Thursday, October 20, 2016

If you have a hypothesis then every observation is an experiment

So the hypothesis is that mounds are found at brook headwaters. The experiment is: go to a headwater and look for a mound. If you find one then it confirms the hypothesis. 

I did this over and over and it worked, even in impossible towns like Groton and Lunenburg. So I hope the hypothesis is well enough confirmed that some functional relation between brooks and mounds is needed in order to explain the correlation.

Putting aside, for a moment, that the particular kind of mounds found there at headwaters tend towards the rectangular with collapsed inner structure: Why near a brook?

There is a tendency to consider site location a matter of "spiritual energy", coming from the natural composition of elements of sky and water (as Mavor and Dix wrote) but perhaps containing something more. 

But consider: brooks are means of transporting objects. The object could be people or it could be something else. I propose that if it was just people, you would not need to be near a brook.


Tim MacSweeney said...

“One major axis of categorization was that of The Upper World and the Underworld, with our own realm making for a threefold division. Animals tended to be associated with these realms, birds with the upper, four footed animals like deer with the middle, and fish, snakes, and perhaps insects with the Underworld. The sun was of the Upper World as well, and so was fire. Water, bubbling up from underground springs, was of the Underworld...”
Visualizing the Cherokee Homeland through Indigenous Historical GIS: An Interactive Map of James Mooney’s Ethnographic Fieldwork and Cherokee Collective Memory by Deborah Lyn Kirk:
“Prior to sharing the story of the uktena with me, Mr. Wolfe first reminisced on the strength and power of the uktena, which was “so strong it made dents in the rocks as it travelled the rivers”. It could also travel across the land. The uktena was extremely powerful; it didn’t have to bite you to kill you, “just seeing it was death” (Wolfe, 2013). These characteristics of strength and power are echoed throughout Eastern and Western Cherokee uktena stories (Mooney, 1900; Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick, 1964; Arch, 1998), and are revealed in the landscape. A place in the Tuckasegee River known as Ukten’na-tsuganun tatsun yi, “where the uktena got fastened” (Mooney, 1900) is a site where the uktena became stuck while trying to make his way upriver. In his struggles to get loose, he pried up some large rocks which are now visible in the bed of the river, and left deep scratches on others along the bank (Mooney, 1900:410). On the 1886 NC Cowee quad sheet, Mooney (n.d.) marked the spot where the uktena got fastened and gave a description of the site location. According to Cherokee collective memory, the location marked by Mooney is not correct (Holland, 2012). I have included the Ukten’na-tsuganun tatsun yi site in the initial phase of my interactive story-mapping project and have corrected the location to reflect Cherokee collective memory.”,d.cWw

pwax said...

You illustrate my point: you are focusing on the mythological meaning of brooks and not considering their practical use.

I assume Indians brought spiritual thinking to everyday tasks but I also am sure everyone is constrained by practical realities. Those should be understood and discussed, along with the possible spiritual ones. Long story short: the first thing about brooks should be about brooks and not Unktena (my favorite).

Tim MacSweeney said...

Around where I am, I'm more surprised to not find a stone row related to the riparian zone of brooks and other water features, making a boundary that could be protected from burning (or the other way around). The pragmatic aspects are keeping the water cool and clean, as well as encouraging or discouraging the growth plants and animals found in the riparian zone, combined with the spiritual aspect of a protective Guardian Serpent made of stone.

Tim MacSweeney said...

“It has been proposed that, just as there is a biosphere, i.e., the region of the earth's crust and atmosphere occupied by living organisms, there is an ethnosphere, defined as "... the sum total of all thoughts, beliefs, myths and institutions made manifest today by the myriad cultures of the world ..." (Davis 2001:8). The exploration of this concept has many implications for those interested in both the natural and social spheres of study. On a broad level, it is an application of an ecological concept modified to describe cultural systems. Examined further, it becomes a tool to understand the complex web of human-ecosystem connections. The ethnosphere is born out of the biosphere within which it is situated, but it has its own particular features, history, and development. In its turn, the ethnosphere modifies, manages, and therefore influences the biosphere.”
Cultural Keystone Species: Implications for Ecological Conservation and Restoration
Ann Garibaldi and Nancy Turner