The "One in a Thousand" Flood (Nonnewaug/CT Cluster #3)

  On the 69th anniversary of the Great Flood of August 18-19 in 1955, a record amount of rain fell in part of the Paugussett Homeland. Here in Nonnewaug, the floodplain filled with water, almost as much as it did during a flood in the mid to late 1990s, quite to that line on the map called the 100 year flood contour, what I imagine was once a glacial lakeshore. The floodplain didn't fill up quite as much this time - and neither did my basement. Here's a couple images (that may not be award winning photos) taken on the 18th and 19th:

  I suspect that a certain amount of Indigenous Stonework has now disappeared, washed away forever from the bigger picture of the Paugussett Homeland, the Traditional Cultural Properties that are Stacked Stone Cultural features of the Indigenous Cultural Landscape, a Sacred Landscape that evidences the sustainable system of land management that is simple yet complicated, interconnected by what are all too often assumed to be those "Yankee Stone Walls" in far too many Colonialist histories and biased  archaeologies that ignore these stacked stone cultural landscape features "hidden in plain sight," as they say...  

 Here's one segment that remains. I've driven by this an unknown number of times in my life and actually visited maybe only two or three times. It illustrates the Indigenous Iconography that can be found in Indigenous Stonework, the "power" of the Great Serpent Being infused into these Qusukqaniyutôkansh, these Rows of Stacked Stones, colloquially “stone walls” or “stone fences,” often assumed to be post contact constructions related to property ownership and agriculture.

 

The biggest surprise of this most recent visit was the remarkable resemblance of this Qusukqaniyutôk on the left that begins with a "snake head" to an image that appears in a National Park Service training video about Ceremonial Stone Landscapes, narrated by Doug Harris:

Ceremonial Stone Landscapes of New England:

https://youtu.be/35hswwxcIFI?si=ZDLtN6T5kZscIe4x

Doug's image also appears in "Our Hidden Landscapes:"

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2023/10/excerpts-and-images-from-elaine-thomas.html

https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/our-hidden-landscapes

Let's go back to where I started:

 

(Yes, I did ask young Danny B. if it was okay to photograph these features.)

By the new bridge that sits beside the old bridge, above site of the oldest early European Settler Colonist mill in the Nonnewaug district, it shows in aerial images and in LiDar images as well:

Looking to the north, at the beginning of the present day remnant: 

Looking west images:

Above: Deer Horns Overlay

Below: Bison-like Single Horn Overlay

Looking South:

Mill Site and Mill Race:

An image from 2012 visit:

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2012/02/by-old-mill-again.html

Above: Looking South

Below: Looking East

Looking North:

Back to where I started:

Stolen from Beauford's (aka Mr. Steven Peck) Video:

Aerial images of various sorts:

1934:

1965:

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2012/02/old-stone-row-by-old-mill.html

Rebuilding Those Iconic "New England" Stone Walls (CT)

 Another One Bites the Dust

  To me, the biggest disaster of all this rebuilding of the Iconic New England Stone Walls is that the original “wall” or “fence” may be far older than is generally assumed. That seeming “pile of field clearing (garbage) stones” or “linear landfill” may actually be an Indigenous creation, a Native American construction. Those miles and miles of “New England Stone Walls” deserve a second look and some scientific investigation rather than to be casually dismissed as artifacts of Euro-American Agricultural Methods because once they are gone or rebuilt, they are lost forever.

 I know that the majority of the plethora of books and essays and video presentations about "New England Stone Walls" tells you that, with minor exceptions, there are no pre-contact era stoneworks here in the northeastern U.S.A. - but that is almost entirely speculation, a Colonialist point of view, to use Dr. Bruce Trigger's term. The Colonialist Folklore about "stone walls" is a bit of ethnic erasure, promoting the exceptionality of the early European settler colonists and their descendants with scant documentation of actual stonewall building. There is actually a dearth of actual scientific investigation into the actual age of these actual stacked stone cultural features and to suggest that Indigenous Stonework exists often results in ridicule...  

 I constantly drive by miles and miles of “stone walls” and every once in a while I see someone has cleared the brush and trash away from another one these misunderstood stacked stone cultural features and I smile, sometimes stop by with a camera when I get the chance, photograph the “snakes and turtles” – the Indigenous Iconography that is a step beyond “artwork” – that are distinguishing characteristics of Indigenous (Native American) Stonework.

Sometimes I find that the "stone wall" is being rebuilt,

without a thought to the origin of that 

unique stacked stone cultural feature:

 

  I understand that the man in the photo above who is doing the stonework is just a guy doing his job. As we passed by, my brother John and I wondered about where the man might be from, wondered if he spoke English and Spanish or perhaps Portuguese, as well as perhaps at least one Indigenous language, possibly several different dialects as well. 

  When my brother said, "That's a lost art," I thought about more than just European style stonework and just whose art becomes "lost" when the stone features are taken apart and then put back together.

 I'm sitting here this morning wondering if he might well be from somewhere where Indigenous Stonework is considered a National Treasure, perhaps worked doing Stonewall Conservation rather than transforming an older Qusukqaniyutôk, such as the one seen below, into an entirely different form of stacked stone cultural feature... 

Links to Colonialist:

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/search?q=colonialist

  

Ceil’s Stones Again (Westbrook VT)

 Under the Trumpet Vine and the bullbriar, 

There’s “What’s left of” that section of “stone wall”

Behind the barn

In my mom’s backyard…

 

My sister Margaret has joined in keeping this clear and visible...

They say that Indigenous “Walls” don’t meet at right angles,

And I’m pretty sure that’s not always true,

Especially when standing

Where three Qusukqaniyutôkansh meet

In my mom’s backyard…

 

Three Qusukqaniyutôk meet at two different offset right angles...

(Just like a certain spot somewhere else nearby to the south and west:)

A place above a species specific habitat:

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2020/03/diamondback-turtle-hill.html

  The first turtle that caused me to consider if what remains of the oldest of the "stone walls" were an Indigenous creation can be found following that "Qusukqaniyutôk" in the upper left of the photo northward: 

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.

I noticed an abundance of long nosed turtles that I hadn't really noticed before.

Snapping Turtles??

http://www.wildlifeofct.com/snapping%20turtle.html#:~:text=Common%20snapping%20turtles%20can%20reach,farther%20west%20than%20New%20England.

 

Or a different species, like the Spiny Softshell, with the very distinct nose:

I wonder if the range extended into CT in the past or perhaps, like the modern specimens found here and there in CT and MA, they were imported to someplace from someplace else sometime...

 https://www.britannica.com/animal/softshell-turtle

 At the south end of that row of stones - that leads to a steep bank and and a muddy spot I don't quite understand but now add "possible spiny softshell habitat?" to my mental list of considerations - there's a white quartzy version of that possible head shape: 

I have to think about this one for a while - a turtle and a snake head??

Another suspect, the Musk turtle:

 https://images.app.goo.gl/Jki56d8iGKwQzchU6

I'll get around to a second post of all the long nosed suspects...

 

 In the meantime, here's a bunch of past posts and more images et cetera of this row of stones:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/34580529@N04/albums/72157652313565576

 https://www.flickr.com/photos/34580529@N04/albums/72157710008114312/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/34580529@N04/albums/72157694801672611/

 https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2019/07/revisiting-stone-turtles-in-ct-cluster-7.html

Nonnewaug Prayers (CT)

 These Stones are Nonnewaug Prayers,

At a Pootatuck Place for Prayers,
  A Paugussett Place for Prayers,

 At the farthest away fishing place,

These Stones are Prayers,

Sitting on the Hillsides, "hidden," and almost forgotten...

Desires, dreams, visions,

Praying by stacking stones,

Joyfully participating in the Balance of the Universe.

Even now:

"They are still Singing..."

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2021/12/they-are-singing.html

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2019/07/some-turtle-effigies-in-ct-cluster-3.html

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2019/06/nonnewaug-stone-rows.html