Re: Rocks? | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

Stonehenge and its Environs 134

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Rocks?

Littlestone Jul 16, 2006 17:20:59

Replying to BuckyE

...here's a partial list I started to draw up for a little writing project...

Your list is very interesting Bucky, and no doubt most subscribers to TMA and similar Forums could supply equally interesting lists. Places on my own list would include Pu Yi's last palace in Manchuria, parts of the Forbidden City in Beijing where few foreigners have ever been; the palaces and temples of Korea and Japan; the tombs and temples of Egypt; churches and cathedrals throughout Europe and, oh yes, the downtown bars of Boston, the no-go areas of Washington, the woods of upstate New York and even the sands of Waikiki Beach. So what?

The point is that your list and my list, and probably the even more fascinating lists that other folks here could compile, are places we have chosen to visit, they are not the ancient and sacred places that surround us on a daily basis; they are not places that we see every time we walk a mile or drive a few more on our way to work. They are not the places that our ancestors in these islands built and sanctified and that is the difference between your society and ours.

As Nigel eloquent said above, "There's nothing virgin (here), you can scoop up a handful of soil from anywhere and have a fair chance of seeing something of your ancestors. What an inspiring stage upon which to perform our fleeting dance." I have nothing more to add to that... oh well, just one more thing then...

"This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells the events and memories of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father."

Chief Seattle

PS And don't get me started on real ale - at least not until I've recovered from a recent encounter with Hooligan's Revenge and the [/b]Bishop's Farewell[/b] :-)

BuckyE Jul 16, 2006 23:51:25

Replying to Littlestone

I wasn't going to make a point of it, but someone once told me, concerning the relevance to modern society of studying the megaliths : "You can't demonstrate the continuity." Given the ongoing debates about emmigration versus diffusion, the amount of movement in the late 19th and 20th centuries and the rabid influence of modern media, communications and education, it would surprise the heck out of me to learn that anyone on this board is really a direct inheritor of any social tradition or way of thought practiced by the stone pushers of the exact place that member now lives. Let alone be an actual physical descendent of same.

It's romantic to think you grew up in some ancient milieu, but it's strictly romance. There is certainly more continuity between yourself and your general European past than there is between me and the Native American past that occurred on the land Loie and I now own. But even here in America, few Native Americans live in places that were home to their truly ancient ancestors. Our American government saw to that. (And while we're at it, have a quick look at http://www.synaptic.bc.ca/ejournal/seattle2.htm, for a more coherent and less romanticized version of the "Chief Seattle" story. The text you quote seems to be the " 'Ted Perry Text,' written by an American screenwriter for a Hollywood film." Not that it's contrary to what Native Americans may believe; just that when pontificating you might want to try and stand on a less shaky box.)

There's nothing virgin here where we live. All this landscape has been mauled and rearranged many times by Native Americans (albeit relatively lightly), settlers, loggers, farmers and now exurbanites. All I have to do is look out the window, and I can see with my own eyes trees I've watched grow for 15 years, some of which I've planted and some of which are volunteers. I've spent countless hours fighting to reclaim a few acres from invasive foreign plants, brought here to this land on which I now live by "my ancestors;" cultural ones, at least. And I have a very good, if silly, idea of why exactly I'm engaging in this mostly futile struggle to "save" our little patch of land. Which is more than can be said for those who want to worship ancient stones, whose pushers' purposes or beliefs are lost in time and can now only be a matter of debate. So I know somewhat of what it is to live in an "ancestral" landscape. Although it may not be a specifically sacred one, it was shaped by immense effort, requiring strong belief now outmoded but whose effects surround me every minute I'm home.

And, at that rate, do we know who our ancestors were? Were they, 300 years ago, German immigrants? Spanish Jews fleeing the Inquisition? Norman French in 1066? Saxons who pushed out the Pictish who had pushed out the Beaker people who had taken over from the stone pushers? Given that much of my ancestry is English, mine could have been any or all of the above. I also might be descended from the stone pushers. Who knows? Hence my interest in discovering, through our European travels, some of the philosophy and tradition that might have--heavy on the qualification there--informed the culture in which I was raised and live.

Just like you. Except that I'm more than willing to recognize that quest for the thrilling romance it probably is. I had a fun teacher in high school who once told me, "Our affectations say more about us than anything else does." I can certainly appreciate that the members here want to perform their fleeting dance among the stones. So have, for most of our lives, Loie and I. Hence our travelers' list. Attributing some "ancestral" nature to those stones is mostly affectation, for all of us, but a very telling one.