The Pootatuck made zigzag rows of stones are of the type most people attribute to a progression of events that follows the construction of a Virginia or “Snake Rail” Fence. I appreciate the work the Gages have done, but it’s something I respectfully disagree with, just as I respectfully disagree with Eric Sloane who popularized the idea in his books in the 1950s.
I’ve observed single course zigzag stone rows and I’ve observed some that are perhaps four feet high (and a nagging thought tugs on my sleeve about a small segment that’s taller than I am, up above the Falls). Most around here, in that Pootatuck Territory tend to be in-between those first two extremes, such as those in my first Rock Piles post: https://rockpiles.blogspot.com/2006/03/more-zig-zag-walls-from-tim-macsweeney.html
On my third day of the single year I was a
NEARA member, after that 1998 conference in Danbury CT where I first met Peter
and Norman in person, the three of us walked up an access road under the power
lines that cut across the Nonnewaug floodplain. I was going to show them some
surviving low to the ground stacked stone features – a few Káhtôquwukansh, in
Mohegan/Pequot/Narragansett.
A káhtôquwuk is a kind of stone pile, a kind of stone heap,
something that which is heaped high, ceremonially, religiously, by placing one
stone above another stone. As I understand it, Káhtôquwuk means, allegorically, a 'Stone Prayer,' as in:
“Káhtôquwukansh is the plural of Stone Prayers, stacked stone features invested
with prayers for the balance of the universe.”
Those specific Káhtôquwukansh were inside an enclosure of
intentionally made zigzag rows of stones:
These zigzag rows
of stones, ten foot segments of stones laid in a fairly consistent lightning
bolt pattern lead outward from the “mound swamp,” linking outcrops and boulders,
lead to streams, bordered on both sides with zigzag rows of stone more often
than not, just as are the wetlands in the Nonnewaug uplands.
The Great Snake imagery abounds in these carefully made constructions that remain intact, while others now destroyed can only be seen with my sometimes rather lame images – some with overlays of eyes and horns on them – can be found tickling the search box with “powerlines (sic)” or “power lines.”
Low Bush or Wild Blueberries, in “garden plots” separated by fuel break zigzag stone rows may have once been thermally pruned, section by section in certain places, on staggered four year intervals may be a rare survivor species on the former Indigenous Cultural Landscape, a trait shared by cranberries in another remarkable location.
https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2018/08/no-longer-snaking-along-blueberries.html
Indeed, the saddest
part of the story is that a wide swath of land under those power lines has been,
blasted and bulldozed into a “blank slate” or “tabla rasa” by Eversource, the
power company, for new towers and transmission lines. I can only show you older
photos of the Ceremonial Stone Landscape features that were once located there.
If any sort of an
archaeological survey was done before this destruction, I’d be interested to
see it…
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