Tiompan wrote:"It's very easy to find references to shaman usage of quartz crystals, and their presence in shamans kits."
Yes I know .I just said that it was common to find the association with shamen and their kits e.g. " There is no shortage of archaeologists who buy into the shamanic hypothesis of rock art production,and no shortage of them mentioning quartz being associated with shamans " . Despite the complete lack of evidence to support the claim in a prehistoric context and no mention of "shiny rocks " , if they were quartz why didn't you say so ?
"you're not even spelling the word shaman correctly."
Did you miss "If north American, wouldn't they much more likely have been described by the informant(s) as something different from "shaman ", "
Shamen = plural of shaman . Didn't you know that ? Never come across shamanistic .
What about shamaniacs , they are dying out , but were big about 20 years ago , thanks to the misconceptions of Lewis -Williams and Whitley etc , essentially anyone who uncritically bought into the shamen
were responsible for prehistoric rock art and the engravings are to be found all over the world despite no evidence to support the claim .
More to the point it is a North Asian word ,that isn't even acceptable to native americans .
Where am I mistaken ?
If you believe the association between shamen and rock art then it's you who are gravely mistaken , all you have do to do is prove it . Nobody has in any continent .
The Tlingit kits are clearly not ancient .Did you find your shiny rocks in the north west ? Were the shiny rocks as recent as the Tlingit kits ? Does the modern Tlingit kits suggest that they were also to be found in prehistory ?
Finding a group of " shiny rocks " , even if they were the second most common mineral on the planet , and uncritically assuming they were from a shaman's kit is a massive leap of faith .
Don't you understand when someone is agreeing with you i.e. "Yep , fossils ,ammonites and oddly shaped /visually striking stones are chosen for their character and often found at thresholds /entrances , enhanced or used in association with later engravings etc ." Nothing about shamen , but about the interest in striking stones .
Yes, I did find a reference to shamen as plural, though shamans was noted as the more common plural form. But, yes, you taught me something there.
I don't believe I spoke about or commented at all about shamans and rock art. At all.
Roger Williams, who referred to Narragansett spiritual practitioners as "priests", not shamans, spoke of seeing them utilize quartz crystals in healing ceremonies. This was in one of his letters, dating from the 1650's. They did not learn the practice from the English, naturally, and it can be safely inferred that the practice extended back in time. Williams devoted a chapter in his "A Key Into the Language of America"(1643), one of the earliest works describing Algonquian culture to Europeans, to Narragansett religion, where he described their spiritual practitioners. . Describing their language, he also broke the book up into elements of Narragansett culture when conveying the Narragansett language. The relevant chapter for his discussion of Narragansett shamanism is Chapter XXL, "Of Religion, the soule, etc". His description of the shamans, or again, as he referred to them, the "priests", makes it obvious he is referring to practices common to shamanism. If you think for one second I am going to get in, with you, a situation similar to your never ending argument, with E.P., over his use of the word "henge", nope, I'll pass.
Of course Williams, in 1643, did not call them shamans. I am, and if I am somehow mistaken in doing so, I'll live with it. If it offends you, I don't care. I am referring to both the techniques of spiritual practice, and the world view, when applying the term. And Williams was not alone in decribing those practices, and world view, of local New England tribes, in the 1600's. But he was one of the few who respected them enough to study and describe them, and defend their rights to the land the English were acquiring from them. And he was keenly interested in their religious beliefs, and went to some length, and detail, in describing their shamans. Including, in a later letter, not the book "A Key....", witnessing the use of crystals in ceremonies by Narragansett "priests".
As far as the Tlingit, yes, it is safe to assume the practice extended into prehistory. Are you going to argue that they most likely invented it in Contact times, or picked it up from European explorers/settlers? If Roger Williams noted their usage of quartz in the mid 1600's, during the Contact era, among the Narragansett, it's a safe enough assumption to infer that usage extended further back in time.
The latter assumption is supported by the archeological evidence, as crystals and colorful pebbles have been found primarily in Archaic Era cremation burials in the Northeast. I am aware of one excavated site where they were found(crystals and attractive polished pebbles) together in a manner suggested they were associated with each other, possibly, that's possibly, in a since disintegrated container. In the case of the cremation burials, they were always found in association with red ochre smeared artifacts.
The article by Fowler, at this link, is pretty dated, but it will at least allow you to see some of the manuports found in Archaic Era cremation burials in New England:
https://maxwell.bridgew.edu/exhibits/BM ... 6n0304.pdf
As far as your description of where fossils are located, I am completely unaware of what you are describing as pertaining to Native American sites. I am aware of the use of crinoid stems as beads, and the crafting of small drilled pendants from Utah trilobites. I am also aware of pendants created from fern fossils found in the Rhode Island Formation. You may have been agreeing with me about fossils, I'm not aware I was replying to you in a manner to suggest I was arguing with you about fossils, but I will state what I stated above: my knowledge of fossils and Native Americans involves how they utilized them once they collected them, and I am not aware of the usage you describe. If that bothers you somehow, I don't know why, but whatever.....
Rather then attempting to resize photos, here is a link to the pendant displaying a ~290 million year old fern, from the Rhode Island Formation, and which a friend found years ago. Great example of a Native American from my region who was also, like myself, a fossil collector. This is one of my favorite locally found pieces:
https://forums.arrowheads.com/forum/gen ... ant-in-one
