What is it with these stones?

[Kathar1na]

My question concerns the cairns that are being built along the trail and the piles of stones on the waymarkers and at the foot of Christian crosses and other memorials. Is any of this a local tradition or age-old pilgrimage tradition? I have seen the word "sorrow stones" in this connection. Where does this come from? The stones on the waymarkers - are they picked up and carried and put down again? Or are people creating these small stones piles and the cairns mainly because they see it and imitate it?

And a last question: I admit that we built a small cairn once. It was on a high mountain in the Markka valley of Ladakh which is largely Buddhist. We did it because we thought: "You never know ..." . What are they called, does anyone know? I cannot remember the name and cannot find it anywhere. They serve as individual shelters for one's soul for a certain time (weeks?) after death.

 

[VNwalking]

Katharina, I have to admit I wondered about this too while walking on the CF.
As far as crossover is concerned as far as I know, this isn't in SE Asian Buddhist lineages. In the Tibetan and Mongolian traditions, though, you can sometimes find cairns at passes--a practice generally thought to have been assimilated from earlier animistic traditions. The mani walls you'd have seen in Ladakh are different and much bigger. These days in Ladakh where there are a lot of tourists (the passes on the road from Manali, for example) you can see exactly this kind of proliferation of little cairns, perhaps from the many Indian biker tourists stopping at passes to have a break from bumping along on their Enfields (this looks like total torture to me--I'd far rather walk, even at that elevation!)
The earlier forms are usually offerings to local deities...perhaps the newer built by tourists are more likely be a geological version of grafitti: "I was here and built this..." ??

 

[Tincatinker]

Cairns have a multiplicity of meanings and uses. In mountain and moorland settings in the UK they serve(d) as navigational aids and boundary or assembly point markers long before the days of GPS and those hideous bits of plastic ribbon. A practice echoed by the Ordnance Survey with their trigonometrical pillars. Similar practice can be found in much of Europe and probably dates from Meso or Neolithic migration and transhumance.

There are also Cairns of the Dead. Either to mark the passing of one individual or more often as shelter for the transient soul, occasionally even as a tally of the slain. Each placed a stone to build a cairn before battle the survivors removed a stone. The remaining stones told their own silent tale.

According to the Bible the first monuments were merely mounds of stones or insides of natural rock caves as the graves of Abraham and Isaac. The early Hebrews were nomadic tribes and shepherds and were not skilled in the arts of quarrying and stone carving until their contacts with Babylon and Egypt. It was the custom when passing by a mound of stones marking a grave to deposit one from the vicinity that may have fallen off. This became interpreted as a mark of thoughtfulness and regard for the memory of the departed one. These mounds of heavy rocks served to guard the graves from predatory beasts and grave robbers.
The only reference to "Sorrow stones" outside of the Hebraic tradition that I have seen is in Sue Kenny's "My Camino", where she suggests that by picking up a stone one can pass ones sorrows to it and by putting it down again put down those sorrows.

Modern, non-navigational, cairns may well be graffiti but they are much less of a scar on the landscape than those spray-painted motor-way bridge columns.

 

[alansykes]

One of the piles of stones that I liked was not especially ancient (in camino terms), near Santo Domingo de Silos on the Camino Castellano-Aragonés. In 1813, five years after removing the reliquary of Santo Domingo to safety from Napoleon's troops, the monks thought it would be safe to bring him back home. At the place, high above, near where the monastery is first clearly visible, the monks carrying the reliquary stopped to give thanks for their safe return. They marked the spot, now known as the Moreco del Santo, with a small cairn, and since then the tradition has grown up that everybody passing by should kiss a stone and add it to the pile, as I was happy to do a couple of weeks ago.

 

[Seabird]

This has become a problem in Hawai'i (where I lived for 19 years). The native Hawaiians considered it sacrilegious. See this article about the volcano area on the Big Island.

 

[VNwalking]

The native Hawaiians considered it sacrilegious

And we still do. Definitely grafitti in this case...
Auwe no ho'i...malama aina e!
(Until relatively recently there weren't some many of these ego monuments, but now they're all over the place. Like love locks in Paris such 'offerings' are not appreciated by everyone...)

 

[VNwalking]

They marked the spot, now known as the Moreco del Santo, with a small cairn, and since then the tradition has grown up that everybody passing by should kiss a stone and add it to the pile, as I was happy to do a couple of weeks ago.

This is different, though--it has some history. And as at the Cruz de Ferro, the rocks are pretty much in one place...
So no need for signs like the one below.

[Cross-over from another thread--the Camino may well be able to survive 300K+ pilgrims, but there will likely be a lot more of this kind of thing--along with the spontaneous piles of stuff around crosses and km markers. It's poignant--we sooooo want to leave our mark!]

 

[GettingThere]

We were walking along one day, just after Sarria I think, when a woman in a group just behind us lifted up one of her walking poles and dramatically swept the stones off the top of one of the way markers. She had a fierce expression on her face and almost shouted a word which I cannot now remember - I meant to look it up at the time and forgot, then couldn't remember enough of it! It began with a T (3 or 4 syllables) and I think was Spanish but I'm not sure. I got the impression she did not approve of the practice of leaving stones on these markers! I didn't see her again - if she planned to do the same thing every time she found one she would have built up some serious upper-body strength by the time she got to Santiago!

 

[grayland]

It was a practice in early America (by both whites and Idians) to mark trails with a small rock pile. I believe the normal was a pile of three. You still see the markers in some remote areas where the trail is not easily identified.
Not sure how that could have led to the monster piles on the CF. They were just an oddity in 2009, but now are overwhelming in some places. I suppose new pilgrims see them and think that it is a rite-of-passage of some type.

I have noted that they are starting to build up on the Norte, VdLP and Primitivo now.

 

[Seabird]

And we still do. Definitely grafitti in this case...
Auwe no ho'i...malama aina e!

Yes, it's sad that they don't respect and care for the land.

 

[VNwalking]

Yes, it's sad that they don't respect and care for the land.

Well, they simply don't know that what they're doing is disrespectful or even that it clutters the landscape. IME, once people understand, they are mostly quite sensitive, but it's a matter of education. What, after all, is wrong about a pile of a few rocks? It's not immediately obvious, especially for those who come from another place and who may not be 'country folks.' In big cities there are other norms.

 

[jesben1]

And here I thought it was just a random trend someone started by piling rocks on a lunch break haha.

 

[vegoodrich]

At home in the White Mountains of NH where I hike it is very dangerous to build extra cairns/rock piles along trails as there are often conditions where visibility is low and the CORRECT cairns/rock piles built by the national forest are very important. A cairn in an incorrect place can lead to people getting lost or otherwise off the trail. We have volunteers and trail workers who spend a lot of time taking them apart.

I was surprised by the number of piles on the camino.

 

[Anemone del Camino]

(Until relatively recently there weren't some many of these ego monuments, but now they're all over the place. Like love locks in Paris such 'offerings' are not appreciated by everyone...)

LOVE the coined term"ego monuments", bang on! Why else would anyone think it's ok to let the rest of the world "I was here". Reminds me of teenage graffiti on bathroom stall doors. Ironic since surely if their is one place that can teach you to check your ego at the door it's the Camino.

 

[Anemone del Camino]

In Canad we have the Inuksuk, used in the north to mark hunting grounds, food caches, camps, or to guide people in a particilar direction. These are LARGE upright mounds or stones. There is also the human shapped one, that many are familiar with, foind as miniatures in tourist shops but also on the Nunavut flag. The inuksuk is becoming part of Canada's iconography.

 

[VNwalking]

Ironic since surely if their is one place that can teach you to check your ego at the door it's the Camino.

Ah, but Anemone...it does fight back. And old habits die hard.....

 

[Cruiser52]

Hi
I have seen a lot of them in Tibet and when I ask about the meaning, I was told that they are to ask and wish for safe passage.
You are supposed to add a stone and balance it on the top, and you would be safe as long as it stay there.
They are usually found at highest crossing point of a mountain.

 

[VNwalking]

I just discovered more that is apropos to this discussion here:
https://www.caminodesantiago.me/community/threads/is-this-true.26343/#post-210386

 

[Anemone del Camino]

I wishI could remember where on the Caminos this was done, perhaps it wad somewhere near Lugo, but I maybe wrong, but an hosptitalero told me that pilgrims were asked to bring large and heavy stones from point a to point b to help build a monument. Was it for a church? Probably, and in a area where there was not enough rock so it had to bebrought in, and pilgrims were put to contribution. Does this ring a bell for anyone?

 

[Anemone del Camino]

Page 310 : In the 12th century, it was traditional for pilgrims to carry the calcium-rich stones found in this area to ovens near Castaneda, some 6 km east of Arzua, where they were made into cement for construction of the Compostela Cathedral.

That sounds a lot more plausible although I am a little unsure about the technical terms used here, i.e. calcium (ok) and cement (hm). Somehow I am missing the term "lime" in this context . Contributing in such a practical way to the building of churches and in particular cathedrals was not uncommon.

Bingo @Kathar1na , do you know where they were bringing the rocks from?

 

[Anemone del Camino]

Yes, I added it to my post but you were too quick : they brought them from the area around Triacastela.

In addition, on page 335 on Santa Maria de Castaneda: In the 12th century Codex Calixtinus guide, the author says that the ovens that produced lime for the Santiago Cathedral construction were in Santa Maria de Castaneda and that pilgrims were asked to bring stones with them from Triacastela to be processed here. Nothing remains of this operation.

What book are you quoting?

 

[Kathar1na]

What book are you quoting?

Gitlitz/Davidson, The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago.

 

[Peregrinopaul]

That sounds a lot more plausible although I am a little unsure about the technical terms used here, i.e. calcium (ok) and cement (hm). Somehow I am missing the term "lime" in this context .

Katrina, there are limestone mines, (i.e. calcium carbonate), near Triacastela. Limestone is burned to make cement.

 

[La Brique Jaune]

houted a word which I cannot now remember - I meant to look it up at the time and forgot, then couldn't remember enough of it! It began with a T (3 or 4 syllables)

If she's a French-Canadian, I know the world...It's a swear world.