Makumskwok Boulders W/ "Donation Piles" (Milford, MA.)

Makumskook Boulders W/ "Donation Piles"

Quite a few of the boulders in this area have impressive donation piles of stone/ intentional man-made rock piles of stone at the foot of the boulder.  Here are just a couple of pictures I got around to taking, although there are more examples I did not take a picture of.  Also, I tried making my first video with the crappy camera I have, but it did not come out right; and also, it did not feel right to do so.  I was unable to save the video or upload it, so I deleted it.  This tells me that this area should not be video recorded, but taking pictures is okay, or neutral, so I am going to stick to just pictures.  This provides a glimpse of what is out there, but does not capture the essence which should really be experienced first-hand anyway.

Boulder #1 has a nice rock pile at the foot of it.  Maybe a tilted Standing Stone center left:

Boulder #2 has a nice rock pile/ donation pile under it too.  The immediate rock pile under the boulder has a nice boxed-in shape to it and features a tilted Standing Stone in the middle.  Also, this is just off the trail of the remains of an old Native foot-path that runs through these ledges (narrow, meandering, single-file and very over-grown).  Most would not notice what remains of the trail:

Boulder #3 does not have a donation pile and is nearby to boulder #2.  It does appear to be manipulated into place and... 

... features a flat-top:

There are at least a few more examples of boulders with rock piles in the area that I may get around to getting pics of sometime in the future.  Also important to note that this area is in the high hills above the headwaters of the Charles, Blackstone and Sudbury Rivers.

Turtle Petro-form Cairn- the Magomisquog Hills

Turtle Petro-form Cairn

From the hills of Milford, MA. Magomisquog- the "grand view/ great rock place."  I will also say that the word "view" in the descriptive name for the Milford hills could be replaced with the word "vision."  After all, a view affords a vision, therefore as far as I am concerned the two words/ meanings are inter-changeable, one lending to the other in a natural sort of way.  It is hard to interpret the Algonquian language into English in the first place- a single word such as Magomisquog would be descriptive and would take a couple of sentences in the proper English language to crack the essence of it's meaning!  Furthermore, when I spend time in these hills, I do get a strong feeling and sense that the area was used for vision questing before in the past.  I also call the area "the Dreaming Place", but that's just me (if a view affords a vision, than a vision can afford a dream).

Below are pictures of an old turtle cairn found amid the shrub in the hills.  It is not a very large cairn, may be medium sized.. basically a turtle petro-form on top of a boulder.

The stone on the far left center is the turtle head.  The large stone in the center, stacked on top of the other stones is the turtle shell.  Notice the stone that is the turtle fin sticks out on the edge of the boulder:

A similar angle:

We can see from this angle that the shell stone is also triangular shaped and that this turtle cairn/ petro-form is a very nice structure:

Very surreal:

Peter Waksman's 'Ravine Culture' Hypothesis

Peter Waksman's 'Ravine Culture' Hypothesis

Peter Waksman, champion of the Rock Piles blog has announced a theory about certain rock pile/ stone mound groups.  "Explore a Ravine in 2016" is the slogan.  Mr. Waksman has called to attention a "Ravine Culture", having noted many Rock Piles/ Cairn Fields in ravines over-looking brooks/ streams. 

It is exactly this kind of perceptibility, insight and research spent looking at sites that makes Mr. Waksman an excellent researcher- precisely why I have studied his blog (and started my own) and have gone to see him speak at historical society's/ libraries- his research is very good and I always walk away with a tidbit of info (i.e. 'pearl of wisdom') that I hadn't before known.

The "Beaver Brook" series of posts I made on this blog last spring, which was something like 10 posts long, would be a very good example of Peter Waksman's "Ravine Culture" Hypothesis- with stone mounds, rock cairns, and other stone-works along and above Beaver Brook (College Rock Woods in Hopkinton, MA.)

To find out more detailed information about Peter Waksman's Ravine Culture Hypothesis, here is a link to his Rock Piles blog-

http://rockpiles.blogspot.com/2015/12/east-wachusett-brook-long-mound-with.html

Also-

http://rockpiles.blogspot.com/2015/12/ravine-culture-at-blood-hill-ashby.html

Yet more amazing research from Peter Waksman- thank you, Peter. 

Stay tuned for more... next up, a turtle petro-form cairn from Milford, MA- more from the Grand View/ Vision Place. 

 

Feather On The Moon- Sachem of the Massachusetts Tribe Speaks

Feather On The Moon- Sachem of the Massachusetts Tribe Speaks

Gill Solomon, Feather On The Moon, is the current Sachem (the Algonquian word for "Chief") of the Massachusett/ Ponkapoag Tribe.  The state of Massachusetts gets its name from his ancestors- they were the people living around the water-ways at the foot of the Blue Hills when the colonists came.  The following is Sachem Nanepashmequian's (Feather On the Moon) thoughts and reflections in a 6 minute video.  Insightful.  The YouTube link:

https://youtu.be/rbmrxAwe0HY

 

Stockbridge Indian Monument

Stockbridge Indian Monument

Here is a photo that Tim MacSweeney of "Waking Up On Turtle Island" blog shared on Peter Waksman's infamous "Rock Piles" blog.  An old photo of the Stockbridge Indian Monument circa 1905.  Basically a very large Standing Stone within a cairn, much like the smaller-scale Makumsquag Standing Stone from the previous posts. 

The Stockbridge Indian Monument:

Spirit- Of-the-Creator Stone & Stone Shapes

Spirit- Of-the-Creator Stone & Stone Shapes

Up in the Grand View/ Great Rock Place, Magomiskook (a series of hills and high ledges that span miles, in and around modern day Milford MA.) I noticed a large shaped-out stone (one of many), the type of stone that Mavor and Dix featured in their book Manitou on pages 61 and 73, which they described as "Spirit-of-the-Creator stones" and "god stones."  These are shaped out stones of various sizes (small to large) that are basically in the shape of a "bottle neck".  There are many thousands of these stones, if not millions through-out the Northeast country and no two are identical but the basic shapes are the same.  This is just one example of a type of a shaped-out stone.  There are many other types of shaped out stones as well, seen in cairns, rock piles, monolithic standing stones, etc. 

Here is one type of Spirit-of-the-Creator Stone that was noticed in the Magomiskwak hills.  Notice how it has been shaped out from stone tools (split from stone anvil or hammer-stone, etc.)  These stones are also known as Algonquian image stones, sort of a head-and-shoulders bottle-neck shape, which was the shape of a very spiritual expression:

Nearby was this second shaped-out rock, larger and more broad, which looked like a collapsed Standing Stone with a nice tip at the top.  As a matter of fact it looks very much like a broader (i.e. wider) version of another standing stone I noticed in this area that was featured a little while ago in a previous post: 

Another thought about stone shapes: there were many, many kinds of stone shapes that were worked-out and used.  It is hard to wrap one's mind around the many millions of shaped-out stones that are found throughout the landscape.  Take just one kind of stone structure for example- cairns, or rock piles.  Every stone in a cairn or stone mound was specially placed there and more likely than not, every stone was either shaped out (split, rounded, etc.) or used because of a natural anomaly associated with the stone- and all of these stone shapes had meanings behind them, even the way they were placed and arranged onto the cairn.  The different shaped stones of a cairn could relate to perceived universal/ localized energies as experienced by the ancestors of native people (a practice which would be associated with "animism").  For instance, when looking at a cairn it is obvious the stones are special, but the "why" of it is sometimes elusive.  For more on this topic you may want to pick up a copy of Vine Deloria Jr.'s book "The World We Used to Live In." 

Stones can tell a story if we learn how to interpret them- a stone cairn in the shape of a turtle could tell us something about the person who created the structure, or it could convey a message about the area, or even a mythology.  A cairn with a fish motif could serve as an offering altar from before or after a fishing excursion, or even just a manifested thought/ action to ensure a good catch by making a fish effigy (this is the same kind of thinking I used when I hiked up Mt. Nobscot the day before I ran the Boston Marathon in 2009, so I could see the Boston Skyline and project myself to the finish line- and the run the next day was a success, I ran all 26.2 miles).  Likewise, a cairn with a head-and torso of a man looking up towards the sky could be a petro-form/stone hieroglyph indicating a good spot for solar observation -  There is a bigger picture at work here, we simply need to tune in with an open heart, and listen. 

Stay tuned for the next post.  We will be looking at an old turtle cairn, which in this case is a petro-form on top of a boulder.  Before this, however, we will hear from an elder.  

  

Magomskook Bird Stone

Magomskook Bird Stone

A very nice example of a bird stone effigy.  This was found sticking out of the side of a trail.  It was placed on top of a nearby boulder, to insure many things, such as- a hiker's dog would not defecate on it, and that mountain biker's would not pick the rock up off the ground to use it in one of their jumps (people like Joanne Hulbert have told the mountain bike association that uses these trails to not build their jumps with the stones of this area, but some do any-way.)

Overall, this is a nicely shaped bird stone, one of the best bird stones I have come across so far actually.  The shape is still of an abstract nature but very well defined.  I am still wrapping my head around some questions- such as- they WERE capable of making much more detailed effigys/ fetishes- just take a look at some of the back issues of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society's Bulletin or take a trip to the Robbins Museum in Middleborough to see some examples.  This leads me to conclude that these "specially shaped" abstract looking stones had something to do with observances/ the language of the land and people that modern people do not fully understand (let alone relate to).

Here are the pics of the bird stone: