Prayers in Stone Project

 

Prayers In Stone Project

Native Sites Stewardship Program

Founded 2024 Sagamore Strong Bear Medicine & D.V.Boudillion

How do you know?

26 July 2024 Daniel V. Boudillion 

Several years ago I was at a Friends of Pine Hawk lecture on Native stone structures by two recognized experts in the field.  At one point while they were interpreting a type of stone structure, an audience member asked “But how do you know that?”  Much to the dismay of all there that night, they were unable to answer this question.  

This awkward situation left an impression on me.  It’s a question I often ask myself as I walk the woods and assess stonework as Native: “Yes, but how I know?”

 

This essay is not to answer this question, but to provide an illustration of people creating structures in the woods that resemble Native type structures, but are not.  It’s a cautious call to caution.  

On the recent Prayers in Stone survey of the local forestry property, I noticed some trees had been cut next to the forestry barn, and the wood left stacked there.  

I was intrigued because the wood was piled in a way – that were it stone and not wood – would likely have elicited a Native ceremonial origin assessment from me.  

 It illustrates that people pile things, often in the woods, in a manner that closely resembles the structures that we typically assess as Native-origin, ceremonial in nature.  If modern people can pile wood in a way that exactly resembles – were it in stone – constructions we would call Native, they can also pile stone as well in ways that look Native but are not.  

 

Which beings me back to the question: How do we know?

 

Please see below pictures of the “ceremonial” wood stacking.  

                          Log pile 1                           Log pile 2  

                                            Stick pile                              All three piles in view  

At the forestry barn large cut logs are stacked in a deliberately constructed pile on a boulder, much like these large rocks stacked on a boulder at Trails Through Time.  

These smaller “donation” sticks have been placed in a split rock at forestry barn.  This is much like the picture to the right of small donation stones placed in a large split rock.  

Here we have two large log lengths perched on a boulder in classic “rock-on-rock” style, as exemplified by the picture to the right.   

The picture to the left is of all three log pile constructions.  It has everything we look for: a variety of recognized styles, they are in a cluster, and the cluster is within an enclosure of stone rows.  Were this stone on stone, not wood on stone, we would assess it as Native.  

But its not Native.  This is the point, its not Native.  People pile things on boulders for a variety of reasons.  This is a perfect example.  Keep this in mind the next time you are working on assessments.  

                        Be cautious.  

Like the fellow said: “How do you know?”   

"Yellowstone Indian Remains" (Stone Cultural features)

 Searching to update a dead link on an old post (as I sometimes do), I came across some interesting images of some stone cultural features at a Game Drive: 

INDIAN REMAINS ON THE UPPER YELLOWSTONE*
By Col. Wm. S. Brackett.
  "The most interesting of the Indian remains on our ranch is at Buffalo Bluff, where there is a remarkable game drive. Under the cliff, which is about 40 feet high, the ground is white with the splintered bones of large game animals that have been driven over the precipice - buffaloes, elks, and deer. Above is a level plain stretching back for several miles into the foothills. The cliff is only about a hundred yards wide at the steep part where the game was driven over. How did they manage to make wild animals run to this narrow cliff and leap over? You can see at once how this was accomplished when you climb to the plain above. There can be seen two long lines, composed of piles of stones, stretching out on the plains, each line about half a mile long and diverging from the edge of the cliff like the two arms of an open fan. The piles of stones are about 10 feet apart and each stone heap is 2 to 3 feet in height. When the Indians last used this game drive, which was about fifteen years ago, they set up wooden stakes about 5 feet long in each stone pile. From stake to stake were stretched lines of stout buckskin cord, like wires on a barbed wire fence, and from these cords were hung at short intervals feathers, strips of bright cloth, and scraps of white buckskin, fluttering in the wind. Of course this fence could be easily broken through, but the frightened animals always turned back from the fluttering rags, feathers, and other objects hanging from the long lines of cords.
A heard of buffalos or deer was carefully surrounded by the Indian hunters, and then gradually driven toward the opening of the drive, which was over half a mile wide. Once within these lines, the hunters drove the heard toward the bluff, waving their blankets as they rode forward. The terror stricken animals rushed toward the precipice, keeping away and turning back in fright from the lines of "fence," which gradually converged toward the cliff. At last, in a wild stampede, the frantic animals were driven over the edge of the precipice, where those who were not killed outright were dispatched by another party of hunters below. Only spears and arrows were used below the cliff, because the noise of firearms would frighten back the animals approaching the edge of the bluff. Among the mass of crumbling white bones beneath this Buffalo Bluff (as it is called here), where so many wild animals have been slaughtered, you can today occasionally find spear and arrow heads, beautifully formed of shining black obsidian, or volcanic glass, the material being formed in large quantities on the great plateau of the Yellowstone National Park.

*Reprinted from "The American Field," Feb. 11, 1893

http://www.livingstonmuseums.org/pcm/pchsmain.html - dead link?

So see also: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/42112/pg42112-images.html

The Old Post (about an Old Rock Piles Post): https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2009/10/old-post-from-rock-piles-indian-bars.html

Ancient Hunting Walls in the Colorado Mountains

I was struck by the feature of a "seat" at the end of a wall. Here, the "seat" is where the hunters waited in hiding. We have such walls and seats here, in New England, but tend to imagine it is for sky-watching, not game hunting.

See full video:

11th Pocumtuck Homelands Festival

 

NEARA republished my old book on Rock Piles

I am glad this is now available again. Larry Harrop had hosted it and Walter VanRoggen has managed to rescue the book from Larry's data.

IndianRocks (neara.org)

Of course NEARA removed the site location details, so some parts of the data are not displayed. (But you can still find it in my new book.)

Upcoming Nashoba Events

Nashobah History Talk (Bear & Dan)

September 17, 7:00 pm Acton, Church of the Good Shepard

Sponsored by the SVT

Sacred Stones Talk (Bear & Dan)

October 18, 7:30 pm, Littleton

Sponsored by the Littleton Lyceum

Nashobah History Talk (Bear & Dan)

November 4, 1:00 pm, Lowell

Sponsored by the University of Lowell 

Ahh to be young again

 Rock Piles: "Peter is excited"

A rock pile found in an imminently threatened site for clearcutting

 Reader Nathan P. writes:

Dear Contributors,

I am writing after having discovered with a couple of friends a rock pile that is in a site that is imminently slated for clear cutting, in Lincoln, MA.  I attach a photo and would very much like to share more with you, if it can help pause the planned clearcut, at least to make a site assessment of significance, on land that I understand includes or is directly adjacent to lands of the Agawam, Massachusett, Nipmuc and Pawtucket.

The mound is not near any stone wall and is clearly of intention. It doesn’t look like a recent fire pit, even years old, as it is a mound not a pit.

I can show and visit the site with you at your convenience or give you detailed directions on how to access the site using a public right of way.  I put the coordinates from Google maps below. The site itself is on land legally owned by the City of Cambridge with a Town of Lincoln conservation easement allowing public access to and in the site. So there is no legal trespassing involved.

Location (within ~ 50 feet): 

https://maps.app.goo.gl/ntaywiGYaQnFxVjm9?g_st=ic

Many thanks, 

Nathan Phillips, PhD 

617-997-1057

 Reader Nicholas P. writes (about the Westminster area):

The walls I have followed all over the area, and they are some of the most erratic and dramatic I have come across, save for some of the walls in the Nashoba lands. I’ll start with a few, and if you want more, then by all means. 

The first few I’m sending are of two large boulders, both serpentine-head like, that face each other and act as an ‘entry onto the hilltop’, with the typical snaking bodies of wall coming off of them. Walls run out of the swamp far below and seem to stop in relation to them. 

Also a few of the more notable aspects of some walls.