cairns: entrances: stumbling on one or more cairns on a path can mean many things: a marker, a cautionary warning, a place where someone took a break...Though in other cultures, the cairns were typically used as trail markers and sometimes funerary sites. 

  The ancient Hawaiians also used them as altars or security towers. The Hawaiian people are still building these cairns today, using them as the focal points for ceremonies honoring their ancestors and spirituality. 

   Buddhist writers describe the construction of a cairn as a form of worship Cairns were used in astronomy or for pointing toward the setting sun for solstice celebrations. 

   Other ceremonial uses are evident as well. In Highland folklore it is recounted that before Highland clans fought in a battle, each man would place a stone in a pile. Those who survived the battle returned and removed a stone from the pile. The stones that remained were built into a cairn to honour the dead.