are usually made in an organized manner, in several courses of stones, often turret-like in form atop a base boulder.  There are kodtonquagkash types that are built directly on the forest floor, on shallow bedrock or even no rock at all.” ~ http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2022/03/kahtoquwuk-stone-prayers.html

And there's the gateway into the Place, a Turtle Step:

 (But is it also a Snake's head?)

Yes, I was here before, probably going home from the place where they do Emissions Testing: 

http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2016/11/snowy-morning-photos.html

Suddenly My Own Serpent

Thinking about Pootatuck,

Thinking about Nonnewaug,

Brings up an image: 

And I think: “Obvious Stone Serpent – wonder if the person who took this photo has any clue?”

And then I see: it’s my own photograph, Suddenly my Own Serpent:

http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2011/03/feb-2011-photos.html

Pootatuck Stonework circa 1673 to 1740 (Part One)

     My best guess is that as a friendly gesture toward the Pomperauge Plantation, the Indigenous People, sometimes called the Pootatuck, who lived at the Nonnewaug Wigwams breached the existing row of stones along the Nonnewaug Path to build a house site overlooking the Village, its agricultural fields and the Fish weir that gives the place its name (looking at this a day later, I can also imagine that the People Who Lived at Nonnewaug circa 1673 - 1740 were possibly being paid to so so, but maybe not - I just don't know). Just as the road was bordered by Serpent Row of Stones on each side, so was the (call it a) cart path up to the house, the east facing side of a boulder retaining wall with a gateway to the yard on either side of the house, centered on stone steps that lead to the door of the house. Just as many gateways feature a Great Serpent turning its head toward whomever is entering the enclosure beyond, so do these stone features around the old house whose builder and date of construction are unrecorded, as far as I know.

     The Great Serpent can be a protective Spirit, having control over weather and water – and against the fires caused by lightning shot from the eyes of the Thunder Beings (Thunder Birds). I refer to the sideways looking gateway Serpents as Uktena, recalling the Cherokee stories about “the Strong Looker,” as the name translates to, a Spirit who sees your thoughts and knows your intentions as you enter a certain space.

02/06/2020 update:

    A Great Serpent guards the entry way to our house:

    There’s three remaining rows of stones here at this end. At the left is the “retaining wall” or “terrace wall,” a petroform really, you could say, a Big Snake with its head turned, the Spirit Beings body stretched out and upward guarding the house, a trick of perspective making it seem as if it is one continuous row of stones.

    But there is an entrance into the southern side yard of the house; as you approach that gap, another serpent can be observed:

   And another stretched out in front of the house:

Back to the Gateway:

     Unlike the segment of stonework on the left, the retaining wall to the right has had modern cement added to it, “pointed” I suppose in an effort to maintain it or something. All the cement really did was to allow water (and, in winter, ice) to build up behind it than to allow the water to seep through. Over the years that cement is deteriorating and the stones in the wall are pitching forward enough to be of concern. Thinking about fragments of possible levers in other old rows of stones I suspect to be Indigenous Qusukqaniyutôk or “stone row enclosures” (or even, adding an Algonquin word for Snake, “Askookqusukqaniyutôk).

    There’s a sort of symmetry to this gateway above and below, if you are looking for a pattern of stacking and a cultural clue as to who built this stone concentration, note that it's not "rectangular bricks and blocks." 

     Over the last 40 years I’ve had quite a few thoughts about this retaining wall - who, why and when it was built. I thought it may have been the original chimney, reused for the wall back in 1850 or so, the cart path/driveway eroded down and compensated for – and I’ve never felt quite right about advice from stone masons who wanted to tear it down and rebuild from scratch in a proper style of stone wall. Henry Booth, that restorer of old houses, was the only one who said, “Dig out behind it and push the stones back into place.” He also added “My back hurts just thinking about it!”

     So, all these years later, the grandkids and I are pushing stones back into place. But we aren’t thinking like the average stone mason; we are thinking of Snakes and Turtles as well as other Native American Icons and Effigies because this type of stonework strongly suggests an Indigenous origin, a moment of time when two cultures met at the edge of the Indian Frontier in CT sometime after 1673.

   

Above: Preparing to move the Lower Jaw

Below: A little lift with long sapling levers, inspired by the thoughts about 

Wooden Fragments in the Rows of Stones

http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2018/04/wanderingabout-following-path-only.html

A Little bit of Roll:

Back in place? Maybe...

This is the tricky part, keeping the weight off of the smaller Serpent with the interesting face-like feature below the "Capstone" or Big Snake. Before the mortar was carefully removed:

After:

Closer:

Some more photos: 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/34580529@N04/albums/72157663786021044/with/25880494656/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/34580529@N04/albums/72157668593470192

https://www.flickr.com/photos/34580529@N04/albums/72157682007815025

Wooden Fragments in the Rows of Stones

      Wandering about, following a path only sometimes, once in a while I’ve spotted some pieces of wood in more than one “stone wall,” usually one I suspect to be a Ceremonial Stone Landscape (CSL) feature called a Qusukqaniyutôk, a row of stones as I understand it:

“Qusukqaniyutôk ~ ‘stone row, enclosure’ Harris and Robinson, 2015:140, ‘fence that crosses back’ viz. qussuk, ‘stone,’ Nipmuc or quski, quskaca, ‘returning, crosses over,’ qaqi, ‘runs,’ pumiyotôk, ‘fence, wall,’ Mohegan, Mohegan Nation 2004:145, 95, 129) wall (outdoor), fence, NI – pumiyotôk plural pumiyotôkansh” {http://oso-ah.org/custom.html}.

    And you know, thinking of the two Rows of Stones these photos come from, both of these could be easily confused for an “Estate Wall” since both are rather massive wedge-shaped stone structures, on the tall side. “Up to your neck” tall rather than down by yours knees short and up to your waist average, you could say.

      And they both exhibit a suspected snake head-like boulder (or two or more) at at least one terminus (beginning, not “end”)  which would also designate both as “Snake Walls” in CSL language, composed of an unknown number of other effigies – oops: “suspected effigies” – all along the length of the “suspected bodies” of the “suspected Snake Walls.”

   I suspect these rows of stones to be “quite old,” and if they are that old, maybe they were also maintained over that long period of time. I suspect that these tiny effigies I come across were later additions, tilting the stones above it toward the center of the “wall,” keeping them from falling forward and off the structure. These bits of wood, perhaps the ends of long levers, moved the stones (balanced them “mo’ better”) before the stones were (Shaped? Found?) inserted, another little effigy added to the Qusukqaniyutôk...

The Wooden Fragments:

(Perhaps awaiting just the right Turtle-like head?)

Well, I told you about that so that I could tell you about this:

Before...

This is a very much suspected Snake Effigy incorporated into the retaining wall in front of my house, an opinion seconded by Curt Hoffman (reported to the State of CT and, I at least think, to Tribal Historic Preservation Officers), as well as prompting Jannie Loubser to exclaim, "Just like Sexy Woman!" as we both struggled to remember how to pronounce Sacsayhuaman:

“Foreigners often have difficulty pronouncing Sacsayhuaman, so tour guides joke that Sacsayhuaman sounds a lot like “sexy woman” in English.”

https://www.peruforless.com/blog/sacsayhuaman-perus-sexy-inca-ruins/

After...