Sunday, December 24, 2023

Winter Solar Standstill (Nonnewaug)

Looking toward the west,

The Circa 1700 Nonnewaug Watch House in 1989:

Looking East:

Below: Just above the road you might make out a zigzag row...

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2008/01/snowy-stones.html

Serpent Guarding 29 Nonnewaug:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/34580529@N04/albums/72177720304401770/

Monday, December 18, 2023

Colonialist Armchair Investigation

I can’t remember the term for the term of a term which one has just suddenly invented at the moment, but here’s the phrase: Colonialist Armchair Investigation. My longtime associate Mr. Peter Waksman knows just what I mean I know because he has alluded to the phenomenon as well, all those times when he’s said that some of these “Indians never built in stone in New England” Denialists need to get out of their armchairs and “take to the woods” and take a look around.

But neither Peter nor I were the first to say something like that.

Here’s what Dr. Bruce G. Trigger had to say about something like that:

The name of the region where Peter and I found ourselves wandering about in, looking for stacked stone features, is known as New England. If I say instead that we’ve been making observations of Indigenous Stonework at “The Eastern Gate of Turtle Island,” most people (from their armchairs) would not have a clue where we were talking about. Right away, one has to use the Colonialist term, the “New England,” to even begin a discussion of where we are investigating which.

“Trigger (1984) started his paper with a discussion of nationalist archaeology, the primary function of which is to bolster the pride and morale of nations or ethnic groups aspiring to nationhood. Examples of nationalistic archaeological traditions cited by Trigger include those in Denmark, Israel, Egypt, Iran, Mexico, China, and Germany.

The second category, colonialist archaeology, refers to archaeology practiced by colonizers in a colonized country. Examples show that colonial archaeologists often emphasized the primitiveness or lack of accomplishments of the ancestors of colonized people to justify discriminatory behavior as well as colonization itself. The United States, New Zealand, and parts of sub-Saharan Africa are examples of countries and regions that experienced periods of colonialist archaeology.

Third, Trigger pointed out that states with worldwide political, economic, and cultural power have produced imperialist archaeological traditions. He included in this category the archaeological traditions of the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States after the advent of processual archaeology. Archaeologists working within an imperialist tradition take for granted the superiority and universal applicability of their theoretical and methodological approaches. They also exert a strong influence on research around the world through their writings, the international nature of their research projects, and the key role they play in training archaeologists from various parts of the world..."

https://anthropology.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/habu_multiple_narrtatives.pdf

: "Nationalist, Colonialist, and Imperialist Archaeologies that claim most of the credit for the majority of an incredible amount of stonework may well be the sort of “Alternative Archaeology” or Pseudoscience that cherry picks a small bit of documentation for a small amount of stonework, as if Denialism is science with no need for further investigation."

Nationalist, Colonialist, and Imperialist Archaeologies are also “Alternative Archaeologies.”

It’s like, Indians of the Hemisphere were doing things with earth and shell and stone.

Everywhere else but not Here in my Town and all around New England,

Those Indians didn’t build anything except campfire hearths with stones until the Europeans came in and “learned them how.”

And except of course for and Gazillions Gazillions of Projectile Points.

And those hammerstones and net weights.

And all those fishweirs – on dryland no clue how to stack a stone on another,

But stick some Indians in some water 3000 years ago...

One might ask: What is nationalist archaeology?

"Nationalism and archaeology have been closely related since at least the nineteenth century. Archaeological interpretations and ancient history can be manipulated for nationalist purposes, such as cultivating national mythologies and national mysticism," writes Mr. Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalism_and_archaeology

Friday, December 15, 2023

Jipji'jk “moon of the wintertime” and the "Huron Carol"

I’ve heard that stories in general, and stories about the Big Snake Being or Horned Serpent in particular, aren’t (and “weren’t”) told until the Winter Solstice occurs. A person shouldn’t even speak the name of the Great Serpent until that solar event.

Jean de Brébeuf wrote the lyrics, in the native language of the Huron/Wendat people, probably in 1642. He probably had help with those words from First Nations language speakers.

This morning, some of those words caught my eye in a very different way than they ever had before…

“Na kesikewiku'sitek jipji'jk* majita'titek
It was in the moon of the wintertime when all the birds had fled

Kji-Niskam petkimasnika ansale'wilitka
That mighty Gitchi Manitou sent angels…”

"Jesous Ahatonhia" ("Jesus, he is born")

The "Huron Carol" (or "Twas in the Moon of Wintertime")

*The Mi'kmaw word "sisipk" is preferred by many to "jipji'jk" for "birds".

https://firstnationhelp.com/huron.html

Jipijka'm:

The plural form of their name is Jipijkamak or Jipijkmak,

and the female form is Jipijkamiskw or Jipijkamiskwa.

Alternate spellings: Jupijkám, Tcipitckaam, Chipitchkam, Chepitchcalm, Kchi Pitchkayam, Ktchi Pitchkaam, Chepechcalm, Chepichkaam, Chepitchkaam, Che-Pitch-Calm, Chepichealm, Jibichkam, Jipijkma, Chepitkam, Ktchi-Pitchkayam
Pronunciation: chih-pitch-kawm
Also known as: The plural form of their name is Jipijkamak or Jipijkmak, and the female form is Jipijkamiskw or Jipijkamiskwa.

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

Mi'kmaq (Mi'kmaw, Micmac, Mikmaq, Mikmak) Language: “The Mi'kmaq language, Mi'kmawi'simk, is an Algonquian language spoken by 8000 Indians in the Canadian Maritimes (particularly Nova Scotia) and a few US communities in the Northeast. The Mi'kmaq dialect spoken in Quebec is called Restigouche (or Listuguj) and can be hard for other native speakers to understand.”

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

From the Mi'kmaw-English Lexicon, another version:

"Na kesikewiku'sitek sisipk Majita'titek,

Majita'titek, Kji-Niskam petkimasni…"

jipjl'j n., bird

jipijka'm: crocodile (!), • Mi'kmaw-English Lexicon page 80

Kesikewiku's/Kjiku's: “December; the great month”

kaqtukow, kaqtukwew n., thunder

sislp: “bird”

snake: mte'skm

snake (a horned) serpent: jipijka'm

Grandfather (my) (traditional form); my father-in-law (contemporary form): niskamij

God: Niskam

https://naig2023.com/wp-content/uploads/education/Mi_kmaq_Lexicon.PDF

Monday, December 04, 2023

Our Vanishing Ceremonial Stone Landscapes (Watertown CT)

On October 6th , 2023 the Watertown Planning and Zoning Commission received an application to convert a residential piece of property to Industrial Zoning to add 767,000 sq. ft of distribution facilities and over 150 1-2 bedroom residential rental units.

Site Plan for the proposed Distribution Center and apartment complex:

On Dec. 6, 2023, the developer withdrew his application

and "fled the Town Hall Building."

Qusukqaniyutôkansh (pl): Rows of Stacked Stones, colloquially “stone walls” or “stone fences,” often assumed to be post contact constructions related to property ownership and agriculture.

Qusukqaniyutôk (2023): “A row of stones artistically stacked or laid using elements of Indigenous Iconography, sometimes obviously 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 beginning 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 stacked over and hiding a stream, a Musical Row of Stones - the sound of water is the Great Snake contentedly “purring.”

Inside some enclosures, there were “gardens,” plant resources perhaps tended by fire, perhaps protected from fire, something living kept in balance, kept in production by someone offering tobacco to a serpent guardian before entering, someone singing while stacking stones, picking up and replacing her grandmothers’ and grandfathers’ stones that have fallen.

Sometimes zigzag rows of stones, sometimes linear rows of stones, sometimes snaking across the landscape, sometimes along both sides of an Indian Path or Native American Trail or an Indigenous Road that could possibly be two or ten or twelve thousand years old.

Sometimes torn from the landscape in the blink of an eye, sometimes gone forever, sometimes never to snake across the landscape again…

Sometimes I feel I'm just documenting

Our Vanishing Ceremonial Stone Landscapes

Another smaller Snake Effigy:

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.) - Nohham Rolf Cachat-Schilling

Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society, Vol. 77, No. 2 Fall 2016

https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1202&context=bmas

Sunday, December 03, 2023

Small Children , Small Stone Prayers, Small Turtle Effigies (CT)

By the Old Chickenyard (Nonnewaug)

“Historically, archaeologists have devoted few resources to understanding the social roles and activities of children...Lucy (2005) attributes part of the problem to the unwillingness of many archaeologists to include children in their interpretations unless there is direct evidence, usually mortuary, of a child's presence…" From: Playing with method: testing one approach towards identifying the places of past children -Mackenzie Cory (2020)

Above: The decaying coop, farm junk, and snow, covering low cairn-like Káhtôquwukansh or "Stone Prayers..."

Turtle Effigy 2 - capturing the conditions in which it was first observed as a turtle effigy in the winter of 1996/1997. I was collecting kindling at the time...