Cheyenne [05/24/2005]

By Cheyenne

Native residents of the coast of Maine and New Hampshire are familiar with the fact that there are prehistoric ruins and buried summer camping sites all along the ocean and river mouths of their states. Who were the people who inhabited these areas?On the evening of May 17, this month, this year, the Smithsonian Institute and PBS had a show on TV trying to establish where our Native American friends "came from." They did establish that the form of making spearheads the ancient tribes used was not similar to where most educators think the tribes came from.Fifty or 60 years ago, in the North Conway area of New Hampshire, there was a well-established "rock hound" group. Kearsarge was well known in the rock hunter community. We sold rocks on the side of the road, be it on the Hurricane Mountain Road or at the House of Color in Intervale, or on the Passaconaway Road in Conway. We had found many sites where the ancients had gotten out "moss agate" for cutting tools and arrowheads and spearheads. One of the best areas was east of Kearsarge Mountain, in a small brook that runs in behind that area, onto Hurricane Mountain.One trip we drove up Mountain Pond Road, well up on the ridge with our old Jeep. It is easier to traverse the mountain, looking for new rock, than to carry heavy loads straight up or down the mountain. Up there, several piles of rock looked as though a farmer had cleared his fields of stones. The piles on the sides of the mountains were not uncommon but these were unusual in size and height. Round. Then one of the rock hunters discovered a hole in one rock pile he looked in.Actually, it did not happen on the first trip in that area. It happened awhile later. Little stone huts. Should we "tell the world," or just keep our mouths shut?"They will close the woods."So we just went on doing what we were doing, digging out the moss agate and every other type of rock. Some of those old guys moved tons of rock to get to crystals. Working as a hunting and fishing guide kept me busy. Keeping the family fed and the bills paid. Swinging a large hammer was not in the number of things that I could do. A bad back is a bad back. But my friend who lived up there did study those little stone huts. Where did the people come from? Who were they? How long ago were they here?In the Smithsonian-PBS show, the type of spearhead was important to show where the technology had come from to perform these very necessary tasks. SI and PBS gave the spearmaker credit for giving the hunter an easy way to "murder" the wooly mammothto the point of extinction. A wooly mammoth with giant tusks, we all have seen, tusks that would prevent that animal from eating grasses of our plains, unless he got down on his knees to nibble those grasses. The wooly mammoths became extinct because they ate all the trees, as from the redwoods of California to the Mississippi River. They starved themselves to death.Smithsonian and PBS failed to point out that while the mammoth went away, there were over 20 million bison living, thriving on the grasses of the Great Plains of this continent. SI and PBS used the word "murderers" specifically with "hunters." In the very next segment with a woman Amazon, armed with a similar spear, she was termed a "warrior." And they never did prove to anybody's satisfaction that the "Amazon" in the test was truly an Amazon woman.They did get some interesting DNA testing done. And your own DNA is usually a track of your mother's side of the family.Some of our Native Americans do test back to Asia, between 16,000 and 20,000 years ago, during the Ice Age. Ojibway Indians were finally matched to central Europe over 10,000 years ago. Remember, Leif Erickson and others were known to make the trip here to our North American coasts way before Columbus. When the national forest opened up the forest to clear-cutting in the Mountain Pond area, I think most of the little stone huts took a real hit. There should be some left above Shingle Pond, but it is hard to tell. Some of those old rock hunters could tell you; must be a couple left around. Don't know if I could climb that far now. AJ and Pete would know, too. Who could live in a hut under four feet tall and five feet wide? Built like an igloo? Did they have a wood frame inside that stone? Did they have hides over the outside?I just do not know.