Side view:
And maybe a kid's turtle?
Reminds me of this one:
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Saturday, October 19, 2013
NEARA 2013 Fall Meeting
NEW ENGLAND ANTIQUITIES RESEARCH ASSOCIATION (NEARA)
NEARA 2013 Fall Meeting, Oct. 25th- 27th in Springfield , MA at the La Quinta Inn & Conference Center. Details below.
Over the past two hundred years or more, as they roamed America’s northeastern woods, sharp-eyed observers have been finding enigmatic stone structures. These include elegantly constructed chambers, crude stone piles, unusual stone walls and circles, propped boulders, petroglyphs and earthen or stone mounds. Attempts at explanation have been almost as numerous as the finders. Some attribute the features to colonial field clearing, farm food storage (root cellars), animal pens or hunting shelters. Others see similarities to European or Mediterranean structures from pre-Columbian times. Some features seem to be American Indian, used perhaps for ceremonial, astronomical or calendar purposes.
NEARA was founded in 1964 to promote disciplined research exploring the origins and functions of these structures and sites, to document them and to encourage their protection and preservation. Volunteers participate in the search for new sites and enjoy the challenge of better understanding them through the traditional lenses of history, archaeology, anthropology and geology, as well as less established fields such as archaeoastronomy, deed research, and epigraphy.
Evidence has been accumulating but in many cases the mysteries remain unsolved.
NEARA is dedicated to ongoing, disciplined research using the broad spectrum of the talents and abilities of its members and other researchers. We invite you to share in this unfolding adventure of discovery by joining today.
Topics include:
New England's enigmatic stone sites (including field trips to local sites)
Native American archaeology and spirituality
Viking rune stones
Megalithic stone circles
Nasca lines
See PDF linked below for full program of talks and field trips!
"Dr. Luci"
Conference fees: two-day member fee: $35, two-day non-member fee: $40, Friday only: $20, Saturday only: $30
Banquet meal (with featured speaker Lucianne Lavin) on Saturday night, extra charge of $35.
Banquet meal (with featured speaker Lucianne Lavin) on Saturday night, extra charge of $35.
Download the final program as a PDF here.
Our discounted hotel rate is $99.00 + tax per night (mention NEARA to secure the discount)
MORE: http://www.neara.org/
Friday, October 18, 2013
Perhaps that's a deer...
"Perhaps that's a deer," I thought when I saw the first photo in a series at Secret Landscapes, here on this post: http://secretlandscapes.blogspot.com/2013/10/walking-up-neutaconkanut-hill.html
Above I've taken a crop of the original photo on the top left and to the right of that enhanced in some eyes and a nose -that I seem to think might have actually been possibly pecked into the stone (without actually seeing it in person etc.). Moving clockwise, I added a photo I stole on-line somewhere of an actual Whitetail, and then a photo of my own from 1997, most likely a "Deer's Head Tobacco Sacrifice Stone" that's quite near a similar "Bear's Head Stone" that has appeared on this blog and Rock Piles every once in a while {Like here: http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2010/03/taking-part-rock-pile-without-taking-it.html}. A more well organized person might have a file that contains more examples of this sort of stone at his or her finger tips, since I know I have more somewhere - and that would include a stone that used to be (and might still be) on the memory pile of stones at the Institute for American Indian Studies in Washington CT { http://www.iaismuseum.org/ }except that I don't have a digital photo of that stone in my collection, which actually looks better in moonlight or fire light which is a whole other story.
Yes, I know that I'm being subjective, assuming I see what Native People's eyes saw as a deer's head, but there's a certain artistic placement here of a stone that recalls a image that is one of many that I I think I see repeated many times. And in other people's photos, like this below that was probably taken from Rock Piles, the tag on the photo HM_06 box esker.jpg
(Turns out it's not; it's from a Hungarian Website about Pagans: http://pwh.freeblog.hu/archives/2009/01/21/The_Boxborough_Esker/)
(I stole the above and used it here: http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2011/10/deer-head-stones.html)
Here's another of mine, taken on the side of White Deer Rocks Road in my hometown:
Would there be some brush horns added? Maybe:
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Sacred Site; An Operational Definition
Nonnewaug Falls
A sacred site is a
place in the landscape, occasionally over or under water, which is especially
revered by a people, culture or cultural group as a focus for spiritual belief
and practice and likely religious observance.
In addition, to
satisfy this stem definition and reflect its wide and rich variety, a sacred
site must also have one or more of the following nineteen characteristics found
under the headings: Descriptive, Spiritual, Functional and Other. Having more
or less of these characteristics does not imply that the site is more or less
sacred but it may usefully reflect the complexity and rich variety of its
sacred qualities.
1. Descriptive
Nonnewaug Stone Fish Weir
Literally, "Fresh Water Fishing Place"
a.
It is a specific focus
within a wider and possibly dynamically interconnected sacred landscape.
b.
It is, or is founded
upon, a natural topographical feature, e.g., a mountain, mound, rock, cave,
tree, grove, forest, spring, well, river, lake, the sea, an island, etc.
c.
It is recognised as
carrying special manifestation of wildlife, natural phenomena and ecological
balance.
d.
It is embellished with
man-made symbols or artifacts, e.g., rock-carvings, painting, holy or religious
objects.
Tobacco Sacrifice Stone
Bear's Head Effigy "Rocking Stone"
e.
It is partially or
wholly man-made, e.g., menhir, temple, church, wayside shrine.
Great Turtle Effigy
tûnuppasuonk kodtonquag - "turtle effigy in
stone" (Nipmeuw).
f.
It is a memorial or mnemonic
to a key recent or past event in history, legend or myth, e.g., a battle site,
creation or origin myth.
2. Spiritual
a.
It is recognised as
having a palpable and special energy or power which is clearly discernible from
that of a similar landscape or surrounding.
b.
It is recognised as a
special place which acts as a portal or cross-over to the spirit world.
c.
It is recognised as
the dwelling place of guardian or ‘owner’ spirits which care for and oversee
the site and possibly its wider environs.
Great Snake Effigy
Also:
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.)
Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society, Vol. 77, No. 2
Fall 2016
https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1202&context=bmas
d.
Its spiritual forces
or ‘owner’ spirits are in a mutually respectful dialogue with local people with
specialist knowledge acting as guardians or custodians, who play important
roles as mediators, negotiators or healers between the human, natural and
spiritual dimensions.
The now desecrated grave site of Sachem Nonnewaug,
"the Keeper of the Peace at the Fresh Water Fishing Place."
(Destroyed mid 1800s)
Possibly:
Káhtôquwuk (Narragansett), allegorically, a 'stone
prayer.'
a pile, a
heap, that which is heaped high, by placing one (stone) above another.
Possibly:
Wâunonaqussuk or ‘Honoring Stone’
“Individual deaths and memorial services for those persons
are marked with waûnonaqussuk (Natick Nipmuc wâunonukhauónat – ‘to flatter,’
Trumbull 1903:202, verb stem wâunon- ‘honor’ + qussuk ‘stone’ = wâunonaqussuk –
‘honoring stone’ + quanash pl., also Narragansett wunnaumwâuonck –
‘faithfulness, truthfulness,’ wunna, ‘good,’ wáunen, ‘honor,’ + onk, abstract
suffix, O’Brien 2005:37, Wawanaquassik, ‘place of many honoring stones,’-
Nochpeem Mahikkaneuw/Wappinger, Ruttenber 1992b:373).”
A Quantitative Assessment of Stone Relics in a Western
Massachusetts Town
Nohham Rolf Cachat-Schilling
https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1202&context=bmas
See also:
See also:
e.
It is identified as a
place where the ancestors are present and especially respected, e.g., burial
grounds.
f.
It is a place of
spiritual transformation for individual persons or the community, e.g.,
healing, baptism, initiation, religious conversion, rite of passage, funeral,
vision quest.
3. Functional
a.
It is a special place
where relationships, both interpersonal and throughout the whole community, can
be expressed and affirmed, often through a specific form of observance, e.g.,
prayer, songs, chants, dance, ritual or ceremony.
The Stone Fish Weir known as Nonnewaug (circa 1996)
b.
It is a place
especially associated with resource-gathering or other key cultural activities,
e.g., gathering medicinal plants or material for sacred or ritual ceremony or
objects, fishing, hunting, cultivation, burial of ritual objects, giving birth.
c.
It is a specific
pathway or route between significant or sacred places, e.g., songline, sacred
pathway, pilgrimage route. It is a focus of past or present special visits of
religious observance or pilgrimage.
d.
It is a cultural
sacred-secret, with its location and/or specific religious function only known
to a limited number of people.
e.
It has a significant
relationship with astronomical order and/or calendrical phenomena, e.g.,
astronomical alignment, celestial-Earth correspondence, seasonal ritual or
festival.
4. Other
a.
It clearly satisfies
the stem definition but has unique cultural features that are not represented
in the previous eighteen characteristics.
Using the definition,
a sacred site could then be described as satisfying the Thorley/Gunn definition
(TGD) in one or more characteristics out of the four categories. These could
be, if necessary, reduced to a briefer encoded form, e.g., TGD categories 1, 2,
etc. To give two practical examples, Stonehenge in England could be represented
as “TGD categories 1. a, d, e; 2. a, e; 3. e, f” and a sacred beach for fishing
in New Zealand Maori culture might be represented as “TGD categories 1. b; 2.
e; 3. b.”
Thorley and Gunn, “Sacred Natural Sites: An Overview.”
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
An Aboriginal Rock Alignment in the Toiyabe Range, Central Nevada
BY DAVID HURST THOMAS1 AND EDWIN H. MCKEE
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
CENTRAL PARK WEST AT 79TH STREET, NEW YORK, N. Y. I0024
NUMBER 2534 JANUARY 23, 1974
"The best estimate of the age of the rock walls at Bob Scott Summit is made here by comparison of the few projectile points found near the walls with dated types from elsewhere in the Great Basin. The temporal ranges of some of these projectile point forms have been established by stratigraphic and radiocarbon analysis...(I)n the central Nevada cultural sequence, the Rose Spring Series is diagnostic of the Underdown phase, which has tentatively been assigned the time range AD 500 to AD 1300 on the basis of several radiocarbon dates (Thomas, MS, table 3.2). The nearest known site of this phase is Gatecliff Shelter, about 35 miles from the Bob Scott Summit rock walls...(T)he rock walls can be interpreted as a prehistoric deer fence, for the immediate vicinity today hosts a sizable deer population...Deer fences were used, for instance by the Shasta (Dixon, 1907, p. 431), the Wiyot (Powers, 1887, p. 102), the Lassik (Kroeber, 1925, p. 144), the Maidu (Dixon, 1905, pp. 192-193), the Achumawi (Dixon, 1907, p. 431), the Takelma (Sapir, 1907, p. 260), and the Shuswap (Teit, 1909, p. 521)...It is possible that fire was used to drive antelope into this area, for fire-driving has been reported for the Little Lake Paiute (Steward, 1938, p. 82)...But we cannot reject a priori an alternative proposition that the walls were ceremonial, without practical subsistence significance...Rock alignments and artificial rockpiles are consistently interpreted as the bodies or paraphernalia of totemic beings changed by themselves into lithic form" (Gould, 1969, p. 144)...Having proposed several alternative explanations for the Bob Scott Summit rock walls, we shall not attempt to prove any one possibility. In fact, the most plausible explanation is probably a combination of hypotheses. More than likely, deer were occasionally hunted, antelope were sometimes stampeded by the walls, and perhaps even a few mountain sheep were killed at the site. The fences may also have had secondary ceremonial significance, as was clearly the case elsewhere in the Great Basin where rock art has been found associated with identical fences. At this stage of investigation, more data are needed to test our preliminary interpretations.
Specifically, we must know whether such features consistently occur in particular microtopographic settings, such as on deer migration routes, near habitat suitable for antelope driving, or in the higher country where bighorn sheep could have been effectively ambushed."
{Interesting content, "stone alignments" for hunting purposes, and a date of 1974
publication: http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/dspace/bitstream/handle/2246/2738//v2/dspace/ingest/pdfSource/nov/N2534.pdf?sequence=1}
South Yuba River State Park Weir and "Wall"
“Every October, the
Tsi-Akim Maidu Tribe conduct their annual Calling Back the Salmon
ceremony. This event celebrates the return of salmon to
the river and the bounty they once provided the tribe, as far back as 2500
years. Today, Englebright Dam blocks salmon from reaching their historic
spawning habitat in the South Yuba and Middle Yuba. The ceremony involves
tribal members spearing a salmon below Englebright, and a group of “spirit
runners” carrying the salmon 10 miles upriver to the ceremony site. Someday,
salmon will be able to access this spot and the rest of their home waters
without the help of spirit runners. As one observer of the spirit runners said,
"Where there is hope there is spirit. Where there is spirit, anything is
possible."
The blogger earlier mentions: “The path and rock walls became increasingly
overgrown with weeds and prickly stickly things…”
Monday, October 14, 2013
Indigenous People's Day or Genocidal Remembrance Day
"... the language of colonists has long had a tragic part to play in the destruction of tribal peoples across the world."
http://admin.alternet.org/world/stop-saying-columbus-discovered-new-world
WARNING: Viewer discretion advised. Some scenes contain graphic reenactments of genocide, including dismemberment.
It's been 520 years since he, whose name in indigenous tongues is too horrible to utter, "discovered" a shortcut to India -- a land named "America" after Vespucci, when he certainly would have preferred Columbia, like Washington's "D.C." (District of Columbia).
8 Myths and Atrocities About Christopher Columbus and Columbus Day
10/14/13
"On the second Monday of October each year, Native Americans cringe at the thought of honoring a man who committed atrocities against Indigenous Peoples..."
Tuesday, October 08, 2013
Sanders Preserve in Glenville NY Flickr Photos
Looking around, I found a couple flickr photos of rock piles or stone mounds at Sanders Preserve in Glenville NY, prompted by PWAX post:
Possibly a Stone Worked Spring?
The whole set:
Monday, October 07, 2013
Stones and Autumn Leaves
Zigzag Row along the old Nonnewaug Trail
Linear Western Border of Trail
Remnant Zigzag Eastern Border of Trail
(Sassafras)
(Sassafras)
Stone Mound and Turtle in the Old Chicken Yard
Diamond Back from Texas
Still searching for some Diamond Back Terrapin photo in which the turtle is in just the right pose, I found a new one here: http://www.gctts.org/node/186
It's not quite right, but I like the extended right foreleg and the tucked back left...
Saturday, October 05, 2013
IMPALED CAIRNS
"In the corner of nearly every field can be found a rock pile. Fields tend to be rectangular in shape so when a tractor makes a round, it leaves the very corners untouched. Stones picked from the freshly tilled earth are deposited there. Over time, a mound begins to develop, tall grasses grow freely and small brush begins to sprout. Tunnels open up under the settling pile, housing rabbits and fox among others. The seasons pass, new generations are born and die, yet this pile of stone grows. If the field lies fallow, the rock pile is patient. The bones of small animals lie bleached in the sun. Rodents gnaw on them for calcium. The small furrows cut into the bone mimic the rows carved into the field. A memory of everything that happens on the land can be found there.
Climbing around these rockpiles as a child, I never knew what I would find. Then I left, only to return. Before I realized it, these markers had grown into my work. I began creating sculptures of fieldstone and mysterious, bone-like fragments held up over the land on a weathered, wood post. I called them Cairns, which I knew from elsewhere to be a memorial of stacked stones. Not realizing until now that a memorial is not something formal and distant, but something that grows naturally from the earth and human hands. My work has re-introduced me to a landscape that was never truly absent."
Wednesday, October 02, 2013
Turtle Collage
(Right Click and Open in New Window for a Better Turtle View)
Next Day Update:
It seems I'd forgotten a few of my favorites,
such as the quartzy single stone turtle that sits on a serpent row:
and that turtle that's a bear (or is it bear that's a turtle?):
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