Tuesday, December 28, 2021

From the Plantation’s Watch House

 


   From the Plantation’s Watch House, the field full of “corn mounds,” where the Three Sisters of Corn, Squash, and Beans grew together, could be easily seen. The same was true of Fish Weir, a stone wall-like diagonal row of boulders in the river, that gave the name to The Nonnewaug Wigwams. Behind the Watch House, to the west, was the Mast Forest, enclosed by a border of fireproof stones, a qusuqaniyutôk or perhaps more accurately  qusuqaniyutôkansh, a series of segments of stone enclosures and entrances.

   A definition or two, the former from the scientific literature emerging in the early 21st century, the latter mine, an artistic based impression based mostly on observations of "stone walls" over around thirty years at the time I’m writing this:

   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.)

   Qusukqaniyutôk: “A row of stones artistically stacked using elements of Indigenous Iconography, sometimes resembling a Great Snake, often composed of smaller snake effigies as well as other effigies both zoomorphic and anthropomorphic, sometimes appearing to shapeshift into another effigy, possibly related to control of water or fire (sometimes both) on Sacred Cultural Landscapes that are becoming to be recognized as Indigenous Ceremonial Stone Landscapes.”

    From a perspective of distance, the largest of the Stone Snake Qusukqaniyutôk snake across the landscape, crossing over others, sometimes connecting great boulders or bedrock outcrops, sometimes along streams – and sometimes over a stream, a Musical Row of Stones, the sound of the Great Snake contentedly “purring:”

https://youtu.be/GT22fLbLw7g

     Sometimes the enclosure has an abundance of blueberries in it. Sometimes there’s a name (or a remembrance of an original name) such as cranberry Pond or Cranberry swamp, inside a stone enclosure, surrounded by other enclosures, fed by streams bordered by and sometimes diverted by rows of stones emanating from stone worked springs.



    Wildfires taught lessons to the People who first lived on the landscape and those Peoples learned to use fire to tend the landscape. It is my thought that those rows of stones, controlling fires and the flow of water, were built by the Indigenous Peoples of the Eastern gate of Turtle Island, creating one of the “World’s Largest Rock Gardens.”

   From little bits and pieces, remnants of old stones, remain while others are just thoughtlessly disturbed forever, lost pieces of a Sacred Indigenous Ceremonial Stone Landscape...


Saturday, December 25, 2021

The 97% Solution

 

    “Evaluations of qusuqaniyutôkansh (“stone walls”) by parties who do not test their hypotheses against Northeast Algonquian cosmology, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and Rituals of Renewal on Ceremonial Stone Landscapes are doing, at best, only 3% of an investigation,” remarked Sherlock Stones to his associate, famed Rocket Surgeon John Possum. "The late Dr. Brian Jones, the Connecticut State Archaeologist spoke and wrote about that "Other 97% of the Human History," the Indigenous Peoples' History, that most people are almost entirely unaware of - or are greatly misinformed about."



   “Call it “The 97% Solution,” Sherlock continued. “For thousands and thousands of years, the Indigenous Peoples of what is thought of as quaint “New England” certainly had a greater opportunity to shape the landscape, using fire and (hearth-like) fuel break rows of stones than the post contact Euro-American Settler Colonists and their slaves, indentured servants, employees, and their exceptional descendants with their “Merino Sheep Walls” and soil cutting plows in the remaining 3% of the human history of the region. The example of the use of LiDar in Central and South America to reveal and discover the vast amount of Indigenous Stonework in a place where “true civilization” was thought impossible to exist in a “pristine jungle” serves well. If those southern regions were transformed into some of the world’s largest gardens, then why would it be impossible that the Indigenous Peoples at the Eastern Gate of Turtle Island, the Dawnland, could create one of the “World’s Largest Rock Gardens,” my dear Possum?”

    Dr. Possum sighed and remarked, “Well Stones, what is the truly more advanced civilization – one that creates a sustainable system of coexistence with the ecosystem or one that degrades it to such a degree that, if continued without change, in all probability leads to extinction?”

    Both men paused, pondering this.

   "Another slice of Christmas Pie?" asked Dr. Possum.

   "A plum of an idea," replied Sherlock Stones.

"Ceremonial Stone Landscapes is the term used by USET, United Southern and Eastern Tribes, Inc."





Saturday, December 18, 2021

Nonnewaug, the "Fresh water fishing place"

  


 This diagonal line of boulders in the Nonnewaug River in Woodbury CT, most likely a diagonal fish weir that is probably the source of the place name Nonnewaug, just might soon disappear. Maybe on Monday, I don't know...



  The years have not been kind to the Weir since that photo above was taken in 1997. That large tree crashed through the weir and started its demise...


























Tuesday, December 14, 2021

500 BCE (Lenapehokink)


And here he is, John Martin:


This page was last edited on 23 November 2018 - and needs a new update:


The claim was that these stones in PA were stone heaping practices of 19th century farmers, which sounds very familiar:

"Evaluations of máunumúetash* by parties who do not test their hypotheses against Northeast Algonquian cosmology and rituals are doing, at best, only half an investigation..."

Rolf Cachat

Bulletin of Society for Connecticut Archaeology (2018)

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

*Máunumúet(ash) - place(s) of ceremonial gathering (ehenda mawewink, Lënapeuw, mawighunk, Mahhekanneuw). Themes of connectedness, reciprocity, prayerfulness and continuity are expressed through máunumúetash."

Tuesday, December 07, 2021

They are Singing...

Desires, dreams, visions,
Praying by stacking stones,
They are Singing...