Lenape Rattlesnake Squamation (SE PA)

Or: Just a psychological phenomenon called Pareidolia, right?

Photos used by the kind permission of John Martin‎ who posted them at

Celebrating the Ceremonial Stone Landscapes of Eastern North America

12/31/2018

The stones are stacked to resemble the scales of a Rattlesnake :

Or a Great Serpent:

"Horned serpents are a type of mythological freshwater serpent common to many tribes of the eastern United States and Canada. Horned serpent legends vary somewhat from tribe to tribe, but they are usually described as huge, scaly, dragon-like serpents with horns and long teeth. Sometimes they move about on the land, but are more often found in lakes and rivers. The ubiquity of horned serpent stories in this region has led some people to speculate that they are based on a real animal (such as some sort of now-extinct giant crocodile.) However, in Native American myths and legends, horned serpents are usually very supernatural in character-- possessing magical abilities such as shape-shifting, invisibility, or hypnotic powers; bestowing powerful medicine upon humans who defeat them or help them; controlling storms and weather, and so on-- and were venerated as gods or spirit beings in some tribes. And unlike other animals such as crocodiles and snakes, horned serpents are not included in common Woodland Indian folktales about the animal kingdom. So it is likely that horned serpents have always been viewed as mythological spirits, not as animals, and that belief in them was simply very widespread in the eastern part of the country. Indeed, horned serpent mythology may trace back to ancestors of Eastern Native American tribes such as the Hopewell, Mississippian, and other mound-builder civilizations, as stylized serpent motifs have been found in their earthworks and artifacts which bear some resemblance to the horned serpents of historical Native American tribes."

http://www.native-languages.org/horned-serpent.htm

Name: Maxa'xâk
Tribal affiliation: Lenape
Alternate spellings: Mëxaxkuk, Maxaxak, Maxa'xak, W'axkook
Pronunciation: muh-khakh-kook
Also known as: Great Serpent
Type: Lake monster, serpent
Related figures in other tribes: Mishi-Ginebig (Anishinabe), Uncegila (Sioux), Apotamkin (Maliseet)

http://www.native-languages.org/maxaxak.htm

 Strong Wind Photography by John A. Martin

Just after the Winter Solstice 2018

First snow dusting and some older photos in other seasons...

  

Horns

And Horns and Horns (Feathers?)

Above: Paul Tbo‎Celebrating the Ceremonial Stone Landscapes of Eastern North America

Dec. 24, 2018

http://www.muiniskw.org/pgHistory3bx.htm

Returning (Everywhere)

Returning to a "site" where the Ceremonial Stone Landscape speaks, I hear something old and new each and every time. I see something I've seen and haven't seen before, I observe something I hadn't observed before, and I learn a little bit better that there's so much I don't and never will know...

The sun casts a shadow on a Stone and suddenly the Stone becomes much more than a Stone. A cloud casts a shadow and suddenly that Stone becomes something else, that's part of something else that's part of everything...

Standing by a Stone, I've watched the sun sets over another Stone on more than one Equinox but never on the Summer Solstice, just a glimmer through the trees and a million green leaves above a Standing Stone. It took a hundred or more visits to realize just where to stand to place myself in the middle of something that's part of something else that's part of everything...

Eastern Egg Island (ME)

https://www.pressherald.com/media/gallery/puffins-eastern-egg-rock/

     What we observe depends on what we look for. I look for and observe Stones or combinations of Stones that resemble Turtles to a remarkable degree...

His foot is on a very realistic nuchal notch of an Indigenous Sea Turtle...
https://mlcalliance.org/2016/06/21/guest-column-keep-an-eye-out-for-sea-turtles-this-season/

 The rhomboidal Healing Diamond, as the Mohegan call it, is also something I look for, even just when (virtually) passing by:

Sometimes often in other people's photos:

http://www.mainepublic.org/post/maine-puffins-rebound#stream/0

Somewhere in Greater RI

I just saw this, this morning:

Greater Rhode Island Ruins

October 25, 2018

Courtesy of a reader ... unfortunately, I could not find his name ... BOO!

I just observed this, this morning:

If you asked me if I thought this might be an Indigenous-made Stone Chamber, I might say very possibly because the stones are stacked like this:

I might even say it might be a "Pesuponck"

 because many people translate the word like this:

Pesuponck Washington County, R. I. Narragansett, "a hot house." 
Roger Williams tells of such sweathouses where the men 
went "first to cleanse their skin, secondly to purge their 
bodies. ... I have seen them run (summer and winter) into 
brooks to cool them without the least hurt." Several such 
place names are found throughout Connectitut, Rhode Is- 
land and elsewhere in New England... 

  That's John Huden from here:

https://archive.org/details/indianplacenames00hude

I'd copy and paste this:
"The earliest description of sweat-houses in New England was from Roger Williams, who lived among the Narragansett in present-day Rhode Island.

Pesuponck; an hot house. This hot house is a kind of little cell or cave, six or eight feet over, round, made on the side of a hill, commonly by some rivulet or brook. Into this frequently the men enter, after they have exceedingly heated it with store of wood, laid upon a heap of stones in the middle. (Williams [1643]1968:236)

Lifted from this, this morning:
 http://www.storiesandstones.com/2016/12/new-england-sweat-houses-new-england.html