In Lake Champlain, not far off the shore from Burlington, VT is a rock that stand out of the water which is not an island.  On the cruise ship, “Ethan Allen” the narrator pointed out the rock as we passed, and shared a couple stories about it.
 
To the Abenaki, Native Americans of the area, the rock is Oodzee-hoza, the name of an ancient being who lived in the area. He was said to have no legs or short legs, but very long arms to drag himself around the earth. He used those arms and his hands to create the hills, the valleys and the path of the rivers. The last thing he made was the lake, his masterpiece. He then transformed himself into the rock standing out of the water so that he might admire his creation in all its entirety. For hundreds of years the Abenaki would go out on the lake and offer pipes and tobacco to Oodzee-hozo, thinking if you allowed him to smoke, he would calm the winds to allow safe voyages across the lake
 
The rock has another name: Rock Dunder, less romantic. This name supposedly comes from an incident during the Battle of Valcour, part of the Revolutionary War, which took place on the lake. Nightfall found the American vessels blockaded, but they managed to slip out and flee south. In the morning, the British realized the Americans had gotten past, and so turned and fired after them. “In the morning fog, they fired on Rock Dunder, believing it to be a vessel. Only later, when the fog cleared did they realize their mistake. According to legend, the officer in charge cried out, “It’s a rock, by Dunder!” earning the place its name.
 
In more recent times, two versions of the story met up, in a sense, when a group of boaters thought it would be a good idea to blow up the rock with dynamite, to clear the channel for ships and boats coming into port. Only the Abenaki asked them not to, and explained why.  And so the rock remains, without a light, without trees, without visitors except those who may be paying a call to a being who they believe continues to enjoy and to share his most beautiful creation. 
 
It’s an interesting history for a rocky outcropping in the middle of the lake. But the message may be about the stories we hear as we grow up in this world, and the stories we tell to others and our children.  What do the stories reveal, and what importance do they signify? And, what stories do we choose to take in and to live by?

Sometimes, when I’m looking for another, better way, my thoughts turn to the distant past in a far away place, to the Etruscans – the ancient people of Tuscany, who pre-date the Romans, and whose culture and origins remain largely a mystery. Archeologists don’t know where they came from, and their language is unrelated to any in the Indo-European family. They were well-to-do, literate, expert craftsmen and traders, settled in de-centralized, resource-rich, hilltop city-states, pious but fun loving. They used an alphabet similar to ours today, but left little record of their history or beliefs. Instead, much of what is known about them comes from their burial places – villages of the dead called necropolis – which replicated and celebrated their domestic lives. Experts now say that much of what comes to us through the Romans – building techniques and systems of organization – came to them through the Etruscans. But in other ways, they are so very different.
 
The Greek and Roman historians who wrote about the Etruscans grudgingly admired their wealth, art, and technical accomplishments – but criticized much of their behavior, especially in regard to women. Etruscan women were literate, they could own and bequeath property, they could be priestesses, they could attend banquets, drinking and toasting with men (children were also welcome).  They kept their own names, and had their own burial “beds” or shared them with their husbands.  Evidence shows that some Etruscan women rode horses, and a Roman visitor declared that the women “stripped naked and exercised at the gymnasium with the men.” This was at a time when Roman women, under “paterfamilias” – the law of the father – were meant to be invisible and had only the female variant of their father’s name. And the Greek “symposium” – drinking and philosophizing parties were exclusively male. In the Greek tragedy, the Bacchae, middle-aged ladies get drunk and fancy themselves dogs pursuing and killing a stag. When they sober up, it turns out the deer was the teen age son of one of the women –not a happy outcome. In the Etruscan world, the more egalitarian partnership of husband and wife is honored on tombs which depict couples in loving embrace.
 
In other aspects, the Etruscan were quite unique – again, as reported by outside visitors. They used music to lure wild animals in the hunt, and herded goats and pigs with a flute – a la Pied Piper. Funerals were occasions of dancing, music and athletic events. Etruscans were guided by priests, trained at colleges, who used divination to determine the will of the gods, principally through reading of lightning, animal livers, and the flight of birds. Divination guided all activities, large and small, giving spiritual meaning to all aspects of life. Initially, the gods were fairly abstract forces, but later Greek gods and mythology were adapted for Etruscan purposes. Even the chief gods acted in consensus with other gods, and even the most powerful had mixed duties, including the nurturing and sustenance of infants and children. To reach the afterlife required a journey by land and sea, which began with a high dive (no kidding). The afterlife itself, initially, was more banqueting and the continuation of this life’s pleasures.
 
The Etruscan “Golden” age was probably around 700 BC to about 300 BC, when the Roman incursions began. Parts of Etruscan culture persisted until the fall of Rome in 400, over a thousand-year period. The final centuries were darker, more somber, as reflected in their art. They had been known as fierce fighters against the Greeks and Phoenicians, but they were not able or willing to band together to resist Rome, never uniting under a “tyrant” who would lead and rule them all. Instead, they faced decline with the same fatalistic attitude as their long run of the good life, all of it determined ultimately by the gods. Eventually, their villages were Romanized, and what remains is their burial places and likely some of their DNA in today’s Tuscans.
 
Still so much is unknown about the Etruscans. And there were negative aspects of the culture as well, including owning enslaved people – also criticized by the Romans as too well dressed, well fed and well housed. Yet, they left a legacy not only of life well lived, but of the possibility that such a life can be lived. Other societies, too, have had their long eras of the “good life” for most of their members, not just for those on top who exploited those below, mainly by means of violence. Many indigenous peoples have had histories of respectful relations between groups and genders. But the Etruscans stand out as a literate people in somewhat urban settings, who manufactured high quality products and art, yet resisted the impulses of all those other societies around them to dominate within and without.