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…

2009 Retrospective

If I had to narrow it down to one particular site and one particular day, I guess I’d have to say that stopping to take a look at a “stonewall” on November 12, 2009 was the eye-opening (as well as mind-opening) highlight of the past year. It’s a rather famous place in my old hometown, on the National Historic Register (Bridge No. 4408) because of a dry-stone arched bridge (# 4408) built above a branch of the river that often appears on this blog. I’ve passed by the spot more times than I can remember, stopped there many times to look at the bridge, and walked down the river a bit once, trespassing of course, but now find I can do so legally as it’s become an Open Space Preserve.

At the Watertown Land Trust’s website ( http://www.watertownlandtrust.org/id23.html), you can read that:
“The area is rich in local history. According to Cothren’s History of Ancient Woodbury (1854), this region provided Native Americans excellent hunting, fishing, and gathering of plants...At the northeastern boundary of the property, headwaters of the…River flow beneath the old Skilton Road Bridge, a stone arch structure built entirely without mortar in the 1860s and now on the National Historic Register. Repaired by the town in 1985, the bridge now can be viewed only from below, due to Jersey barriers along the road. Nearby are two outstanding 18th and early 19th century houses, placed on the state historical places register in 1966. In the late 1800s Cleveland’s mill was located near a dam on the river a short distance from the bridge.”

That 18th century house, coincidently, is dated the same year, 1734, as the house my family presently lives in, which I believe is the year our house was completed.

(Editing in Nov. 2022, I'm less sure about the date of our house.)

I’ve written about my observations at these two posts: More Turtle Visions & Watertown CT . I would have to say that the important “visions” are the additions of some different “turtle-types” incorporated into these stone rows, casually and conveniently dismissed as colonial land clearing by those who insist Native People did not build stone constructions. I’d give them descriptive names of: 

“Turtles with Legs Fully Extended Forward”

 “Swimming Turtles.”

Another result of these observations is that numerous stone rows that I had dismissed as colonial constructions – stone fences – I now view as “Native American Stone Rows, as they contain these “turtle-types.” The number of “Indian Stone Rows” I believe I see has grown incredibly, as well as beginning to suspect that the earliest of colonial roads followed stone rows rather than being a result of road clearing, a sort of “chicken/egg” situation, if you will…

Orange Quartzy Headed Turtles

Back to November 2009 and these stones in my yard.

A single-stone Turtle was my focus, but a smaller stone caught my eye.

It was just to the left of the perhaps two foot long larger stone.

Turns out there were more of them.

And I was surprised, having never noticed this motif before...

A couple weeks later, I recognized the same thing going on in a stone row half a mile away...

Fooling Around with Turtles

Both my photos and other people's...

Snow melting on Stone Rows

A ten foot stretch of zigzag stone row (More Squiggles), suggests a construction style of three serpentine rows...

Following the zigzag south, the construction changes to linear and seems to be "peppered" with what look like circular rock piles, as I said:

3 views of perhaps a mortar stone? Notice the wedges?
Notice anything that reminds you of a quartz head and a right front foot of a certain animal?

A couple places I've been this autumn are like this, these circular rock piles: Turtles in the Round Mounds & Pile by a stone row .

Another?