There are a number of places in rural Rhode Island where the land is filled with stone cairns, often with a piece of quartz at their peak. There are also a fair number of stone serpents and underground stone chambers, some of which are too small to serve as convenient storage cellars or shelters. Some of these chambers are oriented to such celestial markers as solstice and equinox points.
The local Indigenous are the Narragansett tribe, and they currently claim to have no living memory of their building such stone constructions in the past. Yet in the early history of the state, Narragansetts were credited with particular expertise as builders of dry-stone walls for farms.
Yet the family (surname Foster) that farmed some of this land where there are very many of these stone constructions (in the late 1700s and early 1800s) may possibly have had a line of Indigenous ancestry (surname Tefft -- the Tefft genealogy is not all that clear, for reasons that made excellent sense in the earlier 1900s but seem bigoted now). [In the 1600s one of the Teffts took a Narragansett or Wampanoag wife and fought with the Narragansetts against his fellow Europeans during the Great Swamp Massacre -- a battle in King Philip's War --, for which he was hanged and quartered afterwards. He and his borther were fluent in the Narragansett language, a rare skill among the European colonists.]
The connection between serpents and rain is widespread among Indigenous tribes in North America, from New England in the Northeast to New Mexico in the Southwest. So very likely many or all of these stone constructions were connected with Indigenous agriculture.
In short, you may well be onto something with the cairns you are building.
Re: How to apply temple technology at my homestead
Date: 2023-11-27 06:57 am (UTC)The local Indigenous are the Narragansett tribe, and they currently claim to have no living memory of their building such stone constructions in the past. Yet in the early history of the state, Narragansetts were credited with particular expertise as builders of dry-stone walls for farms.
Yet the family (surname Foster) that farmed some of this land where there are very many of these stone constructions (in the late 1700s and early 1800s) may possibly have had a line of Indigenous ancestry (surname Tefft -- the Tefft genealogy is not all that clear, for reasons that made excellent sense in the earlier 1900s but seem bigoted now). [In the 1600s one of the Teffts took a Narragansett or Wampanoag wife and fought with the Narragansetts against his fellow Europeans during the Great Swamp Massacre -- a battle in King Philip's War --, for which he was hanged and quartered afterwards. He and his borther were fluent in the Narragansett language, a rare skill among the European colonists.]
See Mary & James Gage, The Land of a Thousand Cairns, available at https://www.powwowriverbooks.com/product/1128/Land-of-a-Thousand-Cairns-Revival-of-Old-Style-Ceremonies-2nd-Edition
The connection between serpents and rain is widespread among Indigenous tribes in North America, from New England in the Northeast to New Mexico in the Southwest. So very likely many or all of these stone constructions were connected with Indigenous agriculture.
In short, you may well be onto something with the cairns you are building.