THE NORRIDGEWOCK INDIANS' TIME

Protruding into the Kennebec river just below the Route 8 bridge connecting Emden and Solon, Maine rests a whale shaped ledge outcrop. Its message waits for your arrival and has for over 300 years. You will need to be a bit of a boater or hiker though. You can boat downriver about a 1/4 mile just as the indians did or hike the well marked 1/4 mile down a very steep slope into the natural half-bowl protecting Indian Rock on the west.

Looking upriver toward Bingham, Maine this outcrop protrudes twenty-feet (plus or minus) from the western shore into the Kennebeck. It appears as a whale's head. Although, the whale head feature is not where the interests lay. On the downriver side of this rock are ghostly messages from the people of the Abenaki Nation and the Norridgewock tribe - - Petroglyphs. Mysteriously they survive the perpetual horrendous pounding of the annual spring flood waters.

Petroglyphs are rock carvings accomplished by hammering the surface of a large rock with a small hand held harder stone. The resulting indentations were carefully placed to form drawings. Primitive but pristine art projecting the natives' existence and lives into the unimaginable distant future. It certainly required many peaceful summer or fall hours there beside the Kennebec River's slow moving restful waters to complete the individual's thought.

I can easily identify one messenger as Chief Bomazine, leader of the Norridgewalk Tribe. The Norridgewock's village was approximately ten miles downriver from the Indian Rock at the place where Anson and Madison now set. The tribe's fame is of Father Sebastian Raisle, a French Jesuit priest who chose to leave France and live among the Abenakies and teach them about the Christian God. The tribe's warriors were more involved with raids in the Portsmouth, New Hampshire area and the Isle of Shoals.

It is easy to detect the Norridgewock's confusion with the God/Death/Heaven concept. Upon the great Indian Rock is a drawing of Father Raisle's wooden church with bell tower and all. Projecting from the church roof is a ladder pointing into the sky. On the ground surrounding the little church lays food; vegetables, raccoon, deer parts, woodchuck, etc., all ready for consumption. These folks had determined that it was a long hard climb up to where God lives and they weren't going there hungry.

In addition to canoes, hunting tools, thunder birds and, believe it or not, sexual depictions, there is an indentation of a woman with a papoose on her back. It is toward the river's edge and closely adjacent with a thunderbird. Chief Bomazine's famous totum (signature) was a woman with a papoose on her back.

Bomazine means "slippery cloth" in old English. The chief earned this name from the British by frequently escaping their grip when slipping out of their Boston prison undetected. Chief Bomazine was ambushed and slaughtered with musket fire during the dark early morning hours by British Captain Moulton of Kittery, Maine and his troops. Bomazine was shot down in the middle of the Kennebec River. He was crossing to run upriver from his family's camp and save his tribesmen and women from the bloody British attack. That day - the soldiers killed nearly all except Bomaine's wife and daughter who escaped the bloodbath. The Norridgewock tribe lived no more - - except in memory.

WMP

GOLDFINCH

This morning I sipped my black coffee and studied the Goldfinch at their feeding stations that I long since placed along the rear wood line. (Society really should find something more productive for us old duffers to do.) The Finch's beautiful bright yellow plumage is pretty much gone. Nonetheless, I find them interesting year-round because of their weird bobbing like flight maneuvers.

The Institute of Biological Sciences says that the color changes are due to plumage wear and breakage thus revealing the bright yellow at the base of the rachillae (the feather stem) during the Spring of the year.

WELL!! - here goes an opinion forming. I decided to study nature for myself. You know - Wayne's Way. Back in October I began to notice the Finch's' yellow color turning a shade of light green. I had not paid attention before, thus this caught my attention. This morning I observed the Finch are nearly light brown. A whole new study scheme formed in my mind. I began to wonder if light level played any part in this coloration change. Yes, I ignored the Institute of Biological Sciences! So I decided to note the color events from September 21st through December 21st (Winter Equinox). I will then pay attention from December 21st to March 21st. If the Finch's bright yellow is at the same level next March 2008 as it was during September 2007, I will know BioOne is wrong and I am correct.

How's that for fool proof scientific study? And I didn't go to college for it! It is just so Natural for me!

If you would like to be one of my disciples just hang out YourTube of thistle seed and study. I don't want to hear your report though. In this study only I can be right - Way Right.

WMP