The Drum Stone
This Drum Stone is located in the greater Echo Lake Area, although not in the direct vicinity of Echo Lake itself- this Drum Stone is located in Holliston MA. By the Greater Echo Lake Area I am referring to modern-day Hopkinton, Milford, Upton, Holliston, Medway, Sherborn, Ashland, and perhaps Framingham (the Sudbury River, one of the three water-ways originating by what is today Echo Lake, runs through Ashland and Framingham.) The three headwaters of today's Echo Lake (the Charles, Blackstone and Sudbury) no doubt played a role in the pre-colonial population dispersment of the area, and thus, the remaining stone-works we can still see today in this area are part of this history.
This Drum Stone, still in comission (no tree roots to block the swinging see-saw action of the rock) is different from a Rocking Stone. Rocking Stones are more crude, usually rounder boulders, but will emit a vibrational "thud." Drum Stones, like the one shown here, are more sophisticated. The Drum itself is shell-shaped (like a turtle shell) and was split off from the boulder platform it balances/ rests on using fire (splitting the stone by fire- a pre-colonial Native technique). The shell-shaped drum itself weighs at least a few tons and was propped up onto three of the sides of the boulder platform it rests on, quite precariously.
Although the shell-shaped drum-stone weighs many tons, one can rock it back and forth, using only one hand, if you are strong enough, due to the way the rock-work is balanced on it's boulder platform. The more you get the drum-stone going, the faster it will see-saw back and forth (one can also stand on one of the sides of the drum to get it mgoing.) Without modern noise pollution, and with native clearing of the land being practised, this drum-stone must have been heard for at least a few miles radius. Joanne Hulbert, the Holliston town historian tells me that a 19th century Holliston historian referred to this drum stone as a "Calle Thumper".
The rock emits a vibration, magnetic, which can be felt on the ground. I have seen a deer stop in it's tracks when the drum stone was playing, so I know it has an effect on animals. Besides the vibratory affect (which is healthy to receive a dose of, for it is energizing) the drum-stone also emits a "ringing" beat, and when the drum is really going off you can get a 1-2-3, or even 1-2-3-4 beat going (doo-doo dah-dah, doo-doo dah-dah)- again, this beat emits a "ringing" vibratory and magnetic effect that can be heard off for miles without modern noise pollution.
Here is the Drum-Stone-
I have seen several other drum-stones just like this one in the area as well, one of which was right by Echo Lake, and the other being in another Hopkinton location. Some theories- used for "shamanic" purposes, hunting purposes, to call a council (delegation) from surrounding villages, as a warning system. There are also historically known examples of such stone-drums in places like Rhode Island as well.
Also, here is a link to a Georgia "Shaking Rock" attributed to be in the vicinity of old Creek and Cherokee villages (note that this is a region where the glacial ice sheets never reached) which puts Holliston's nearby Balancing Rock and many other propped boulder sites in the area/ the NorthEast into a better perspective (in a lot of cases what people think are glacial erratics were either propped by people in more ancient times, or are stones which had super-magnetic properties, sometimes capable of moving themselves, when the Earth's climate and orbit [before Earth's tilt] was different, when the world we lived in was more magnetized).
Georgia's Shaking Rock-
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