Grandfather Rock & Majorville Cairn

Image No: PD-87-10-10 Title: The 'Grandfather Rock', Cluny Earthlodge Village archaeological excavation, Blackfoot (Siksika) reserve, southern Alberta. Date: 1960 Photographer/Illustrator: Glenbow Foundation

Remarks: The site, located 100 km east of Calgary on the Bow River, was excavated under the direction of H.A. Huscher of the Smithsonian Institution. Not a fireplace, the top of this large pile of stones could be seen in front of one of the housepits before excavation. Probably constructed for religious purposes, the rock pile may be the counterpart of sacred Grandfather Rocks of the Mandans. Subject(s): Archaeology / First Nations - Dwellings
http://ww2.glenbow.org/search/archivesPhotosResults.aspx?AC=NEXT_BLOCK&XC=/search/archivesPhotosResults.aspx&BU=&TN=IMAGEBAN&SN=AUTO24135&SE=1426&RN=40&MR=10&TR=0&TX=1000&ES=0&CS=0&XP=&RF=WebResults&EF=&DF=WebResultsDetails&RL=0&EL=0&DL=0&NP=255&ID=&MF=WPEngMsg.ini&MQ=&TI=0&DT=&ST=0&IR=0&NR=0&NB=4&SV=0&BG=&FG=&QS=&OEX=ISO-8859-1&OEH=ISO-8859-1

Image No: B165-A-1 Title: Majorville Cairn south of Bassano, Alberta. Date: September 15, 1960 Photographer/Illustrator: Glenbow Foundation; Remarks: Medicine wheel recorded by Richard "Dick" Forbis, Glenbow archaeologist. Looking north. Borden number EdPc-1. Subject(s): Archaeology / First Nations of Alberta - Religion and mythology

http://ww2.glenbow.org/search/archivesPhotosResults.aspx?AC=GET_RECORD&XC=/search/archivesPhotosResults.aspx&BU=&TN=IMAGEBAN&SN=AUTO24135&SE=1426&RN=81&MR=10&TR=0&TX=1000&ES=0&CS=0&XP=&RF=WebResults&EF=&DF=WebResultsDetails&RL=0&EL=0&DL=0&NP=255&ID=&MF=WPEngMsg.ini&MQ=&TI=0&DT=&ST=0&IR=81901&NR=0&NB=8&SV=0&BG=&FG=&QS=&OEX=ISO-8859-1&OEH=ISO-8859-1

magic pile

Water color of an Assinboin Indian magic pile by Karl Bodmer.

The Assinboin believed these piles helped attract the buffalo.

Date. circa 1836

"The Assiniboine, also known by the Ojibwe name Asiniibwaan "Stone Sioux", and the Cree as Asinîpwât are a Native American/First Nations people originally from the Northern Great Plains area of North America, specifically in present-day Montana and parts of Saskatchewan, Alberta and southwestern Manitoba around the US/Canadian border. They were well known throughout much of the late 1700s and early 1800s. Images of Assiniboine people were painted by such 19th century artists as Karl Bodmer and George Catlin. The Assiniboine have many similarities to the Lakota (Sioux) people in lifestyle, linguistics, and cultural habits, and are considered to be a band of the Nakoda or middle division of the Lakota. It is believed that the Assiniboine broke away from other Lakota bands in the 17th century..."

http://www.nativewiki.org/Assiniboine

Imaginging Head-Smashed-In
Buffalo Drive Lanes (pg 75) includes a search for stone piles...

3. THE BUFFALO-ROCK 

There was once a very poor woman who was married. She was the second wife. She had a buffalo-robe. It was all full of holes, it was so old. Her moccasins were as old and ripped as mine.
This woman went after wood. While she was gathering wood, she heard some one singing. She found a buffalo-rock that was singing. It sang, "Take me! I am of great power."
The camp of Indians was about starving. They were near a buffalo drive. She told her husband to call all the men, and they would sing and bring the buffalo back. Her husband asked her if she was in earnest. She said, "Yes," and asked him to get a small piece of the back of a buffalo from the Bear-Medicine man. She told her husband how to arrange the lodge inside in a kind of square box with some sagebrush and buffalo-chips. She told her husband to ask some men to come, and to ask for the four rattles they used...
One of these buffalo-rocks began to sing, after all the men were seated, "The buffalo will all drift back." So this woman asked one of the young men to go beyond the drive and put a lot of buffalo-chips in line; then they were to wave at them with a buffalo-robe about four times, and at the same time to shout in a singsong. At the fourth time they (the buffalo-chips) would all turn into buffaloes and go over the drive, which they did.
The woman led in the singing at the lodge. She knew what the young man was doing. A cow-buffalo took the lead. The woman was singing about the leader that would take them over the drive. All the buffalo went over the drive and were killed. She sang a different song: "I have made more than a hundred buffalo fall over, and the man above the earth hears me."

Journal of American folklore, Volume 24 By American Folklore Society
http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA246&dq=buffalo%20drive&cd=3&id=7zedAAAAMAAJ&output=text

The Manyberries Cairn

Archaeology on the edge: new perspectives from the northern plains
 - Google Books Result: manyberries carin

 
 

 

Petroforms

Taking apart a rock pile without taking it apart

  I’ve been thinking about “Taking apart a stacked stone feature pile without taking it apart.” Studying something without destroying it. Looking outward rather than inward (or is it the other way around?).

It's very easy in this case because it is only composed of three stones...


  Or maybe I’ve been thinking about studying an Effigy in its context to the larger cultural landscape, paying attention to what may be not only a rare view of a Late Woodland Village, but an incredible amount of remnants of the Native American Stonework that still exists in and around it.

Bear Stone Petroform(April 2009 photo TMS)

I’m looking in a field guide to stones in New England that says a boulder is larger than 256 mm or about 10 inches. A cobble is defined as less than a boulder but more than 125 mm or 5 inches. Here is a stone concentration composed of a large boulder that might be a glacial erratic, but also possibly placed there by more than one person (although I know that a clever person could do it alone), another boulder and a cobble. The large boulder is four times as long as it is wide so it might be a boulder fence or part of one that has elsewhere disappeared but it is inside the riparian zone of a swamp that drains both north and south that is bordered by zigzag stone boulders on both banks in both directions. The second boulder is a quartzite stone, which seems to resemble a large animal head. I mistook it at first as a cow skull when I first saw it in 1996. Possibly the stone was humanly enhanced to more resemble a bear, which is my impression of which animal it might be. Besides the enhancement of ursine features – and a nice “natural” diagonal streak of lighter color across the face of the stone – there is also a hole pecked on top of the head stone.

  And it seems important to mention: the bear's head is balanced on the boulder. It will rock for awhile if you touch it...

 The cobble has multiple pit marks or cups on its upper most surface, angled toward a concave side that just happens to be curved inward enough for a person to place a quahog shell, perhaps in which tobacco has been placed, on the boulder surface below it and have it stay in place. If I chose to take my drill type fire starter with me, I could take some balled up and fuzzy cedar and place it over those cup marks, feel around for one of them with my Sangwhikan and get some fire going on the cedar tinder. I could breathe on it to get it going – even if it rolled down the stone into the shell. If I wanted to, I could put that shell on top of the bear’s head where it would neatly click into place, just as easily as it did the first time I tried it after reading Gladys Tantaquidgeon in "Folk Medicine of the Delaware and Related Algonkian Indians (1972,1995)" (pg. 60): "Wild animals, as pointed out by F.G. Speck (1931: 28-29), are in general considered to exist in clan relationship with humans. The latter are said to be "kings among animals." Clean pure animals of the forest are referred to in terms of human relationship and their spirits must be propitiated before they can be sought for food. If the supernaturals are appeased through sacrifices, the animals will allow themselves to be taken, but if the proper ceremonies are not carried out, they can never be approached by humans. Therefore, a hunter is obliged to pray and sacrifice tobacco before starting on the hunt..."

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2017/05/comparing-bears.html

   "The Delaware consider the bear and deer to be the greatest of all animals. The bear is also called "Our Grandfather." Both animals are considered closely akin to the Indian, but the Delaware believe that the bear has the most human-like traits..."

 

To the south of this stone concentration, this petroform is another, lower to the ground but greatly resembling a deer, the other “greatest of all animals.”

Cross an interesting "cobblestone ford” to the north of the feature, and the stream, and its zigzag borders, lead to other streams with similar stonework and eventually these streams become diverted to flow around an area of land where a local history documents stone burial mounds before joining itself again – along with a stream that originally flowed into it that not far away flows over a series of waterfalls. On that little “island” that may well be the burial grounds, is also a stone concentration of boulders, that may function as a very simple “medicine wheel,” a place to center yourself in the Universe by triangulation to Equinox and Summer Solstice, but that’s another stone feature story…

See also:

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2014/08/up-there-with-bear.html

Native Storytelling

Picture Glossary of New England Lithic Constructions

by Daniel V. Boudillion

"This page (http://www.boudillion.com/glossary/glossary.htm) is a glossary of stone structures that are often found in the woods of New England.  These structures can be of many eras and origins, and its not always easy to determine what is what.  There seem to be Native American structures, both pre-contact, historical, and modern, as well as Colonial and Neo-Pagan structures.  Further, some of the structures seem to indicate a pre-contact Native American activity not recognized or allowed by modern archeologists...

•  Piles & Stacks:
 There are thousands and thousands of small rock piles in the Massachusetts woodlands.  Many of these are in rocky and swampy areas that would not have been worth the time and effort of a Colonial farmer to clear the stones into piles.  Often, these piles are on the east side of hills overlooking water.  It is considered by some that these piles have Native American significance.  Indeed, I have seen a good few that appear to be made to represent a turtle, a creature whose spirit was sacred to the Native Americas of New England.   The best resource on the native significance to rock piles is Peter Waksman's Indian Rock Piles website.

• Turtle Rocks & Effigies: Simply put, these are rock formations of many sort that resemble a turtle in some way.  It is known that the Native Americans found the turtle significant, and there are several well-known (but hard to find) Turtle Rocks in the Nashoba Valley area where Native Americans still gather for reasons of their own.  Where you find Turtle imagery is where you can assume a particularly strong Native American significance to the area.  For more Turtle Effigy information I would suggest visiting Tim MacSweeney's Waking Up On Turtle Island blog..."
More on Dan's Turtle Shell: (http://www.neara.org/macsween/turtlevision.htm)
From: http://www.boudillion.com/glossary/glossary.htm

Graphic Intro to Archaeology

Archaeology: The Comic Johannes Henoch Neethling Loubser - 2003 - 190 pages books.google.com

Manitou Api

Manitou Api

 “The Place Where the Creator Sat"

David Courchene (Nii Gaani Aki Inini)
September 17, 2006

On this sacred site, you could not help but feel the presence of the ancestors joining us in our efforts to find ourselves as a unique and beautiful people. You could feel the dancing of the ancestors as songs were sung at the (Whiteshell) petroforms. As the teachings were being delivered by the elders, it felt so good to be hearing the truth being spoken…

With the building of the Petroform of the Turtle, this experience literally took us back to the time when our ancestors left markings on the Earth. Today we have left ours, signifying our search for the Truth and our return to the sacred site of our people.

       The most noticeable thing was the excitement that everyone was showing as they searched for rocks to form the petroform. As it was being built to its near completion, one of the grandmothers called me over and told me to look in the direction of the back of the Turtle. What I could see was an Eagle emerging from the back of the Turtle. The elder seemed to be so excited. One had to be there to witness and feel what was being done as an event that reached beyond our minds' comprehension.

During the four days, little baby turtles kept appearing…

More at: 

2006 Turtle Petroform

Photo at the top of the page:

Muzzu-Kummik-Quae; 
Earth Woman of the Anishinabe

Composite of moon, forest and petroform, Whiteshell Provincial Park, Manitoba, 1993.

  Muzzu-Kummik-Quae is the mother of all creation.   

From the book Visions of the Goddess by Courtney Milne and Sherrill Miller

http://www.courtneymilne.com/images/Image/Sacred_Earth/Petroform_and_Moon_Forest.jpg

http://www.courtneymilne.com/html/sacred_earth/visions_of_the_goddess/index.cfm

Standing on the Stone

It’s all connected

From where the water of life

Springs forth from the ground

To where the ocean encircles the world

It’s all connected

Stone by stone by stone

From the heart shaped stone in your hand

To the stone you stand upon

To the stone in the sky

To the stones in the sky

To the stones that fall from the sky

To the stone you stand upon

Connected for a moment

To everything, to the mystery,

And happy to be

Standing on the Stone…

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Small Detail Part 2

Some past posts about the stones
at the center of the Universe:
rockpiles equinox sunset-2009
 spring equinox (2009)
2007 equinox
2006 map-thing

You might notice linear or zigzag stone rows that appear sometimes as light lines, as well as dark ones - and notice the sort of scallop shape of the small stream around this little sort of island on the first terrace above the floodplain; what you are seeing is the outline of serpentine and zigzag stone rows.

The Path begins on a floodplain corn field, walking to the south on ancient glacial lakeshores:

The zigzag rows visible on the 1934 aerial photo are obscured by the trees at the top of the little rise to the left. The zigzag rows turn into more linear row containing some very interesting stones, sometimes found as sort of circular heaps or mounds, many suggestive of animals, especially turtles all along its course.

Also note the stone row on the left. In previous posts I've called it "the backbone." In the aerial photo, it is the northern (upper) edge of the light colored field. If you follow that row, you end up at a rockshelter...

As the row turns linear, descending to the floodplain, it abruptly stops. 

(We pause to look back north rather than the southerly view we've had in all the above photos; note the large 'end stone' boulder with a rather testudinate stone sitting on top of it... )

Check the aerial photo; do you think the stone row points to those 4 Stones?

Today it seems, to me, as if the landscape was made into

a sort of Medicine Wheel, not at a remote location, but here at this habitation site...

As the crow flies, you end up near here:

There is apparently a parking problem

at the symbolic Center of the Universe.

  If you'd been wondering about that other white dot a little NW of the 4 stones in the '34 photo, it is  most likely this stone to the west of this (twisted) apple tree, perhaps all that is left of the stone burial mound... 

Approaching the northern most boulder/standing stone...

Standing at the North Stone, high noon on Ground Hog's Day, the sun behind clouds.
Walking south, I find the 4th boulder, the South Stone...

I went back and lined myself up with the 4 Stones, centered myself with the Great Mystery, and eventually took a photo looking in each of those four directions, in a sun-wise circle, East, South, West, and North...

A small detail from the big picture

The Center of the Universe in the Heart of the N_____ Wigwams (April 1934)

I just recently stopped thinking about and calling the four stones in the photo above a calendar site. It happened sometime after Norman sent me an article by Herman Bender entitled Medicine Wheel or “Calendar Sites”: Indian Time or the Space/Time Continuum. I remember that it took numerous readings to get everything to stick to my head – on the inside I mean.

Those four bright white spots clumped together in the center of the photo might or might not be boulders, three of which are still there in 2010 as I write this. 

Then again, maybe they are SHEEP. 

 Big SHEEP...

The space within those boulders is something like the Center of the Universe or being centered in the Universe, if I understand what Herman is saying. I know that, no matter what the groundhog says about it tomorrow morning, on the Vernal Equinox the apparent sun set, viewed from the easternmost stone, will sink into the distant hillside directly above the westernmost stone. For a time the sun will set behind the northernmost stone, a standing stone, a few days before and a few days after the Summer Solstice. Whether the sun shines or not, I’ll know these things will happen, just as certainly as I know that when the sun is at it’s highest in the sky everyday, it will be, when viewed from the standing stone, will be directly over the southern-most stone.

I was paying too much attention to three large boulders but not enough to all four stones. I left the fourth stone, the southernmost stone, out of all the drawings I ever made and all the photos I ever took as well, but it may be just as well because it just doesn't" stand out" as a Standing Stone should - except in my imagination, unlike that other triangulation of Standing Stones...

This is, incidentally, where someone sketched a drawing of an Indian Sachem’s grave that became a wood cut illustration in a mid 1800’s history of the town, the author of the history relating “…the small remnant of his people buried him in the beautiful plain at the foot of the musical falls that are called by his name…An apple tree was planted at the head of his grave, which still stands there, the faithful guardian of the ashes that repose beneath its grateful shade. It is a venerable tree, some 150 years old, but does not bear the marks of so great an age, though there are several decayed places in it, so perfectly shown in the accompanying cut of the grave and tree, taken by the artist on the spot during the last summer. When the writer first visited it, twenty years ago, there was a large hillock, or mound, raised over the grave which remained, distinguishing the sachem's, by its size, from the other graves around him, till a few years ago, when the present owner of the field committed the sacrilege of plowing it down, saying lie was not going to have such an old " hummock in his field," much to the regret of every true antiquarian, and lover of ancient things. The mound thus destroyed was some ten feet long, six feet wide, and four feet high, having been gradually formed…”

The Most Photo

Of course this nomination for the most rock piles in a photo competion (see: rockpiles ) should be placed in the “other people’s photos category.”

And whoever took these photos might be dead and thus unable to attend the ceremonies, as well as collect the big winnings, however imaginary both may actually be.

And I don’t know his ( her?) name.

It's from a 1934 Aerial survey of Connecticut and in particular The Photo known as 07599 deserves a good look at.

Creator: Fairchild Aerial Survey Co.; Connecticut Air National Guard

Contributors: Connecticut State Planning Board

Date - Created 1934 Apr.

Source - Location 9 x 7 in., b&w photograph; Connecticut State Library, State Archives, RG 089: 11a

This photo series was captured back in the days when there were more cows living here than people, which was also about the time that small tractors were just becoming available to small farmers – or farmers of any size for that matter.

So this is just on the edge of the days of earth (and stone) moving machinery, perhaps a bulldozed State Highway or two, but the photo shows many a place where these stone rows were left alone for a long time. You can zoom in on stones now missing, see how things looked in 1934.

I’m most familiar with photograph 07599 and you may click click on that to zoom in and time travel back to the year my mom was born.

I venture into other frames, but many of my photos were taken in this area - from soon to be 20 years of following the stone rows that appear as both straight and squiggly lines in frame 07599. Many of the water features are visibly bordered by stone rows and within these boundaries are rock piles and other structures.

Not to mention zigzag rows bordering both sides of the oldest of roads, a reversal of the road first and the “stone wall” second theory about roadside stones. Are these Indian trails?

Not to mention that in many places the construction method of the stone wall sometimes appears as a series of circles, or rock piles, suggesting that perhaps these Native American Stone Rows themselves are sort of elongated rock piles.

So: how many?

All of them, of course…