The Pond Dwellers by Kelly Savage

Thanks to George Krusen for providing information about this book: The Pond Dwellers - The People of the Freshwaters of Massachusetts 1620-1676. Panther Publishing. PO Box 181 Wales, MA 01081, 1996

A couple of quotes George passed along:

"...I pulled it (panther skin showing his royal status as pow-wow) closer to me and climbed a short way down the mountaintop to the natural half stone half circle seat where I would often sit and observe the stars. As part of my training, I had gone with Elk Bones and our local pow-wows to similar seats around quansik. Near the place where I was born in quoquanset there was a bowl valley at the bottom of the hills with a small cavern in the bottom that we used as a watching place. There were notches and piles of stones along the rim of the bowl and I learned how to watch for where the sun, moon, and certain starts set and rose in relation to them. Off the path from quoquanset to asquoach there was a very ancient sacred site near the stream. Overlooking a crudely shaped Mother Stone there were several circles made from stones, each large enough for a brave to sit in. The area was full of quartz rock and I was told it was where a man could talk directly to Mother Earth..." - p. 117

"...Of this reason we always had young braves on the hillside in horseshoe-shaped stonewall enclosures. There job was to watch below, to scan over the valley and hillsides to warn of enemy approach. ..." - p.143

"...we anxiously expected to hear the deep booming of the large balanced rock near the fort that would warn us to return at once. ..." - p. 167