Elders’ land memory predates and contradicts scientific claims about the mudboils

Evidence

You would think that such toxic waters would be nearly transparent with the absence of life, but some areas are often nearly opaque with a dark cloud of silt. The turbidity comes from a muddy plume that enters the lake from another tributary, Onondaga Creek. It flows in from the south, from the high ridge above the Tully Valley, from hillsides of forests, farms, and sweet-smelling apple orchards. … Muddy water is usually attributed to runoff from farmland, but in this case the mud comes from below. High in the watershed are the Tully mudboils, which erupt into the creek like mud volcanoes, sending tons of soft sediment downstream. There is some debate as to whether the mudboils are of natural geologic origin. The Onondaga elders remember when, not so long ago, Onondaga Creek ran so clear through their Nation that they could spearfish by lantern light. They know that there was no mud in the creek until salt mining began upstream. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1160

Categorization

• XREF: Directly mirrors the earlier ch10 point that elder relational knowledge exceeds botanists’ knowledge, and ch20’s claim that acknowledging harm honors small lives — here elders’ clear-creek memory refutes the ‘act of God’ scientific framing.