Conference hydra::dejavu

598.0. "New England's Native Civilization" by FLOWER::JASNIEWSKI () Fri Dec 11 1987 10:24

	A good friend of mine is writing a book; here is the publisher's
announcement. I believe this would be of interest, in a constructive manner,
to those in this conference.

	"The Lindisfarne Press announces:

				MANITOU
	Stone Structures Reveal New England's Native Civilization.

						James W. Mavor, Jr
						and Byron E. Dix

	English settlers in northeastern America Called the land New England,
in part because it reminded them of home. Not only did the natural landscape 
itself remind them of England, but they also saw stone walls, standing stones
and stone heaps like those of the English countryside. This remarkable 
collection of man made stoneworks, now largely hidden in the modern forests
or partially destroyed by development, is awesome in the number and size of
the structures and in their complexity. Mavor and Dix believe that the builders
of most of these stone structures were Native Americans, following ancient 
traditions based upon a profound sensitivity to nature and a recognition of the
spirituality of all things in nature. The stoneworks, they argue, played a role
in shamanic practices and in the ritual landscape architecture complementing
the natural landscape. The record left in stone dwarfs all other records of 
Indian past, and the implications of the author's argument may rewrite all 
past results of New England archaeology and ethnology.

	The discoveries that led Dix and Mayvor to a solution of the riddles of
New England's stone structures have a strong thread of celectial observation,
which was the dominant feature of the spiritual life of Native Americans and
possibly of some of the foreign adventurers as well. This thread provides the 
framework of the author's anthropological method in which everything is 
perceived as interrelated, and historical records and archeological results 
are seen in a new light.

	Mavor and Dix attack many of the myths which comprise New England 
history, including the behavior of early foreign settlers, their relations with
the Indians, and the religious lives of the settlers and Christianized Indians.
They have discovered many ways in which the natural environment shaped the
perceptions of the native people and contributed to the design of the stonework.
Sensing a continuity through time and a geographical commonality in ritual, they
conclude that the conventional classifications of Native American peoples and
the catalogues of subsistence artifacts, invented by the white man, are more a 
hinderance than a help to a broad understanding of native culture.

	Dix and Mavor lead the reader along the path of their research, weaving
their personal adventure into the explanations of their observations and 
theories in order to encourage others to follow in their footsteps, the better
to judge their novel approach and it's results.

	James W. Mavor, Jr., and Byron E. Dix have been partners in research for
the past ten years, bringing their engineering and scientific perspectives to
problems of the human past. They have written 23 articles on ancient New England
and Europe. Mavor is also the author of VOYAGE TO ATLANTIS, the story of the
discovery of a Minoan town on the island of Thera destroyed by an ancient 
volcanic eruption, possible the root of Plato's Atlantis.

	Table of Contents

	 1. First Discovery in Vermont
	 2. A Pleiades and Sun Sanctuary
	 3. Stone mounds in Massasoit's Domain
	 4. The land and the Sky
	 5. Indian Traditions of Stone and Earth Works
	 6. Cape Cod and the Islands
	 7. Jesuits, Pilgrims and Puritans Meet the Indians
	 8. Eighteenth Century Indian and Colonial Religion
	 9. Shakers and Shamanic Christianity
	10. European and New England Stoneworks Compared
	11. The Land of the Mohegans
	12. Nashoba
	13. Back to Calendar One
	14. Epilog: Manitou

	Approximately 350 text pages plus 225 illustrations.

	If you would like to recieve a publication announcement and order
	form, please (send) your name and address to Lindisfarne Press,
	P.O. box 778, Great Barrington, MA 01230."

	The book as yet remains unpublished. Announcement expected sometime
	in 1988.

	Joe Jas

    
    	For a "primer" on the subject, watch NOVA this coming Tuesday
    (Tomorrow) night...The show was allegedly inspired by one of the
    authors!
    
    	Joe Jas
    

    I'll definitely watch ... this sounds interesting.
    Mary