Wednesday, October 28, 2020

Protective Great Stone Snakes (Bethlehem CT)

 Guardian Uktena-like qusuqaniyutôk  “a stone wall”

    Another photo from November 2012, a roadside Great Snake Effigy - a Serpent Segment of Zig Zag "Stone Wall" just above the Nonnewaug River and Floodplain. From above (and from 1934):
Only some of these 1934 floodplain cornfields are still cornfields. The "Indian Footpath" is now a paved road, widened in the 1980s or 1990s, obliterating some of the rows of stones whose age is unknown:


Around 1740, when the People who were living at the Nonnewaug Wigwams "moved on," wooden rails were probably added to this Indigenous Stone Construction to establish an "improvement," a legal fence four and a half feet high, that established property rights in what became the Town of Woodbury CT, split wooden rails placed so that it is "qusuqaniyutôkanuk" or “on the stone wall” 






Friday, October 23, 2020

Protective Spirits, Guardian Snakes (Nonnewaug)

    Great Serpents can be Protective Spirits, Guardian Snakes having control over weather and water – and against the fires caused by lightning shot from the eyes of the Thunder Beings (Thunder Birds) as well as the controlled burning Indigenous Peoples used to maintain Balance and create Abundance. I refer to the sideways looking gateway Serpents I observe in the field 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.
In some Indigenous stories, a tobacco offering pleases the Great Horned Guardians...
2021edit:
This "backbone" row of stones, this snake effigy, shown in red below,
 could be said to emerge from a cliff face,
a "door" to the Underworld home of the Great Serpents: 
(Stupid Sheet lifted from Rock Piles)

The cliff face spot where I've watched the Winter Solstice sun set,
a little warm spot with a snow free place to sit:

Western terminus of the row of stones/effigy:



Just below that, a Serpent Gateway
where three rows of stones meet:









Serpent heads at some of the "points" of the ten foot segments of zigzag stones:



The (enhanced) white dot above is the grinning, shape shifting serpent's head, in an aerial photo from 1934. The linear segment behind (north) of the head becomes a zigzag row of stacked stones, "regular and even" ten foot segments...




Thursday, October 15, 2020

Medawlinno Footprints (and more)



Sherry L. Gould writes:

These footprints are in Henniker NH where the Abenaki believe foot prints were left here by Medawlinno. People with extremely powerful medicine, like Passaconaway, could press their feet into solid earth.

    There is no oral tradition of what person may have left these prints in the rocks in Henniker that we have found yet. Just our traditions of what kind of person was able to do it, and traditions of Passaconaway's abilities.


 “We had a great hike to the footprints today. With input from Bob Goodby and Nancy Jo Chabot, the outcome is undetermined origin. Dr. Goodby feels the oval indents could be a natural occurrence, but all agree the defined toes are not likely a natural occurrence. We need to do more research for Dr. Holton's original files on the prints, and search for oral history in the area for significance.



  The rainy pictures are from today's hike, pictures by Vicki Blanchard. The sunny pictures are from Saturday's hike with Polly and Angela Fleming (the photographer). I slipped my shoes and stepped in the prints, they are surely a size 7 and the feel was very smooth and fitting…”

https://www.facebook.com/Abenaki-Trails-Project-130903648704620


  “Passaconaway (Child of the Bear) - He was known as a peacemaker. He had a vision that the newcomers, who arrived in ships from the east with white sails, were coming on clouds and that they would dominate the land with their coming…”

https://www.cabinet.com/news/merrimack-news/2019/04/19/native-americans-of-merrimack-their-chief-passaconaway/

 


Medawlinnoak, “medicine people”

“The convergence of spirit, the elements, and resurgent prolific life – epitomized by over-arching sky, shaped and shelving bedrock, sunlight and reflection, deep and strong currents – create a place of exchange. Spirit is able to move between worlds more readily here; the edges between the underworld of earth and water, existence on the surficial plane, and the above world of sky, blur and cross over. Things are in a state of flux, moving and mixing, intersecting. The constant change of creation is present here, closer and better accessible. This is one reason that messages of acknowledgement in the form of petroglyphs are often found at these places. These ancient representations, placed by medawlinnoak, medicine people, as they worked to seek balance with and through the presence of spirit concentrated there, continue to speak their opportune truths into the present. We see and hear them even now, carrying through the dysphoria and disturbance of the modern milieu…”  Rich Holsuch - March 31, 2019

https://sokokisojourn.wordpress.com/tag/medawlinno/