When people think of Africa they don't usually think of Cupid, Valentines Day, or love being shot by a bow and arrow. However, for the month of February I am going to write about this topic from my perspective. How I came to connect Ancient African history of the Bow and Arrow to the Greeks and Romans as well as early Freemasons in America, for whatever its worth. I found the connections startling.
Some years ago I conducted some Egypt in Nashville tours to share with the Nashville community my research on the connections of Egyptian thought and architecture in Nashville. I drew from an Egyptian Architecture course I took while an undergraduate student in Anthropology and African Studies at Vanderbilt University. As well as talks with William Henry, local African Americans and Native Americans with a history of the land there. Moreover, my research on Seshat led me to see many connections between all with a common thread of the Freemasons.
One Freemason in particular that I found an interest in was the founder of the Tennessee Centennial Celebration in 1897, It previously had been a farm purchased in 1783 by John Cockrill, the brother-in-law to James Robertson and houses Lake Watauga. At the time we were the foremost western state. President Theodore Roosevelt wrote that the Watauga settlers were the "first men of American birth to establish a free and independent community on the continent." Watauga river at Centennial Park is my Nashville version of the Nile.
This is the pyramid that once stood next to The Parthenon which now, since 1990, houses a spear touting Athena, Nashville's Athena stands 41'10" tall, making her the largest piece of indoor sculpture in the Western World. There is now a parking lot at this site. It was called the "Pyramid of Cheops" and measured 1\6th its size. There is also still standing at the park a memorial to James Robertson who came from the Watauga settlement to found Tennessee. A second boat on that trip included a man named Black Bob or Robert Renfroe. He was known for being good with the bow and arrow, and communicating with the Native Americans. He was credited with helping to save the boat that included a young Rachel Donelson who later married Andrew Jackson. He had archery skills, and thus they made it past the spear throwing natives who were protecting their land.
"Native Americans migrating from the present-day St. Louis area founded the once-thriving community along the Harpeth River about 1,000 years ago. in the late 900s or early 1000s A.D. a complex society arose on what is now the Mound Bottom site Intensive use of the site lasted until about 1350 A.D.
Recent research at Mound Bottom suggests a connection to Cahokia, which was the largest city in America before Europeans arrived, the documents say. Cahokia is located in what is now southern Illinois across the Mississippi River from St. Louis.... No known descendants of this culture have been found. Around 1450s AD they left in what appears to be a hurry based on the number of broken pottery. This abandonment of the region is part of a larger pattern seen in parts of the Ohio, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Cumberland River valleys known as the "Vacant Quarter" hypothesis. The Natchez Indians chief was called the "Great Sun". They recognized the same Kemetic sun symbol as the sun and drew it on a cliff on the Harpeth River bend near three pyramids...If on the mountain overlooking Mound Bottom you can see a Macehead at Mace Bluff. Moreover, a Hawk petroglyph with crown mace wings, can be seen at' Devil Step Hollow Cave, Tennessee."' Toye E. Heape provided me and my group with a tour of the area and explained to us the astronomical alignment of the site, as well as the hand and eye motif Native American significance.
His grave site is at the top of a hill overlooking Nashville at Mt Olivet. The name Olivet alone peaked my interest because of its kemetic connotations and biblical significance. With all these replica's going on and copying of names I wanted to tie these things in together to see what they meant to the ancients and the Freemasons. His tomb is a mini replica of Cheops pyramid. As I stood there i thought what a nice view atop this Confederate hill. Many confederates took over ancient native american burial "mounds" and occupied them, re-purposed the ancient pyramid sites. Mt Olivet isn't designated an ancient pyramid site as far as I know. However, it is flooded with obelisk and sarcophagi.
"Home of the 7th President of the United States and featured on the $20 bill. I see Obelisk everywhere. This time down the street from Andrew Jackson's home and the Du Pont plant. Not far from the river. They were around the corner from each other one on the Triangle in a pentagram." "Friend to Robert "Black Bob" Renfro. Obelisk in pentagram on square base, horus/bird/eagle emblem. Du Pont factory in the background. " The Du Pont funded TVA damns were built to rival those of the Nile Valley."
Cherokee-Cumberland war of 1794
The first nine month of 1794 witnessed more than forty raids on the Mero District by the Cherokee as well as the Muscogee. A major invasion by a joint Cherokee-Muscogee army collapsed in the face of dissension between warriors of the two nations. The Nickajack Expedition in September by federal, territorial, and Kentucky militia forces destroyed the towns of Nickajack and Running Water, leading the Cherokee to sue for a final peace.
tbc...
Some years ago I conducted some Egypt in Nashville tours to share with the Nashville community my research on the connections of Egyptian thought and architecture in Nashville. I drew from an Egyptian Architecture course I took while an undergraduate student in Anthropology and African Studies at Vanderbilt University. As well as talks with William Henry, local African Americans and Native Americans with a history of the land there. Moreover, my research on Seshat led me to see many connections between all with a common thread of the Freemasons.
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| Lake Watauga, Nashville, TN |
This is the pyramid that once stood next to The Parthenon which now, since 1990, houses a spear touting Athena, Nashville's Athena stands 41'10" tall, making her the largest piece of indoor sculpture in the Western World. There is now a parking lot at this site. It was called the "Pyramid of Cheops" and measured 1\6th its size. There is also still standing at the park a memorial to James Robertson who came from the Watauga settlement to found Tennessee. A second boat on that trip included a man named Black Bob or Robert Renfroe. He was known for being good with the bow and arrow, and communicating with the Native Americans. He was credited with helping to save the boat that included a young Rachel Donelson who later married Andrew Jackson. He had archery skills, and thus they made it past the spear throwing natives who were protecting their land.
My interest in Black Bob and WHY he was the first free black man of Tennessee, and WHY so many Freemasons signed his freedom papers let me to look at who the Freemasons were in Nashville and how the name Nashville could have come about.
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| Union Station |
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| 7 acre cannonball cotton gin assault, franklin, tn |
Turns out the founder of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition was a Freemason, Major Eugene Castner Lewis. He also helped develop Union Station, the train station in Nashville with a statue of Mercury/Hermes at the top of its obelisk. His father managed the Cumberland Iron Works, which enslaved Africans to extract iron from Dickson, TN and make cannonballs. I had a dream about him I heard horses and a train, happened to be on his birthday, so I decided to check out his grave site at Mt Olivet, Confederate Circle. It was a pretty surreal dream so I went with it and dug into this man's life. It lead me to making a connection between the native american pyramids of Middle Tennessee to the Freemasons. Mr Lewis owned a home with multiple "mounds" from the Mississippian period near Mound Bottom State Archaeological Area. His home and land happened to be up for sale at the time I was researching him but the agent wasn't available to show me the property. Because it is a private property the mounds there have not be studied for public knowledge. So we really don't know whats there. We do know what's nearby, however.
Recent research at Mound Bottom suggests a connection to Cahokia, which was the largest city in America before Europeans arrived, the documents say. Cahokia is located in what is now southern Illinois across the Mississippi River from St. Louis.... No known descendants of this culture have been found. Around 1450s AD they left in what appears to be a hurry based on the number of broken pottery. This abandonment of the region is part of a larger pattern seen in parts of the Ohio, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Cumberland River valleys known as the "Vacant Quarter" hypothesis. The Natchez Indians chief was called the "Great Sun". They recognized the same Kemetic sun symbol as the sun and drew it on a cliff on the Harpeth River bend near three pyramids...If on the mountain overlooking Mound Bottom you can see a Macehead at Mace Bluff. Moreover, a Hawk petroglyph with crown mace wings, can be seen at' Devil Step Hollow Cave, Tennessee."' Toye E. Heape provided me and my group with a tour of the area and explained to us the astronomical alignment of the site, as well as the hand and eye motif Native American significance.
His grave site is at the top of a hill overlooking Nashville at Mt Olivet. The name Olivet alone peaked my interest because of its kemetic connotations and biblical significance. With all these replica's going on and copying of names I wanted to tie these things in together to see what they meant to the ancients and the Freemasons. His tomb is a mini replica of Cheops pyramid. As I stood there i thought what a nice view atop this Confederate hill. Many confederates took over ancient native american burial "mounds" and occupied them, re-purposed the ancient pyramid sites. Mt Olivet isn't designated an ancient pyramid site as far as I know. However, it is flooded with obelisk and sarcophagi.  |
| 9/4/2013 7th Ave Nashville Masonic Lodge with a ritual sphinx similar to the two flanked at Eugene Lewis tomb |
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| Top Left, Arrow and star at Eugene Lewis' tomb. Top right, beyonce dancing over star and arrow. bottom right Russian Tula Arrow in Star (post 1928). Photo I took in 2013. |
Outside of the fact that I was doing a cemetery walk looking at a pyramid tombstone atop a Confederate mound surrounded by obelisk overlooking Nashville's ancient native american pyramid sites, there was nothing unusual about the scene. But the one thing I couldn't figure out was the arrow on the ground in front of the Cheops replica. I wanted to know what it meant, what it was pointing at. I just couldn't figure it out. I came back May 11, 2013 a second time to look again and there was a blue tree at his pyramid. It was small, but bizarre, as it wasn't Christmas. And even if it was, why in the world would someone put it at a gravesite? I had just wrote about the color blue.
Eugene Lewis was the president of a railroad company and went to school at the Pennsylvania Military Academy in the mid 1800s. Strangely, he was born the same month that President Andrew Jackson, also a Freemason and friend to Black Bob, died-June 1845. While they didn't cross paths they were connected outside of their 7th Ave lodge affiliation. Lewis' Sycamore Mills was the parent of World War I powder mills at Old Hickory built by Du Pont. The Du Pont family from France, Freemason friend of Thomas Jefferson in Paris, who had the government use them as the supplier of gunpowder.
On August 2, 2014 I happened to drive by Du Pont in Old Hickory, TN, a suburb of Nashville.. I took some pictures and noted:
I wondered about the origin of the term old hickory and found a native connection:: "Artemis Caryatis. in Ojibwe, hickory is called "mitigwaabaak", a compound of mitigwaab "bow" and the final -aakw "hardwood tree" The Ojibwe (also Ojibwa or Ojibway) or Chippewa (also Chippeway) are among the largest groups of Native AmericansÐFirst Nations north of Mexico.They are historically known for their crafting of birch bark canoes, sacred birch bark scrolls, use of cowrie shells for trading, cultivation of wild rice, and use of copper arrow points. In 1745 they adopted guns from the British to use to defeat and push the Dakota nation of the Sioux to the south.... According to the oral history, seven great miigis (radiant/iridescent) beings appeared to the peoples in the Waabanakiing (Land of the Dawn, i.e., Eastern Land) to teach them the mide way of life. One of the seven great miigis beings was too spiritually powerful and killed the peoples in the Waabanakiing when they were in its presence. The six great miigis beings remained to teach, while the one returned into the ocean.
The six great miigis beings established doodem (clans) for the peoples in the east, symbolized by animal, fish or bird species. The five original Anishinaabe doodem were the Wawaazisii (Bullhead), Baswenaazhi (Echo-maker, i.e., Crane), Aan'aawenh (Pintail Duck), Nooke (Tender, i.e., Bear) and Moozoonsii (Little Moose), then these six miigis beings returned into the ocean as well. If the seventh miigis being stayed, it would have established the Thunderbird doodem.
At a later time, one of these miigis appeared in a vision to relate a prophecy. It said that if the Anishinaabeg did not move further west, they would not be able to keep their traditional ways alive because of the many new settlements and European immigrants who would arrive soon in th..."
The six great miigis beings established doodem (clans) for the peoples in the east, symbolized by animal, fish or bird species. The five original Anishinaabe doodem were the Wawaazisii (Bullhead), Baswenaazhi (Echo-maker, i.e., Crane), Aan'aawenh (Pintail Duck), Nooke (Tender, i.e., Bear) and Moozoonsii (Little Moose), then these six miigis beings returned into the ocean as well. If the seventh miigis being stayed, it would have established the Thunderbird doodem.
At a later time, one of these miigis appeared in a vision to relate a prophecy. It said that if the Anishinaabeg did not move further west, they would not be able to keep their traditional ways alive because of the many new settlements and European immigrants who would arrive soon in th..."
Let's go back 100 years before the Centennial Celebration to the founding of Tennessee. I'm digressing and must get back to Ancient Nubia, its capital Memphis, African Iron, and the bows and arrows that came with the legacy of African warriors who were pyramid builders. Amidst all these pyramids in America there is only one place on the planet that has more pyramids than even Egypt, Meroe, land of the Nubians, experts of the bow and arrow. While pyramids are associated with Egypt, the nation of Sudan has 220 extant pyramids, the most numerous in the world built around the 300s BC. If Cahokia Mounds includes the mounds in Tennessee, Ohio, and Georgia it would rival Nubia in pyramid structures but on the American continent, its sister continent as deemed by Freemason founding fathers. Meroe also happens to the the first name of Middle Tennessee.
The ancient Egyptians called Nubia land Ta-Seti. Land of the Bow. The people of the Nile Valley called their land Ta-merau, land of Mera -Egypt. Mer(i), Meroe, Meru, and the people the Moors. "We find the name Moor, in reference to whom the Greeks called “Ethiopians” mentioned in ancient records of the Chaldeans (Babylonians) under the name “Mirukh.”The Hindus knew our ancient fathers by the name “Meru.” The Greeks knew our ancient ancestors as the Meropes. And the Egyptians, who kept the best records, recorded themselves as TA-MERAU with the “au” denoting plurality as in the name of the people collectively. We can safely assume that the “ukh” in Mirukh, the “u” in Meru and the “opes” in Meropes, is merely there in that ancient vernacular to represent plurality."
The ancient Egyptians called Nubia land Ta-Seti. Land of the Bow. The people of the Nile Valley called their land Ta-merau, land of Mera -Egypt. Mer(i), Meroe, Meru, and the people the Moors. "We find the name Moor, in reference to whom the Greeks called “Ethiopians” mentioned in ancient records of the Chaldeans (Babylonians) under the name “Mirukh.”The Hindus knew our ancient fathers by the name “Meru.” The Greeks knew our ancient ancestors as the Meropes. And the Egyptians, who kept the best records, recorded themselves as TA-MERAU with the “au” denoting plurality as in the name of the people collectively. We can safely assume that the “ukh” in Mirukh, the “u” in Meru and the “opes” in Meropes, is merely there in that ancient vernacular to represent plurality."
The first nine month of 1794 witnessed more than forty raids on the Mero District by the Cherokee as well as the Muscogee. A major invasion by a joint Cherokee-Muscogee army collapsed in the face of dissension between warriors of the two nations. The Nickajack Expedition in September by federal, territorial, and Kentucky militia forces destroyed the towns of Nickajack and Running Water, leading the Cherokee to sue for a final peace.
tbc...
Thank you for your exhaustive research. I especially like the Black Indigenous information and relationships. Your commitment to our history is quite evident. Can't wait for you to lead more tours in Nashville.
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