Thursday, February 19, 2015

Serpent Effigies, Earth and Stone

     “Locality," Stephen Denison Peet wrote back in 1890, "always leaves its mark on native tradition, and native myths also leave their marks on localities. We should know from the New England myths that the people who held them were residents of the seashore, for the animals which are made to figure in these myths are animals peculiar to the sea. We know that they dwelt in a region where (there) were rocks and romantic scenery, and that they were a people who were influenced by this peculiar scenery. Their traditions are many of them, localized, the rocks often being made to symbolyze their myths. It is singular, however, that the myths which fix upon scenes in nature are those which remind one of the animal divinities which were worshipped. The figure of the moose and the turtle and other animals have been recognized in certain strange and contorted figures in the rocks and mountains, and myths have been connected with them, the myth having evidently been made to account for the resemblances..."
      Well, what about some possible Great Serpents in stone that rather resemble those earth mounds? 
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3 comments :

pwax said...

Nice quote.

Tim MacSweeney said...

Rocky - AND Romantic!

Tommy Hudson said...

I like it.