Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Revisiting Stone Turtles in CT Cluster #7

My brother-in-law had just mowed a new path into the little bit of woods behind my mom's and as I walked along it, these stones above caught my eye.
It didn't take long to realize, I was looking at the east side of a familiar spot:
I may have posted this before, a fuzzy photo of the east side pasted onto an aerial capture:

A few other new photos:
Two high domed box turtles?
Is that a tail or another head on the other side?




I don't know exactly which one, but it's probably one of these,
in the Hammonasset East Cluster (C. Hoffman Stone Prayers, page 120): 
"What's around it?" you may ask.
My mom bought a  copy of this annotated map for a dollar, and I think the numbers may correspond to some of the artifacts on display at the Westbrook Historical Society:
A poor attempt to match up my cell phone photos:
Fooling with flipping the Lidar (to match the aerial above):








Tuesday, July 02, 2019

Some Turtle Effigies in CT Cluster #3


The Nonnewaug Cluster 

Also known as CT Cluster#3 
 (pages 115 – 116) in Dr. Curtiss Hoffman's
 “Stone Prayers; Native American Stone Constructions of the Eastern Seaboard” Arcadia 2018

Tûnuppasuonk kodtonquag(kash) - turtle effigies in stone (Nipmeuw). 

A  Box Turtle Effigy:

1996:


“Invested with prayers for the balance of the universe.”


Beaver's footprints?

Turtle Effigy in "stone heap" or Káhtôquwuk  (Narragansett), allegorically, a 'stone prayer.'

Stone: qussuk  (Proto Eastern Algonquian)(singular): a rock/stone

     qusanash  (PEA)(plural): rocks/stones   (PEA) (diminutive plural): small rocks/stones
    

Tûnuppasuonk qussukquanesash“Small Stones Turtle”
(Al Conley, Personal Communication)  


In the same group of "Stone Mounds" or anogkuéu kodtonquag(kash) - "barely elevated low mound of concentric circles of smooth/round cobbles or very small stones, sometimes variable as pebbles without organized rings (Nipmeuw):"


Algonquin Language terms from:
 Rolf Cachat
Bulletin of Society for Connecticut Archaeology (2018)