Wampanoag man hired by wind farm developers

A member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe of Massachusetts has been hired by the developers of the controversial Cape Wind.

Jeffrey Madison, an attorney and former tribal council member, said his father and grandfather were medicine men. He says they never conducted any ceremonies at the site being eyed for 440 foot-tall wind turbines.

That goes against claims made by his tribe and by the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. He told Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in a letter that a ceremony recently conducted at the site was part of a “fabricated cosmology’’ among some Wampanoags.

The tribe say the turbines will block their view of the sun and disrupt burial grounds and archaeological sites at Nantucket Sound. The sound was dry land that was occupied by Wampanoag ancestors.

Wampanoag means People of the First Light. Other tribes in New England use similar terms in their languages to describe themselves.

Get the Story:
Tribe member challenges sun rite in letter to Salazar (The Boston Globe 2/19)

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