Snakes and Rockalopes

 

       It took me a while to figure out just what someone meant when she said, “(It’s) A Turtle. Not a snake or a Rockalope. ”

      See: I often enhance photos of Indigenous Stone Effigies with an "overlay” of eyes and horns or antlers to “bring the image alive,” as Doc. Johnnie Rock Lobster puts it or “to hit you over the head with the fact that you are looking at a Ceremonial Stone Landscape feature such as Turtle or Snake Effigy.” 

Or as I once put it to Doug Harris when I was worried that I might be disrespectful doing so, when my intent was to illustrate a form of Rock Art in hopes that these features can be recognized, studied and protected, as is done in Civilized countries around the world. I was relieved when Doug told me he didn’t view the practice as disrespectful, so I continue to “hit people over the head” with these images of Turtles and Great Horned Snakes (or Serpents), the latter often with antelope or more often deer horns superimposed on photos – like a two dimensional taxidermist creating a “Jackalope,” but only sort of…

     Wikipedia tells us: “The jackalope is a mythical animal of North American folklore (a fearsome critter) described as a jackrabbit with antelope horns. The word jackalope is a portmanteau of jackrabbit and antelope. Many jackalope taxidermy mounts, including the original, are made with deer antlers…Folklorists see the jackalope as one of a group of fabled creatures common to American culture since Colonial days. These appear in tall tales about hodags, giant turtles, Bigfoot, and many other mysterious beasts and in novels like Moby-Dick. The tales lend themselves to comic hoaxing by entrepreneurs who seek attention for their products, their persons, or their towns.

{ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackalope }

       The same source tells us that “The Horned Serpent appears in the mythologies of many Native Americans.^[1] Details vary among tribes, with many of the stories associating the mystical figure with water, rain, lightning and thunder. ..Horned serpents appear in the oral history of numerous Native American cultures, especially in the Southeastern Woodlands and Great Lakes.

{ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horned_Serpent }

   I’m showing you a mythical being, but I’m not trying to fool you about these seeming Rockalopes.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/34580529@N04/albums/72157674010516833

  I’m showing you a unique artistic creation that is commonly dismissed as “a linear line of refuse,” supposed field clearing piles and “accidental” stone walls like zig zag stone walls as well as  all the fancier stacked “sheep walls” attributed to Post Contact Settler Colonists.  There’s an older Indigenous Cultural Landscape others may be erasing from the present day landscape by a reluctance to recognize, study and preserve something ancient and irreplaceable, a National Treasure.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/34580529@N04/albums/72157677886194187