Outcrop Serpent Effigy 01 (Cockaponset)

3//2023 Added Images:

After finally noticing the Manitou Stones, reviewing the photos from that day, I find I didn't capture a closer image of them. I did follow the row of stones that "decorates" the ridge of bedrock, and stepped down, to the south, below to capture an image of another boulder that connected to the east/west:

Overlay, using bison-like horns:

(Above from: https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2021/04/outcrop-serpent-effigy-001-cockaponset.html )

Humanly Modified Outcrop resembling an Eastern Timber Rattlesnake, the snake that served as a model for a Great Horned Snake that figures highly in Indigenous Legends. The cracks in the outcrop have been filled in in places, "stacked" or "laid," or perhaps "wedged" in natural cracks in the stone, possibly with help by human hands to further enhance the image of a Great Serpent...

Cockaponset, Killingworth CT 

May 2016

Laugh if you like

  - but here's more, "hidden in plain sight:"

https://www.flickr.com/photos/34580529@N04/albums/72157668219809815

 Dr. Curtiss Hoffman had pointed out a similar but in no way identical Outcrop Serpent Head to me in New Haven County, noting rare possible/probable "cup marks" of various sizes - and a tiny petroform turtle in one of the Cupuoles. 

Identifying Snake Petroforms/Serpent "Stone Walls"

http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2015/03/identifying-snake-petroformsserpent.html

Revisiting Stone Turtles in CT Cluster #7

My brother-in-law had just mowed a new path into the little bit of woods behind my mom's and as I walked along it, these stones above caught my eye.

It didn't take long to realize, I was looking at the east side of a familiar spot:

I may have posted this before, a fuzzy photo of the east side pasted onto an aerial capture:

A few other new photos:

Two high domed box turtles?

Is that a tail or another head on the other side?

I don't know exactly which one, but it's probably one of these,

in the Hammonasset East Cluster (C. Hoffman Stone Prayers, page 120): 

"What's around it?" you may ask.

My mom bought a  copy of this annotated map for a dollar, and I think the numbers may correspond to some of the artifacts on display at the Westbrook Historical Society:

A poor attempt to match up my cell phone photos:

Fooling with flipping the Lidar (to match the aerial above):

Some Turtle Effigies in CT Cluster #3

The Nonnewaug Cluster 

Also known as CT Cluster#3 

 (pages 115 – 116) in Dr. Curtiss Hoffman's

 “Stone Prayers; Native American Stone Constructions of the Eastern Seaboard” Arcadia 2018

Tûnuppasuonk kodtonquag(kash) - turtle effigies in stone (Nipmeuw). 

A  Box Turtle Effigy:

1996:

“Invested with prayers for the balance of the universe.”

Beaver's footprints?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/34580529@N04/albums/72157665468482158/with/17161144456/

Turtle Effigy in "stone heap" or Káhtôquwuk  (Narragansett), allegorically, a 'stone prayer.'

Stone: qussuk  (Proto Eastern Algonquian)(singular): a rock/stone

     qusanash  (PEA)(plural): rocks/stones   (PEA) (diminutive plural): small rocks/stones
    

Tûnuppasuonk qussukquanesash – “Small Stones Turtle”

(Al Conley, Personal Communication)  

In the same group of "Stone Mounds" or anogkuéu kodtonquag(kash) - "barely elevated low mound of concentric circles of smooth/round cobbles or very small stones, sometimes variable as pebbles without organized rings (Nipmeuw):"

More photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/34580529@N04/albums/72157651696502349

Algonquin Language terms from:

 Rolf Cachat

Bulletin of Society for Connecticut Archaeology (2018)

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

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

Nonnewaug Stone Rows

18 Stone Rows, and 13 Effigies

       “Some of the more remarkable rows (of stones),” Curtiss Hoffman writes in Stone Prayers, “have what appear to be serpent heads at their ends. These and the more sinuous walls have been reclassified within the effigies category."

      What do these Stone Snake Heads look like within the Nonnewaug CT Cluster #3?

       This is a remarkable one, with some possible human enhancement, reminiscent of a rattlesnake head shape and some pecking and polishing to create the appearance of a white eye:

Intentionally selected and then placed to create a wall-like snake petroform.

The (sinister/left) row of stones begins with a snake head - as does the row of stones on the other (dexter or right hand) side (for all you Latin scholars):

It takes a little bit of imagination to see this...

...and observe this, so often I overlay some "visual aides" for emphasis:

Closed Eyes?

Striking Serpent Variation:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/34580529@N04/albums/72157691455560104

Edge of Riparian Zone:

Hilltop Serpent with possible "Egg in Mouth/Open Mouth:"

https://www.flickr.com/photos/34580529@N04/albums/72157651688286711/with/45581825402/

Even more remarkable is the ability to "Shape Shift," as recounted in Indian Legends about a person who could turn into a Great Serpent (and vice versa):

https://www.flickr.com/photos/34580529@N04/albums/72157651262594340/with/16989063292/

(To be continued...)

CT Cluster #3 "Nonewaug"

     Just before the Lecture and Book signing event in my last post,{https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2019/05/stone-prayers-washington-ct.html}

 I said to Curtiss, “I guess I’m not a very good scientist because I have absolutely no idea how many sites I reported to you.” He just chuckled a little and said something like “There’s a few.”

     Truth is, after reading the book, I still don’t have a clue. Some have to be from photos or perhaps the people who put up with me at a social media page that I try to maintain, originally begun by another “informant” from PA. Some I know I’ve been to and a better scientist would have a log of GPS locations recorded on the spot on the date, but I just don’t...

    The only place I get an actual count is in the CT Cluster I live in, named as I would have, but without the misspelling “Nonewaug” you find on the USGS maps.

From pages 115 – 116

Curtiss Hoffman's “Stone Prayers; Native American Stone Constructions of the Eastern Seaboard” Arcadia 2018

     

     Truth is, I don’t have a clue which square is which site or which feature is where.

     One of them actually contains the house I actually live in -  but I’m still not 100% positive about just what square that is. 

   

     Luckily I recently had to go to the DMV where I do a considerable amount of reading about Native American Stone Constructions as I wait for my lucky number to come up.  I had some paper and a pencil since I’d already made some unfortunate marks on the actual pages, some of which I regret, such as trying to spell “Nonnewaug” and messing up the “aug” at the end (which I blame on a medical condition sometimes referred to as Chronic Lyme Disease).

     I started jotting down some notes on the cluster, hoping to refine and add information to this spot I only think I know so well, continually surprised at the things I've missed over the last (almost) 30 years, grateful to Curtiss for lending me a degree of credibility by publishing this first book on the subject written by an Anthropologist:

    “Sites were defined as any locations at which stone structures that might be attributed to Native Americans,” Curtiss writes. Apparently, as of 2016 when the inventory of sites was closed as far as those covered in the book, I had reported 32 sites and 119 structures in the approximately 15 square miles of the Nonnewaug Cluster, including 18 stone rows, 14 rock piles and 13 effigies.

      I guess that this post will serve as the first of some posts that could be considered a sort of guide to the excellent question of "What are the defining characteristics of Indigenous Stonework" - perhaps best summed up by a question from a biologist from one of the oldest, possibly the first, Preserves of Open Space or Land Trust or whatever you'd like to call it: "What does it (the feature) look like?"

      I'll start with the image that first got me going, a woodcut illustration from a local history:

History of Ancient Woodbury, Connecticut Volume 2 By William Cothren