Former Big Row of Boulders (CT)

 

Stone Structures in Shutesbury (MA)

  Stone wall dissent continues...

(Mostly dissenting inside the parentheses, along with an occasional cross out.)

Shutesbury Historical Commission © 2021 Shutesbury, Massachusetts

    “The town of Shutesbury is without a doubt full of human-created stone structures. Stone walls border many roads…

    The Town's land area was dissected by well-used Indigenous paths (that should be known as Indigenous roads and Indigenous highways) running east and west, as noted above (see Appendix E  “Turners Falls Sacred Ceremonial Hill Determination of Eligibility”). Some existing roads are built atop these paths (that should be known as Indigenous roads and Indigenous highways).

    Roadside stone walls, (assumed to be) built along the (Colonial) roads that replaced these paths (that should be known as Indigenous roads and Indigenous highways), are probably the most visible evidence of Shutesbury’s stonework (and need to be carefully observed to detect Indigenous Iconography – and perhaps tested to determine the age of the roadside “walls”).

    Stone walls are ubiquitous across New England. Robert Thorson, a geologist at the University of Connecticut, is a leading expert  (best-selling author) on (the popular myths about) New England stone walls. He (repeats) estimates that there are more than 240,000 miles of stone walls in New England (according to an 1871 survey), amounting to 40 million “man-days” of labor. 61 (The pdf article claims the geologist claims) Colonial stone wall building occurred primarily during the early Federal Period (1775-1825), (which is 100 years after the Colonial Period and to his credit he does mention the use of wooden fencing during the Colonial Period).

    Based on a detailed review of the written record of colonial agriculture in New England, (Young James) Gage (2013, p. 27) notes that field clearing occurred primarily in plowed fields: livestock pastures and orchards, such as are found in Shutesbury, were rarely cleared. Footnote 62

    In the first comprehensive study of stonework in New England, researchers Mavor and Dix (Manitou 1989, p. 84) note that many stone walls in New England have celestial alignments, occur far from Euro American homesteads, and do not appear to serve as boundary markers (which is not true where I live). 63

    Many stone features in New England show human handiwork, including petroglyphs, carving/chipping, and splitting. Some include the inexplicable placement of huge boulders atop a bed of smaller stones or the equally mysterious placement of piles of small stones atop boulders.

      Mavor and Dix report:

    “Rather than use the functionally limiting terms fence and wall, we prefer to call the linear stone structures by the name of stone row. We are then not confined to a utilitarian image but can visualize them as landscape architecture following land contours, connecting tops of hills with valleys and ponds, connecting large boulders and rock outcrops, defining the shapes of the wetlands and highlighting distant horizons.” (pp. 84-85)

    Stone structure researchers Gage and Gage (2016) have also conducted extensive research on New England stonework and note that many stone structures and rows appear in areas not subject to settler activities. They demonstrate that many stone structures, presumably Indigenous in origin, can be found on various terrains within many surviving on former woodlots. 64

This discussion suggests we should not assume that all stone “walls” and other structures in our community are the product of settler activities. As Mavor and Dix (1989, p. 304) point out, “The ancient tradition of large-scale stone construction among Algonquian-speakers, the historic accounts of this native stone construction, the nature and quantity of stonework on the New England landscape, and the deliberately low social visibility of Indians since the time of the Second Puritan War lend support to the hypothesis that Native Americans constructed the majority of New England’s stone rows and other stone structures.” 65

Pages 24 & 25

"During the 19th and 20th centuries, European-American archaeologists failed to understand these structures and created a picture of pre-colonial Indigenous society as being too decentralized and nomadic to create large construction projects. This narrative was compounded by the conclusion, unsupported by any scientific methodology, that all stone structures in New England were the result of early Euro-American field clearing. Hoffman (2018) notes that the traditional “it’s just stones from field clearing” theory has become more implausible and unsustainable with the accumulating empirical evidence that Indigenous CSLs are widespread across the Northeast. 

       Stone structures of possible Indigenous origin throughout New England have been documented by field researchers. Footnotes 78 79

78  http://ceremonial-stone-landscapes.com/index.php/ - no longer works

&

can be found in part here: 

https://neara.org/gallery/LarryHarrop/

79 http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/

The original Document:

 https://www.shutesbury.org/sites/default/files/offices_committees/historical/Introduction%20to%20Indigenous%20Cultural%20Sites%20in%20Shutesbury.pdf

That Survey as a Poem

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2019/12/ct-statistics-of-fences-in-united.html

“One Snake at a Time”

 

They all say:

 A “Good” Yankee stone wall is/was laid down “one over two” 

and “two over one,” "one block of stone at a time.”

I’ll say:

 "Sometimes it seems as if the Indigenous stonework

 which is often misidentified as a "Yankee Farmer stone wall"

is/was laid down “One snake at a time,” 

a stone head followed by body and tail, one stone at a time."

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2016/05/its-easy-to-make-snake-part-one.html

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2016/05/its-easy-to-make-snake-part-two.html

  I'll say:

  Indigenous “Stone Walls” sometimes look right at you as you enter an enclosure, have other effigies incorporated into the bodies composed of smaller snake effigies, and can often sometimes still be found snaking across the landscape, another variation yet to be found…

Obvious Things

 

 “The Massachusetts landscape is full of obvious Indigenous created Stone Great Snake Beings which almost nobody by any chance ever observes.” –Sherlock Stones *

   The fog was thick, the ground muddy, and Sherlock Stones was indoors in his computer chair that morning, clicking through old photos from a digital archive from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It was early on in the New Year, as well as early on in the day, when Dr. John Possum looked in on his Ceremonial Stone Landscape research partner.

   “Possum,” Sherlock Stones said without moving his eyes from the large computer screen, “The Massachusetts landscape one finds recorded in these old images is full of obvious Indigenous created Stone Great Snake Beings which almost nobody by any chance ever observes.”

  “Is that so?” Possum replied. “You’ll have to show me just what you mean, knowing the present stance of total denial the MA Historic Commission takes when it comes to the Indigenous CSL issue.”

  Sherlock Stones pulled up one of the digital images and said, “Here’s a good example right here:”

Fields image

  Dr. Possum looked a moment, then removed his reading glasses and began polishing the lenses. “My dear Sherlock,” he said, “I’m not quite sure what you mean with this one. This looks typical of almost any “stone wall” in the region, hardly anything that stands out as “remarkable” in any sense.” Possum put his spectacles back on and peered at the big screen again.

    “You see, but you do not observe,” Stones remarked. “But you are not alone. And besides I have hope for you yet. Take note of the size of the image and then the enlargement feature. You’ll note a little “Whoops” in the otherwise fairly uniform level height of this particular Suspect Row of Stones.”

   “Suspect Row of Stones?” Possum repeated his associate’s phrase, capital letters and all.

   “Every so-called “stone wall” or assumed “stone fence” should be suspect when it comes to proper identification,” Stones replied. “This whole “Farmer Wall vs Indian Wall” is rife with problems, all the misinformation that often goes unchallenged when it comes to – ah here you go, Possum!”

   The enlargement finally loaded (Sherlock Stones uses an older laptop, its power cord duct taped into place, which uses an operating system that was considered “quaint” about  20 years ago):  

  “One begins to detect the presence of effigies in the stonework, “eyes” on certain boulders of a certain rattlesnake snake head shape, a “singing stone” with an open mouth, and several possible, or probable, turtles that one associates with Indigenous Iconography or “art” found in other media.”

   “Perhaps, Sherlock, perhaps,” Possum concurred, “But really nothing that strikes me as obvious and unmistakable - nothing "jumps out at me," as they say.”

  With another mouse click, a different image appeared on the screen, a winter scene that included a section of “stone wall” and a farm building of some sort.

  “This one should be obvious to you,” Stones was saying as he sat back in his battered computer chair. “You will recall the Curious Case of the Preacher's Gateway, where one can observe a pair of Stone Serpents guarding the entrance to an enclosure, one of them with an obvious white eye which needed no overlay to add as it was already apparent on the chosen and placed stone “head stone.”

    "The only thing more deceptive than one obvious snake effigy is two obvious snake effigies, eh?" Possum replied.

   "While one effigy is possibly nothing, two similar such effigies may be a coincidence, but add a third, such as this one, and we seem to have an Obvious Snake Effigy Conspiracy before our collective eyes, Possum" Sherlock Stones stated. "Observe: Head turned to the side, Uktena-like, followed by a sinuous serpentine twisty body stretching out behind..." 

   Sherlock caught the sideways glance of the good doctor, a retired Rocket Surgeon. “Cease to merely see and allow yourself to observe, my dear Possum; there also seems to be an indication of an eye on that prominent boulder where the row of stones – or Snake Effigy – begins.”

  “Well, I can’t argue that,” Possum remarked. “I’d have to repeat something like “Indians around here didn’t do that” or something to that effect, a phrase I don’t find all that reliable.” He paused and then added, “Seems remarkable that no one ever noticed this before.”

   “Consider the times and the fencing of the day when this became private property, a farm, in the area.” Stones began clicking away at images and imported them into a single image in an old (free) program most people would be embarrassed to be using. ”Wooden fences were the fence of choice in those days, easily constructed of an abundant material at that early date, an instrument of the early laws of property acquisition and “improvement” to the landscape  the Puritans were trying to portray as Vacant Wilderness. The Indian made Effigy is not only discounted as a possible fence or enclosure but also “covered up as Indigenous,” so to speak, with the fencing required by the colony’s law.”  

 “Hidden in Plain Sight,” as they say,” Possum mumbled.

   “Indeed,” remarked Sherlock Stones, “Our Hidden Landscapes," ** hidden figuratively, literally, and even legally.”

  *“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.” - Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Conan Doyle)

 ** Preview on Google Books (101/458 pages available): "Challenging traditional and long-standing understandings, this volume provides an important new lens for interpreting stone structures that had previously been attributed to settler colonialism. Instead, the contributors to this volume argue that these locations are sacred Indigenous sites..." 

https://books.google.com/books/about/Our_Hidden_Landscapes.html?id=5-HWEAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Waking Up for a Moment after the Winter Solstice...

      Perhaps the Great Snake that protects our house was not quite fully asleep yet, the warm wind and rain melting the snow, perhaps opening up the Spirit Being’s eyes… 

The wind took down most of the hemlock closest to the house, at the corner where I had started to restore it…

 

     Laugh at my superstitious belief if you like, don’t believe me that it is really Indigenous Stonework if you choose, but I know all that tobacco burned on clam shells, on capstones that I didn’t even realize were Big Snakes for years and years, kept and keep me on the good side of the Guardian Serpent…

Single Horn Serpent Being From Jerry Zani (RI)

Jerry Zani contributes many fine photos here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/4585999861

Quite possibly, this segment of a larger row of stones, may be stacked to resemble a single horned serpent being found in other Indigenous art forms such as this petroglyph:

A Single Horned Snake in a Pictograph:

See also: 

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2016/02/adding-single-or-one-horned-horned.html

https://rockpiles.blogspot.com/2016/12/horned-serpent-washington-ct.html

Another Day, Another Serpent Surprise (Nonnewaug CT)

 

        Another day, different light as well as weather conditions, I thought I'd catch another glimpse of a 'new" serpent I saw yesterday for the first time in these stones...

The snow didn't seem to enhance that snake very much at all.

This possible bear was pretty snow free, I thought...

 And I stepped back:

And that just may be another snake, up on what remains of the topmost course of stones...

That Guarding Serpent knows your intentions at the Nonnewaug Watch House...

Driveway Surprise Serpent (Nonnewaug CT)

 

Deer antlered snakes serpents

 

Such horned serpents are known as a-bich-kam (Algonquin) and che-pich-kaam (Micmac)

 

(Figure 10). Antecedents can be traced back to artifacts of the Mississippian mound-builder cultures (Lankford 2007), dating to a.d. 1200 – 1450, which depict various forms of horned serpents (Figure 9g), known in the Mississippian literature as “ Horned Water Serpents ” (Lankford 2007:110 – 119). Such horned serpents are known as a-bich-kam (Algonquin) and che-pich-kaam (Micmac) and among the Fox Indians it is known to cause illness and swelling of the limbs or jaw (Lankford 2007: 119 – 120)...North American horned serpents were associated with a watery underworld, winds, rain, diseases, and their cures, suggesting that the association between these supernatural creatures and illness and curing was widespread...

 …In consequence, these instances suggest either a widespread diffusion from Mesoamerica, or that horned serpents are reflections of an ancient and deep-seated stratum of Amerindian mythologies. Within Mesoamerica the melding of deer and snake are known from a series of languages where they appear as a compound of the words ‘ deer ’ and ‘ snake, ’ designating large snakes, especially boas ( Boa constrictor ) (Figure 10). The repeated occurrence of the ‘deer-snake ’ compound in a variety of Native American languages has been treated as a type of linguistic loan known as a calque, which is to say as a literal translation, rather than the adaption of a loanword directly from the donor culture (Campbell et al. 1986:553, 554; Smith-Stark 1994:20, 36). In linguistics it is stipulated that the grouping of terms and the concept behind particular calques originally stem from the language of one specific culture group and by means of literal translations are adopted into other languages as loan-concepts, implying that the particular social context of the exchange is a bilingual one. The most exhaustive study of the distribution of such calques in Mesoamerica (Smith-Stark 1994) found that ‘deer-serpents ’ are clearly represented in several languages (and language families), either as calques or as loanwords (Table 1)…”

 ‘Distribution of North American and Mesoamerican languages that exhibit the calque ‘ deer-snake ’ in their vocabulary and mythology. Archaeological cultures (Classic Maya, Mogollon, Anasazi and Mississippian Moundbuilders) are rendered in diagonal hatching. Findspots of the deer-snakes and horned serpents represented in Figure 9 are rendered alphabetically. Scale is variable in this UTM projection and the scale bar is computed in relation to the centre of the map.’

 Based on maps in Golla et al. (2007) and Kaufman (1994). Map drawn by Christophe Helmke. 

 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231997323_Reinterpreting_the_Plaza_de_los_Glifos_la_Ventilla_teotihuacan

A Dam Serpent Surprise (Watertown CT)

Another Sort of "Water Wall"

   I took a little walk. I even stayed on the path until the hill turned steep, until the sound of the river called me to it – well, after I wandered off a little to look at the zigzag rows of stones still partially visible under the messy piles of stones dumped on them. I ended up by some of the last remaining rows of stones on that I’m pretty convinced are retaining walls for an Indigenous foot path – a causeway if you will.

   A “Colonial Construction related to the Cleveland Grist Mill” another person might conclude, but the Indigenous Iconography and other observations as well as location make me think otherwise. There is no reason I can think of any sort of practical purpose I can think of to build something like this a half mile downstream from the actual mill and dam. This is an early mill, for grinding grain, from sometime around 1700. For some time now, I suspect the dam to contain Indigenous Iconography very similar to the Indigenous stonework at my family home of the last forty years. Right in front of the house for example, the top course of stone closely resembles a European capstone, the stones were dressed so as to resemble big snakes.

 

   Refreshing my memory about the mill itself, I perused some photos collected by Watertown CT Historian Charlie Crowell and shamelessly lifted several photos. I was totally surprised to find this one:

 

   I took about my tenth look at this “new to me” photo and then made a crop of the now missing stonework to look for “snakes and turtles” in the stonework. Sometimes it seems to take that one effigy to come into focus before you just can’t stop seeing the others.

 

   Well now, so it would seem, the capstone on the top of the dam, over which the water flowed, very much resembled the capstone snakes here at home…

Suspected Indigenous Causeway (Nonnewaug CT Cluster #3)

     Suspected Indigenous causeway path above the river, bark houses above, and on the left an opening for access to the River...