In 1804 my Native American great, great, great, great grandfather bent a tree in northern Georgia to mark his trail. When he passed that way again a few years later, an ice storm had bent hundreds of trees and they pointed in every possible direction. He followed the wrong one and never found his way back home and that's why my family now lives in Arkansas. .
Richard, thanks for reading and commenting. Those who believe the trail tree lore are well-meaning, so I didn't mean to call them out. I wanted to state the case why we can confidently say that they aren't trail trees.
@@TheSouthIsHot Correct. Some people (on both sides) take this personally and get into name-calling of those they disagree with. I've deleted a few comments, ironically of those who agree with the video but got carried away with demeaning others. Those on each side of this issue are simply nice folks that believe they're right.
Glad you pointed out the tree age thing. I've said this to people before. While there are a few species that would live long enough, like the white oak you mentioned, most of the bent trees they see are too young to have been around when the Indians roamed those areas. People don't get it.
Thanks, moncorp, for watching and commenting. Most of "Trail Tree" believers heard the bent tree story first, believed it, and wish to continue believing it. It's a appealing story and they hold it dearly as an article of faith or fact or both.
I mark boundaries for millions of acres of timber farms. I cut my teeth in Franklin and Carrollton Georgia. These trees are almost ALWAYS on square or rectangular property lots. I saw some whiteoak recently in Alabama that were darn close to colonial. Yet always on a property line. Thankyou for clearing up the misinformation on this subject. It has annoyed me for many years!
Thanks, Brandan. A clarification. I do a great deal of hiking on trails and bushwhacking through the national forests and other timberland. I find these bent trees everywhere. IE, not only on property lines or at corners. Since they occur naturally and abundantly, you'd expect to find them statistically dispersed throughout woodlands, as indeed they are.
Brandon, coming back to your post with another thought. Trees (bent ones or not) on property lines have long been used as a way to mark property lines, as in the old descriptions that went something like this: "From the road, travel due north 300 feet to a black walnut; thence due east 300 feet to a red oak..." etc. Trees on property lines were often "monuments" and therfore less likely to be cut. A farmer or landowner might cut trees on his property for firewood or to build or to sell but would me less likely to cut those serving as monuments. Therefore, those trees were more likely to survive and would be much larger and older than the average tree in the area.
In some countries trees are pruned and let grow to form knees and yokes for boat building mainly in Nordic and Scandinavian countries I've been told and as a boat builder I can see the advantage of this process, I use the same process when growing thickets to form walking sticks
Yes, bent trees are useful in wooden boat building, though it's a long, long process for any kind of larger boats. But for smaller ones, like handcrafted canoes and such, it might still be done. And there are enough natural bent trees, at least in the southeastern U.S., where it might be efficient to simply seek out those. But smaller things like hiking sticks would be pretty easy to find, especially since white oak is one of the more common bent trees. For hiking sticks, I like to use dogwood. But they are slow growing and that might take 30 to 40 years to make a walking staff. Hickory probably the same. Thanks for reading and contributing.
Great video. I spent a lot of years as a forest worker in the western US and have seen many pine and fir trees shaped just like the ones in the video. Bigger trees fell on them years ago when they were small, and they continued to grow crooked afterward. People like to believe all kinds of wild explanations for unusual things. But Mother Nature is the most common reason that trees grow like this. I did also spend a few years working in the Sam Houston National Forest in Texas, and I remember there was a 3-notch road there, and also a 4-notch road. I never knew why they were named that. Now I know. Glad to have learned something new. Keep up the good work!
Thanks, Ginny, for reading and adding your thoughts from your time in the forests out west and in Texas. There are notch roads as far up as New England. I think there's a Six Notch Road in Vermont!
@@georgiabackroads8906 Thank You or your comments. I have put a few logs on the truck, implementing commercial timber sales in the PNW. I have seen many snow damaged trees. Even trees with chains imbedded. Once. I cruised a 🌲. A dead dog was chained to it. That was the Olympic Peninsula. But trail trees. Not a factor. Keep on keeping on. Victor.
The title sprung out at me because I had seen videos/articles talking about "trail trees." This is excellent information. The video and some of the comments lead me to make the following comments: 1) "Nature" is chaotic, random and full of coincidences. It is human beings who attempt to impose order, purpose and intent. 2) The life force is strong. "These creatures require our absence to survive, not our help. And if we could only step aside and trust in nature, life will find a way.” - The character Ian Malcom in the film Jurassic Park. 3) Just because your grandparents said it doesn't make it true.
Iain, I'm glad the title sprung out to you. Thank you for viewing the video and commenting. My family is a big fan of Malcom's "life will find a way" observation. :)
My dad and uncle bent a tree on their property when they were kids. (South Fulton County) The tree is still standing, but the property was sold long ago and is now a subdivision. And the tree is part of someone’s yard. I’ve wondered over the years if the people that live there have ever been curious about that.
Thank you, cindydavis, for sharing that. Eventually, some well-meaning person or organization might erect a marker by the tree to note that it is a "Cherokee Indian trail tree," but you'll know otherwise.
I remember a tree on a trail I used to walk all the time. It has bent sideways and had four or five branches growing straight up. These branches had grown so tall and large they were the same size as surrounding trees. It was amazing that the original tree was able to hold up the weight of essential four or five full size trees on its side. But I’ve also seen a tree where it had been bent over and the top buried. The buried top had grown up from the new spot. I doubt it was a natural event since the tree actually went back underground before growing straight up. Someone suggested to me it was a pointer to a nearby spring. Maybe I don’t know but all the trees in the video here did look like natural events and not like the one example I saw that I think might have been a pointer tree. I live in southwest Virginia btw.
We had two such trees on the farm where I grew up in southern Ontario. They were on the north side of a reforestated plantation of pines that were planted in the 1930s. My dad figured they had been bent by snow. There was no way any 1st Nations person bent them for trail markers. Thanks for helping to debunk the notion of "trail markers". I can also concur in your statements that surveyors blaze lines. As a surveyor I have done this. Blazes last far longer than bent trees.
Thanks, Hugh. Snow is a fairly common culprit in creating bent trees. There's a famous photo of a stand of pines in Poland, each one the same age and bent exactly the same way. When the pines were saplings, wintertime snow was several inches deep. Then an ice storm or snowstorm came and bent those pines down to the snowpack. They stayed that way long enough that when the snow melted, each remained bent over and then took on an strikingly uniform bent-tree shape. So it happens in Europe too, though I don't think as commonly. It probably happens worldwide, though I haven't looked that far. Re: your note about blazes (and notches), yes, they are long-lasting, stand out, and are quick and easy to do.
YES! Thank you! I know of a forest in Utah, in the Uintah Mountain range that has hundreds of trees bent like this. When I heard the theory of them being trail trees, it made absolutely NO SENSE! Great video - thanks again!
Thank you for viewing and commenting. It's been fifty years since I've visited the lovely Uintas, but I remember them well. I didn't know there were bent trees there. Are they mostly aspens?
@@georgiabackroads8906 You're welcome. I grew up in Duchesne, just to the south. The bent trees are pine. The first time I saw them, I went with a friend and his family to cut fire wood, and we had to drive through this forest of bent trees to get to the firewood location. My first thought, they looked like a forest of chairs! There isn't enough of a slope to be caused by an avalanche, so I've always wondered what could have caused them to grow that way. Your explanation makes absolute sense. The Uinta mountains get a lot of snow, which makes perfect sense. I do find it strange that there are so many - hundreds of them. Like I said - a forest of chairs! LOL!
Just as guess about the pines. If they were all bent the same way and in close proximity to each other, its likely that there was a snowpack surrounding the young pines. Then a storm - probably ice or snow - made them top heavy, bending them down to the snowpack. They stayed that way long enough to remain bent, even after the snow and/or ice melted. That left them in a position to then grow into the usual bent-tree shapes. And if the pines are of uniform age, they might've been planted by hand. Else, there was a fire or other calamity that cleared the area, and then it reseeded with pines of approximately the same age. There's a famous bent-tree forest in Poland that's just what you're describing.
You're correct on some of those trees but others, you're wrong. 'Marker Trees" on my farm, leads to a farm next to mine and they lead to a spot where there are an abundance of old American Indian artifacts, a settlement. I first learned of "marker trees" long before the internet, from a REAL American Indian Chief here in Virginia .
Thanks, Charles, for watching and commenting. Bent trees are natural and abundant, pointing in every possible direction, thus inevitably pointing to any given place. Some of those places might be Indian mounds or old Indian villages or creeks or golf courses or schools or Wal-Marts. The pointing to each is accidental and coincidental. The bent tree in my yard points to my mailbox and the neighbor's yard and a distant highway and the next town to the north and eventually to Chickamauga Battlefield and Chattanooga and some of the American Indian locations nearby. But each point is coincidental. The tree is natural, less than 100 years old, and isn't a trail tree or marker tree.
Agreed. My Gpa grew up with the coastal Native Americans around Humboldt county after his mom died. He was 12 or 13 at the time and told me many things from his time with them......this way of marking the trail was one of the things he taught me....I'm 73 this year. So, you can safely, truly say some of the trees are not trail trees, but, some of them are, lots of them are.
I had seen some marker tree videos and found them hard to believe - your explanation seems much more logical. One thing I did not understand with the marker tree idea was how humans could’ve bent them into that shape. Trees are not like pipe cleaners that can just be put into an exact shape so to try to make a marker tree would take decades if not longer. The fact that many of these trees are not old enough to have been made by Native Americans is probably the best proof. Thanks for your video.
At 1:05, the tree bend is likely a Sasquatch tree structure, as it's distinctly anchored to the ground. This arch was done after the tree next to it fell; it was not affected and was untouched by the other tree when it fell initially. Trail marker trees do exist, and marked trails can be identified by GPS location, as these ancient trees show unique trails connecting specific areas.
As noted in the video, American Indians did not mark trails by bending trees. The evidence is overwhelming, though I recognize some reject the credible and prefer to believe an incredible hypothesis not supported by science nor the historical record. As for "Sasquatch tree structure," I'm not sure what you mean.
I've seen bent trees with markers and have assumed over eager sign posters have misunderstood natural processes. Thank you for your article. ( oh, sure......there are exceptions but mostly the signage is tabulation. )😊
Appreciate the logical approach. Where I reside just west of Chicago there has been no indigenous population of any consequence for at least 190 years. And virtually only hand handful of trees for miles around that are older than that. Yet many purport that a few bent trees around here are trail markers. Not possible given the age of said trees. Thanks for your video.
Thanks, Matthew. There's a famous case from Chicago in which a group dedicated a marker to a trail tree. A man wrote the newspaper to say, "I was there when a storm split that tree (about 50 or 70 years before) and know firsthand that American Indians didn't bend it." That's all set forth in a newspaper letter to the editor circa early 1900s (I have a copy somewhere). The trail tree folks dismiss that as "typical skepticism of skeptics." It shows the lengths some will go to in order to protect a cherished fable or, as the newspaper letter writer referred to it, a "pretty conceit."
This makes a lot more sense. Why would Native Americans go through the trouble of bending trees, which would have been confused with naturally bent trees, when all they had to do was mark the tree?
We’ve got a huge one in Kingston. It’s near a natural spring. We find arrowheads and spears on the property all the time. It might have been a property line. It’s close to the edge of the current property line.
Kingston folks are good folks. There are the occasional instances in which man bent them but the vast, vast, vast majority are natural. In the past two weeks, I've hiked trails from NE Alabama to North Georgia and have seen hundreds of these trees. Of that number, perhaps 20 were very big...and almost certainly very natural.
I’ve seen bent trees with rocks barely visible that the tree has grown around at the “nose”; this seems purposeful to me. Also, not all the Cherokee left on the trail of tears.
The Eastern Band remained in North Carolina, and for a time there were holdouts and hideaways in the mountains of Georgia and Tennessee and Alabama. But the Cherokee were essentially gone from the Southeastern states, except for North Carolina, by 1838. As for rocks in the nose of trees, mankind definitely placed them there, though I've never come across one myself. Who placed them there and why? Probably nobody knows except the people who placed them, which might've been Scouts or anybody else who happened by, including possibly the Cherokee or Creek. I've heard of people finding arrowheads in them, though I've never seen that. But bear in mind that perhaps 98% of bent trees in the Southeast are less than 200 years old, so any rocks or arrowheads or anything else placed in a nose probably wasn't done by American Indians.
Wow! You mean that there is still a tree there that was already alive while the Battle of Chickamagua was raging? My late wife was 1/2 Cherokee (no.Georgia) and 1/2 Potawatomi (great lakes) I live in no.metro Atlanta. There are some really old oaks near me. My neighbor was told, that one on his property,dates back to 1850-60. Trees are one of God's greatest gifts to us.
Yes, in the eastern U.S., several tree species have lifespans of 400 to 500 years or more. Among these are white oak and live oak. Yellow poplar has a life span of 300 years. So we have some eastern hardwoods dating back to the time before Georgia was a colony and likely to before the time Columbus "discovered" the Americas. Some of the biggest bent trees, especially white oak, are probably 300+ years old.
Thank you for "straightening this out (pun intended)" with applied reason. Anyone who has spent time in wooded areas has seen these natural marvels, both in their incipience (tagged by windfall) and in their maturity. I have no doubt that there are very occasional instances of twining and suchlike resulting from the whimsy of some human passerby, but intentional marking--as you said--must be done with the signal's longevity in mind.
I beg to differ. Although not all are marker trees and happen naturally, marker trees are most definately a real thing and were used by not only Natives but also by farmers, hunters and pioneers to mark boundaries and trails. "TRAIL TREES" are usually identifiable by the bend or markings and when connected with other such trees nearby
Thank you for watching and contributing your thoughts. I noted both in the video and in many comments here that trees have been bent to mark boundary lines and corners. Occasionally they are bent by hunters and Scouts to keep their fannies off the wet ground, a temporary seat that may bend the tree sufficient to turn it into a permanent bent tree. But nearly all bent trees are natural, and the Cherokee and Creek people did not make a practice of bending trees to mark trails or anything else.
Soon as I saw the video about "Trail Trees" I had my doubts. Like you, I've seen too many trees in the Alabama woods (haven't travelled GA woods enough) to know that many, if not all, must occur naturally. When they reported that an old Indian once told a white man that his fellow natives left such trees, I suspected that he lied to the white man to confuse him or perhaps as a joke. That was not uncommon at times. Again, thanks for your video. It was needed. I hope it gets wider circulation.
Natives did mark with trail trees. By them witnessing fallen trees naturally causing this on saplings, they adopted the idea to use vines to tie saplings down to communicate to others. Although this is still naturally occurring, certain trees from that era are not naturally made from fallen timber bending saplings. The gift box areas carved out can distinguish native trail trees. If it weren’t true, why would old natives tell of them?
Clyde, thank you for watching and commenting. I recognize the sincerity of your thoughts, which you state well. I can only say that there's zero evidence historically that American Indians did this, there's logical reasons to doubt it (because there were easier and less confusing ways to mark trails and landmarks), and its clear that these trees occur naturally in abundance. To me, the evidence exceeds any reasonable doubt and justifies only the one verdict.
Thank you for contributing your thoughts, UncleCorey. Bent trees are not rare. They're quite common, at least here. And they can grow remarkably tall, so I don't believe "pollarding," as I understand the term, would apply.
@@georgiabackroads8906 I tell ya, I find the resiliency of trees absolutely fascinating. I’ve been engrossed, in one form or another, in botanical science for the past thirty years and there has always been one branch that has ever captured my attention and curiosity. If the general public only knew the wondrous facts about trees, they would have a new perspective on life. Perhaps it’s just the romantic musings of a plant nerd, but, there is so much to be learned from trees and I mean that from a scientific perspective. I find it difficult to explain all the marvelous aspects of plant life to my clients without seeing that same glazed over look in their eyes. At the least, I can help them not kill their trees and shrubs with ignorance. It gives my life purpose.
You're right on some but I know from native Americans and from personal experience that they did do this.They really didn't start until they were forced to move west but they did mark trails and campsites,springs ECT.The knowledge was kept within their own people.The two upright ones mean one thing and the single means something else.There are many that are naturally made and they're pretty easy to spot.I have seen one old hickory that was bent down and touching the edge of a hole that was dug in 1935 and a very large amount of silver was recovered.As told to me by their ancestors.The native Americans did that toark where the Spanish in the 1700's buried the bars.The Cherokee marked it when they left and then many years later remarked it.They did come back and remark places using bent trees and carvings on beech trees.
Thanks, Everett, for reading and sharing your thoughts. There are serious holes with your theory, however. If American Indians did bend trees and wish to keep it secret, that wouldn't have stopped all the thousands of travelers, explorers, etc. from noting the trees and the practice. That never happened even though thousands of pages of journals and diaries and letters and maps exist detailing American Indian customs. Secondly, in Georgia and vicinity, nearly all bent trees are much younger than the date when the Cherokee and Creek left, meaning they weren't bent by American Indians. Yet those trees have the same shapes you're talking about. The evidence is compelling, beyond a reasonable doubt, that American Indians here did not make a practice of bending trees to mark trails or landmarks or anything else.
You are bound in and by your beliefs.Ive talked with several that said they did.Been in the woods with them.Unless you have a personal relationship with them they won't admit to anything.Been in the woods with full bloods,sent out here with the blessings their tribal council to relocate sites.Sacred sites,medicine wheels,springs with place names that were important to their heritage.Trees were used but so we're rocks and carvings on Beech trees.I answered another guys question too on here.Need to check it
If you spend a lot of time in the woods, it is just common sense that most or all of these trees are natural . In areas near me where a ton of trees fell in Hurricane Fran (1996) there are dozens and dozens of these all over. On the other hand it is easy to understand why people want to believe the bent trees are something more.
When I lived in Louisiana, I had planted an ash tree in the back yard. The tree had reached about fifteen feet in height when a hurricane took it down. The same hurricane had taken down my red maple, and I think the red maple was pulled out by the roots. The ash tree was knocked over at an angle that couldn't be fixed, but the bottom of the tree was still securely in the ground. I wanted to save the tree, but I never found a way. I ended up just cutting the tree about a foot and a half from the roots. I had planned to go back later and pull the roots out of the ground, but I just never got around to doing so. I planted a Russian olive next to the remains, and I figured that the stump would die and rot into the Russian olive. Instead, the tree survived. Eventually, a new leader grew out of the stump which was still canted at an angle about forty or fifty degrees off of vertical. I ended up letting the tree grow that way for a while. I had to move and sell the house, and I don't know what the new owners did with that tree. If they had let it grow, it might have ended up looking a bit like one of these trees. If I had stayed there, maybe I would have kept topping the tree going forward. Letting it grow to any height would only ensure that another hurricane would someday topple it again.
We have a thine Pine in our yard that goes straight up then about 3/4 way up the trunk folds back on itself, nearly flat, then circles back up at a different angle. Was like this when we moved in...1971. The property was part of family's original Ozark homestead...but since it's a Pine, it's not likely very old.
From your description sounds like something broke the pine up high, possibly wind or snow or ice or deadfall. The broken part hung down but enough of its cambium, xylem and phloem remained intact that the dangling part didn't die and began sending a new leader or leaders up, creating the unusual shape. That's pretty common, especially in hardwoods.
Thank you, Everett, for contributing to the dialogue. I don't find the contention persuasive, because if the Cherokee (or Creek) were bending trees just before and after the Removal(s), there would have been many more settlers and soldiers and surveyors present to note and record what was happening. But there's nothing in the historical record. Zilch. As a matter of statistical and historical evidence, that is darned near conclusive. When you add the fact that bent trees occur naturally and abundantly, bending trees would have simply been confusing, and the fact that the Cherokee had other, faster, more reliable, less confusing ways of marking trails and landmarks, the matter seems, to me, settled "beyond a reasonable doubt."
Hmm . As my spring house was built in front of one in 1860 and artifact’s found with out looking for them. Tells me it was a settlement of native people that used stone tools. The tree is followed by a large pile of rocks lined up with the spring. The tree age tells the tale.
Thank you for sharing from your experience. But what about the countless bent trees that are much more recent, younger, than the Cherokee and Creek era? How did they get here? And if the Cherokee and Creek bent trees, why didn't any of the hundreds of journalists (surveyors, soldiers, explorers, naturalists, government agents, frontiersmen, settlers) make note that they Indians did so. The fact that William Bartram, the most observant and eloquent of the colonial journalists, didn't mention it is near conclusive evidence to me.,
I don't think it has to be an either/or thing. There are probably some very old trees that were trail markers or marked other significant features like springs, etc. All the context would have to be right for these to be trail trees, but that isn't impossible, just rare. There are also probably plenty of bent trees that are purely coincidental natural occurrences. These two can coexist without contradicting each other. I live in Oregon and out here we have a few different types of culturally-modified trees. The bent trees as trail markers seem to be more common on the east side of the Cascades. There is one on the Deschutes river that marks the last canoe pullout location before a falls, and it's pretty distinct because it's the only one of a same-age stand to be bent, and in a specific direction. No other trees show signs of snow or storm damage that would have happened at the same time, so it's pretty obviously human made when you couple the forest forensics with the oral histories. I don't know if it's the same on the east side, but there's a lot of things the Natives here don't share with white folks, so coupled with the fact that many people already see all bent trees as being natural and unlikely to be human-made trail markers, it seems plausible to me that white naturalists just didn't know what they were seeing and felt no need to record a to-them unremarkable bent tree in their observations. It happened out here over and over again with many features of the landscape that were created and maintained by Natives, but that whites took as natural occurrences.
Dan, I'm gonna be honest with you, RU-vid suggested this to me organically. I didn't seek it out, it didn't show up in my subscription feed. But this is the kind of educational video that I watch all the time. So when I heard your voice it took me back and I had to check to make sure I wasn't going crazy! Lol Good stuff! Interesting things I didn't know I didn't know!
Bryce, that's awesome! I love the coincidence, and I can imagine your momentary confusion. "Hey,...wait!" Now, can we put our heads together and try to convince a certain "L" that we both love not to run 50 miles in Alabama heat Saturday? Oh, and thanks for making my day.
This may be true on some trees but most were from when American Indians roamed and lived in the area. They bent the trees as markers or direction pointers that led to their settlements or water sources
Most of these “trail marker trees” are not old enough to have existed when Indians were here. Bent trees are all over the woods. Most are caused by older larger trees falling over on them and later the larger tree rots away. And the smaller tree is permanently bent. Then new branches grow straight up off the bent portion. Same thing can happen with a heavy snowfall and or ice storm, freezing rain storm. All of this has been explained in the video. Also there are bent trees all over forests, and they “point” in all directions at once. And there are bent trees, that are bent in a dogleg shape-twenty thirty feet off the ground. No, an Indian did not hand bend a sapling at waist height and then the tree grew and moved bent part thirty feet off the ground. Trees don’t grow like that. Waist height section of a sapling stays waist height as the sapling grows taller, by main trunk growing at its tip top end. Watch video again. Read my comments again and reflect on logical reasoning put forth to show you that bent trees today, many of them 150 years old, were not yet growing when Indian tribes roamed on their hunting grounds. Please please think!
When I was a kid about 50 years ago, a tornado bent a lot of young trees over along side a blacktop road, and as they grew they all looked like the trees in this video. There were about 15 or 20 all grouped together, all bent the same direction and very odd looking. They're gone now. Bulldozers took them out to widen a road.
The Blizzard of 1993 that hit northern Alabama and Georgia and eastern Tennessee and westerrn North Carolina created a huge number of bent trees that are now 30 years post-blizzard.
Great video! Once, in a great while, the RU-vid algorythms hit gold. This is one of those times. I grew up, in the hills of western WV. I heard the old stories about bent trees, but didn't believe them because of how many bent trees lacked sufficient age. Along with clear evidence of how the trees got bent, still present. This scenario kind of reminds me of "ancient alien" rubbish. Just because someone today can't figure out how to stack big stones, doesn't mean our ancestors couldn't. Today, we think we know more than our ancestors, but clearly we don't.
In West Virginia it's particularly unlikely that one of these trees could exist, as the entire state was harvested of its timber by the early 1900s. There were two relatively small stands of trees that were left uncut; one because of a survey error and the other because the owner wanted to keep it unharvested. Literally every tree other tree was cut down. It's hard to imagine, but it happened.
@@r.kylenuttall2455 The history of timber harvesting in the Appalachian region in the early 1900s, especially hardwoods, is fascinating. Timber companies built railroads into the mountain wildernesses to get to as much timber as possible. I'm aware of some of the logging operations in Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, but less so with Virginia, West Virginia, and points north. I didn't know that West Virginia was so heavily logged, Kyle. Thank you for posting that information.
Two points: (1) bent trees are bent in every direction, as you'd expect if it was a natural and random phenomenon; and (2) most of the trees are bent by deadfalls, though ice and snow might be the second leading cause. But sometimes ice and snow do work together to bend a grove or forest of saplings in the same direction, as with the famous grove of bent pines in Poland. Thank you for viewing and sharing your thoughts.
Back when I was a kid they used to call some of them indian trees. The natives would tie over a sapling so they could stretch buffalo hides. But those are pretty much gone now ...they lasted maybe 100 years i expect
Thanks for contributing that info. A few thoughts: first, it wouldn't be necessary to tie down a sapling. The weight of a buffalo (or cow) skin would be sufficient to keep a sapling bent without going to the hassle of using valuable tie-down material (American Indians were of necessity frugal in using dearly-made things); second, buffalo were gone from most of eastern states by the late 1700s. In Georgia, for instance, they disappeared by around the 1770s. But if the Cherokee did stretch skins across saplings, which seems to make sense, it mostly likely would have been the skins of cattle and deer.
@@georgiabackroads8906 I heard they would tie the sapling down and after a while it would grow in a arch even without a tie down ...but of course this was the objective
There are plenty of bent trees in woods and forests of Scotland, most of them no more that 80 years old. So a natural origin seems the most likely explanation.
My grandmother who was Cherokee always told us to follow the bent tree it will guide you and safely get you home I have never got lost in the mountains so believe what you want follow them one day and u will surprised where they lead you I'm 70 plus and I still believe
I've seen these trees in Europe and Central America as well as the US. Though, these are rare in Europe mostly because foresters trim these out to make way for better straighter trees. I called BS when I first heard of trail marker trees twenty years ago. I watched a metal detecting video about two years ago where the presenter claimed these trees are always near where treasure is buried. That's BS as well. Peace all.
@@georgiabackroads8906 As I indicated, random natural events obviously can also bend trees too. A PATTERN of similar modified trees is equally obviously NOT random.
While I'll agree that many of the bent trees are natural event. There are documented studies that do in fact confirm that bent trees were used to mark trails, river crossings and other areas of interest.
Bill, thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts. Unfortunately, many "documented" claims are in fact not documented. They are simply hypothesis or beliefs or fables put in writing or blogs or monuments or programs. People think they sound good and legit and assume they truly have merit when in fact they don't.
In Georgia they always point to a water source. Everything points to water sources, because there's creeks, streams, ponds, springs, and rivers everywhere. Walk downhill and you'll find water.
A tree has to be limber enough and have enough top branch growth for ice to weigh it over. When a falling tree routinely knocks another it splits. The stair bend shape has to be done by a person. Odd occurrences happen, but they are remote. I have sse trees with odd shapes here 8n Tennessee, like these shown here and with branches that were twisted such that it grew like a knot on the tree, as if made in string. Right by the Tree trunk. That took some STRENGTH. There's too many to be chance and there's not a lot of men playing with trees, boys can't do what's required to make the shapes.
Beth, thank you for watching and commenting. Bent trees occur naturally, abundantly, and in every form and shape possible. The "stair bend" shape, as you describe it, is common and natural. Of the many thousands of such trees in the Southeast, most are less than 185 years old, meaning they weren't bent by American Indians. Scouts or surveyors or hunters or the like bent a small number of trees for reasons I mentioned, but most of them are natural.
Did you check to see where the Point on these low to the ground and really OLD bent trees Point towards? ➡️I’m finding them pointing towards land power spots, or Right Handed vortices coming up from the earth. But, I’m in south Ga near the coast, and northern Fla. where the Portuguese and European sailors influences seem to had been. In the 12th-16th centuries
Thanks for reading and probing and thinking. Every bent tree is pointing, so it points at something, whether close or moderate or far. A lawn, a road, a creek, a house, a mall, a mountain, a ski lodge, a cellphone tower, etc. They point at all kinds of things, so I don't go in the direction they point, at least not intentionally, because how would I know when to stop? At the next creek? At the next river? The next mountain? The next mall? More importantly, I know that the American Indians didn't make a practice of bending them because there were easier, instant ways to mark things. Being intelligent people, they'd choose the easy and quick way rather than the incredibly slow and highly confusing way.
What if they were not indigenous Indians of America. The trees that I’m seeing on these small islands are about 600 to 700 years old. I’ve found a tree with a triangular /vertical position built into to its tree structure. Like an upside down triangle. So, Wild looking. That tree is about 400 years old. These trees seem to be built into a pattern. Of Something that resembles a Kubalik tree of life. When looked at down from above. 12 points , I’ve found so far with consistency in distance
@@doubledeucedrums My studies and experience focus on Southeastern Indians and the bent trees of the Southeast, especially Georgia and vicinity. The ideas would apply to similar trees and cultures but not necessarily to other cultures. So if I found something dissimilar elsewhere, I'd approach it the same way, by taking into consideration the plant biology (do plants grow that way naturally) and the history (is there any kind of reliable evidence, written or oral, that the people did such-and-such).
The unusual human remains and unusual instruments of hunting and war found on Jekyll Island made me look at things a little bit differently. I’ll stay curious. Thank you for your insight.👍🙂
Don't you think the settlers could learn this from the Nation's? Of course not all bent trees are trail trees, but how can anyone be 100% certain if some whites didn't start bent trees after our people were gone?
@@bdawson6473 B Dawon, we know these trees are natural and abundant. We also know the historic record, which is very detailed, does not mention any culture habitually bending trees, either modern or ancient. So we can confidently say that there wasn't a practice of bending trees to mark trails or other landmarks. But we can't say that with 100% surety as to any particular tree, since sometimes a surveyor or hunter or Boy Scout or Girl Scout or American Indian, etc. might bend a tree as a temporary seat off the ground (or in modern times to mark property lines or corners). They're bent by mankind on occasion, but the vast majority are natural. There were quick and reliable ways for American Indians to mark trails or landmarks, so they simply didn't need to do a much slower way that would be confusing since so many natural trees would compete with their own bent sign.
Well, this makes a heck of a lot more sense than “trail trees”. There is a forest in Russia I believe, in which almost all the trees are growing bent and then back up in the same direction, what do you think could have caused an entire forest to do this? Would it be a single really bad winter season with lots of ice? This video was fascinating and I thank you 🙏 Cheers
Thanks for watching, Kristi. That stand of trees you mentioned is in Poland. I described it in another comment. To me it seems most likely there was snow on the ground when all these trees, of uniform age, were young. Then a snowstorm or ice storm bent them all at the same time. The snowpack, perhaps a few inches deep, helped keep them off the ground. When the snow/ice melted, the trees had been bent long enough that they remained in that general position, then resumed growing in a bent-tree fashion.
@@georgiabackroads8906 That makes total sense!! No aliens or supernatural forces needed!! I guess Occam’s Razor does apply sometimes after all 😉 Occam’s Razor: Generally speaking, the simplest answer with least amount of assumptions tends to be the correct one. 🤔 Cheers
This is a plausible explanation, because it shows all variations of bent trees. I have also personally seen young, bent-over trees with branches growing skyward. NO video shows the technique for deliberately making a "trail marker tree".
Thank you for this video. I just cannot picture someone traveling through a forrest and marking a path by bending a sapling, tying it down with - what? A cord and a tent stake? A rock? A log to hold it down? And then expect it to stay there for a year or so for others to follow. A blaze, a notch, a pile of stones, something like that is what would have been used, not cordage and stakes carried in a pack.
Yup, that's the idea, River66. But if you bend a sapling down and sit on it for awhile, sometimes they won't spring back. Come back ten or thirty or sixty years later and there's a nice bent tree. It's perfectly natural, with an assist by mankind. Most of the time, the bending is done by snow or ice or deadfall.
I completely agree. Alaska is a long ways from Georgia but we have the same bent trees here. And I've heard the same nonsense stories by people that do not know. I love to figure how and why trees take certain shapes!
I agree that most are just nature's action. Many I've seen are certainly not old enough to be trail sign for Native Americans. Some trees I've seen bent like these are probably due to logging operations. That was the case of a bent hickory on my Childhood farm. It was my seat for a great squirrel hunting patch of woods. But, I guess it makes for good fireside Indian stories.
Trail marker trees do exist. Often you can see the thong marks, or even see whatever tied them down embedded into the tree. Usually, the trees were intentionally scared to convey a message. Mystery of the Trees YT30 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-i5y3Oe9PEpk.html
There are no "thong marks." Whatever marks exists are natural. Although you and I have come to different conclusions, I'm glad you watched and took time to share your thoughts. Thank you.
@@georgiabackroads8906 Lol, no offense, but I've found the thongs a couple of times still embedded. There's simply no question of it, especially when they are marked. Also, someone marked the back of our property the same way and the barbed wire was still in it. This was in the city (but not at the time it was done). The first thing I thought was that it was like those trees down in the Ozarks, except no Indian markings.
@@ts-900 Thanks. There are no "thong trees" here in Georgia, which is what I thought you were referencing, at least none to amount to anything statistically. If there are, they would almost certainly come from surveyors marking property corners. How old are/were the trees you are referring to in the Ozarks?
@@georgiabackroads8906 I have no idea how old they were or how many still exist. The last time I saw one was in 2011 and I don't know if that one was a thong tree because I didn't check, but it was a huge tree. If I had to guess about those others, I would say that they date back at least to 1920. I remember pulling the thongs out, but parts of them were embedded into the tree. I was told that they marked the path for the tribe along the Osage River which was dammed in 1929. Edit: The Osage Reservation was established in the 1870s in Oklahoma, so I'm guessing that the tribe would have been actively using the trail before then?
@@ts-900 Thanks for that additional information. If those bent trees date back to 1920 or 1900 or 1880 or 1850, they wouldn't be American Indian bent trees or marker trees, because the Cherokee and Osage and other American Indians were gone from Arkansas by then. So any "thong trees" in Arkansas dating from 1850 or 1900 or 1950 would most likely come from surveyors (or Scouts interested in experimenting with trees).
I agree 99%. A lot of these so called marker trees are less than 100 yrs old, and many less than 50. No way they were used by Indian tribes or ancient peoples. Those trees would be a thousand yrs old, give or take. Not very likely. Chop marks possibly, but still looking at many, many years. Another theory you can't rule out is damaged sustained from antlered animals removing velvet from their antlers or mating habits. Using smaller trees and saplings to their advantage and altering the future growth of that tree. Thank you for a great video and a more realistic theory. 👍
Thank you, George. I've never seen a deer scrape that might cause a bent tree shape, but suppose it could happen somehow. And I suppose a bear or wild boar might do something contributing to a bent tree shape on rare occasions. That would be about it in the Southeast for larger animals. But any such occurrences would be dwarfed by the naturally occurring examples that are so numerous here.
Thank you for clarifying that for me I grew up in Oklahoma and we had plenty of those all over the place and I knew that it wasn't a trail marker we have a lot of tornadoes in Oklahoma Ventry's over and tear off the tops and all kinds of stuff so I kind of knew that that was a misnomer
Yeah I always wondered about that. Just didn't make sense to me. As you said there's way too many of them if you're in the woods any amount of time and pay attention. Also you can see how some are made cause you can still see what's got some trapped. I'd imagine AL isn't much different with things like that. Wish I knew tree species as well as you do
Thank you very much. I have seen trees with this 25 ft in air, couldn't have been a person. in trees less than 50 years old, couldn't have been 'native Americans. people will still argue with ya. and when they point directly off a cliff?
Thanks, Standing Bear, for reading and commenting. Yes, you're right. I've had some folks claim that the lower bent trees were bent by Indians on foot. Those a bit higher were done by Indians on horseback. But nobody has ever explained the ones 25 or more feet up. I got in trouble one time for asking if perhaps these were bent by folks in hot air balloons. Sarcasm isn't helpful in a civil discussion, though, so I've tried to avoid it since then.
I spend 8 to 10 hours per day in coastal forests in California looking at and evaluating trees. I know that some trees have been manipulated but most have not. There is often evidence such as fallen trees, landslides or floods that clearly contributed to the interesting geometry. The manipulated trees that I have seen were relatively young...less than 100 years and usually have scars from wire or other hardware. Often they were used as living fence posts. Some of these are quite old but they show less distortion. 34" DBH Oregon White Oak with a Victor #2 trap attached comes to mind. The trap is suspended now and the chain embedded about ten inches deep. I have seen that trick a few times. Those trees USED to be part of a riparian that moved about 100 yards. We know that it happened in 1964. Traplines are nearly always run in and near watercourses. That 34" DBH oak took it in stride. There is a 20" DBH oak, also with a trap that took a 45° bend and then corrected. Did the chain cause that? Dunno. Might have been debris from the flood. I have never heard of "trail trees" out here but that is just my experience. Very interesting topic. Cheers!
Thank you, Sean, for reading and commenting. Like you, I've spent much of my life in the woods. I have a degree in forestry and spend as much time as possible in our eastern forests. Most of your West Coast trees are bigger and live longer than our eastern species, but the same natural forces are at work. I know next to nothing about western American Indian customs, but the southeastern American Indians did not have a custom of bending trees as markers. Notches, blazes, and posting animal skins was much quicker and more reliable, so that's what they did.
@Georgia Backroads I doubt anything like that happened here either. Anything man made that I have seen here was either unplanned or some misguided attempt at cowboy espalier. Great channel!
Very nice video, thanks for it. Your explanation of how bent trees come to be is much more believable than the theory that they are all trail markers. Unfortunately, you do go astray with the claim that there are no trail marker trees. Your theory is sound, but it does not preclude the possibility that Native Americans did create some trail marker trees. I would speculate that most bent trees where not created by Native Americans to mark trails, but that some were. Again, thanks for the very well done video.
Howard, thank you for watching and posting your thoughts. I mention in the comments here (and I think in the video) that modern and ancient cultures occasionally bend trees for a variety of reasons but that the great majority of the bent trees are natural. They are natural. The American Indians were smart. They knew the land. When they wanted to mark a trail or landmark, they did so the quick and sure way - chops/notches and blazes. They didn't bend trees because there were already countless bent trees in the woods. No reason to bend to create more bent trees.
People want them to be marker trees because everything to do with American Indians has been romanticized and exaggerated. I watched one video about marker trees. They thought it was a magical adventure.
Yup, there's a lot of that going on. People in good faith love the idea of these being relics of the American Indians. It's appealing and it's understandable why they latch onto the notion.
Culturally modified trees do exist, I come at it from the perspective of a forester. Trail trees also exist(ed) but this form is generally wind, dead fall, or snow damage. The real reason this specific thing is pushed is as evidence of sustained land use to further the international politicized agenda of land rights.
Thanks for watching and sharing your thoughts. The types of man-modified trees are mentioned in the video and in many comments here. Neither the Cherokee nor the Creek bent trees to mark trails. I'm not familiar with "the international politicized agenda of land rights" and don't know what you mean.
@@georgiabackroads8906 Odd, you're discussing the issue without comprehending what lies beneath it. Just type in culturally modified trees and you'll see what I referred to.
@@georgiabackroads8906 In a nut shell- land claims and reparations. This trail tree type is only one type of culturally modified tree (CMT), it doesn't really matter at this point whether the Cherokee or Creek employed this specific technique. As is often the case, facts gets mired in interpretation, often with nefarious intent. The attempt to have these trees acknowledged, especially by governments, as culturally modified adds 'evidence' towards long-term use of landscapes. The land claim issue is still ongoing, the media don't really cover it. It is moving through the system at the international level and will have serious repercussions, even in the US.
@@flightographist Thank you for boiling that down for me. It took you some extra time, but I appreciate it very much. It was most helpful on my end. If there is anything credible and organized like that here in the USA with respect to "trail trees," I'm not aware of it. Every "trail tree" proponent that I've come across is just regular folks who genuinely believe that American Indians bent these trees. They are incorrect (I'm speaking mainly about the Cherokee and Creek in the Southeast), for the reasons set forth in the video. I doubt any legit government or academic group taking a serious look at this would come to any other conclusion, because the evidence is so weak that it wouldn't stand up under any scrutiny.
Thanks for reading and taking time to share your opinion. I've weighed the evidence, reached what seems to me to be the logical conclusion, and presented this to the public. It's up to each viewer to make the call based upon their own evaluation of the evidence. :)
@@georgiabackroads8906 You just offer alternative causes. That isn't proof of anything. Of course; a bent tree bears no tool marks or fingerprints. The side shoots and dead crowns are pretty immaterial to the question. There are details which would prove natural causes; like the impression of a dead fall on the bent tree, or a lifted root ball, or the bend being too high to have been done by a person.
Nonsense. None of these trees date from that long ago to be native indigenous marking paths. Snow, floods, and settlers bending trees for oxen yokes are more likely.
Thank you for watching and commenting. The most common cause of bent trees is trees falling on saplings, bending them. Given time, those bent trees grow into the fantastic shapes we see today. As you note, there are other causes too.
Some of the southeastern Amercian Indians say there' s nothing to it. Some say it's a secret and that they did bend them. I don't find them credible, however, because the historical record is silent as to bent trees. Had Indians bent them but kept it secret, the many people who came through would have written about it: "Hey, these Cherokee sure are quiet about bent trees, but we see them everywhere." Instead, the historical records is utterly, completely silent. Why? Because the Southeastern American Indians didn't do it (except possibly on occasion just like we might occasionally do it today).
Does it make sense for anyone to profess he knows what the truth is? Present your knowledge and opinion - but it the end - it's just an opinion...You seem to have omitted this "truth"...
Thanks for viewing and chiming in, Cricket. The views expressed are my opinions based upon deductions made after examining the evidence as carefully as possible.
Ted, I think you're referring to the title-page bent tree. That's a white oak on the East Chickamauga Creek Trail in Walker County, Georgia. You're right that it doesn't date back to the Cherokee era. There is at least one tree in the video that almost certainly dates back to the Cherokee - the big white oak on Pigeon Mountain. But there's no reason to assume that it was bent by mankind, since that shape happens naturally and commonly. Thank you for watching and commenting.
Most of your examples are natural there in Georgia. I have evidence of real trail or maker trees, the way they knew it was a marker tree was by binding 2 different types of trees binding together. They could tell by the differences in bark and color. These practices were used for thousands of years. there isn’t going to be anything in the historical those who created these unique trees made them for for secret routes and wouldn’t tell an outsider what they were for just in case someone still is out their knew what they were looking at. I understand why you made the video I just don’t want people thinking all bend trees are natural because there is real trail trees out there and I’d hate for your viewers to overlook a opportunity! Your next video you should example how the pyramids were built!
Thanks, Austin, for your thoughts and info. The great journalists passing through American Indian country certainly would have made note of any such practice of marking trails or landmarks. They noted things in the minutest detail. So no "secret" but visible practice would have remained concealed. William Bartram, Benjamin Hawkins, George Featherstonhaugh, and countless others would have reported such a practice but didn't. But they did note notches, blazes, and the posting of animal skins. That doesn't mean American Indians never bent trees, but rather that doing so would have been a rarity and that nearly all the bent trees around today are of natural origin.
