One of the initiatives Stroud has undertaken over the last two years is building bonds with Indigenous communities to assist them with freshwater science and education as well as learning how we can all be better stewards of water and earth.
Nurturing The Good Mind: Traditional Ecological Knowledge Meets Modern Water Science
By Jacqueline Wolf Nice
When you picture this area of Chester County, the Christina River watershed, White Clay Creek, a thousand years ago before the English, French, and Dutch found the Chesapeake Bay, it was teeming with Indigenous tribes all within a territory called the Lënapehòkink.
Stroud Water Research Center sits in the southern tier of the Lënapehòkink, the traditional name of the ancestral lands of the Lenape (also called Delaware) people, whose presence here is archaeologically documented for 12,000 years.
They lived near the water, harvested from the water, were nurtured by the water, and communed with the water.
Although overt evidence of Indigenous communities has been sparse here in the last 250 years, there are pockets of thriving Native communities who descend from the Delaware River Basin, inclusive of southern New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.
By name, they are the Delaware Nation, Delaware Tribe of Indians, and Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans, Nanticoke Lenape Nation of New Jersey, Powhatan Renape Tribe, Ramapough Lunaape Nation of New Jersey, Nanticoke Tribe of Delaware, and the Lenape Indian Nation of Delaware.
Unalachtigo — People Next to the Big Water
In the St. Jones watershed, a young bald eagle flies over a grove along Fork Branch near Cheswold, Delaware. She circles four times above our gathering of six volunteers and then flies off to the south.
It was a good sign and inspiring to behold while visiting the Lenape Indian Tribe of Delaware to discover more about their watershed restoration project with the Stroud Center, and other efforts to reclaim and honor the sacred lands and waters of their ancestors.
Since gaining recognition as a tribal nation from the state of Delaware in 2016, they have actively engaged with universities and organizations on water and forest conservation projects that blend traditional ecological knowledge — that is, Indigenous knowledge gained over hundreds or thousands of years about local resources — with modern scientific methods of environmental assessment, water research, and land management.
At the edge of the Little Union Cemetery is a half-acre plot of wooded freshwater wetlands.
The land was donated to the tribe in the 1990s, and after three years of steady work by tribal youth and community volunteers, it includes a walking path, talking circle, and native plant species like sassafras and mountain mint.
As part of the Stroud Center’s Indigenous-centric initiatives activating science-based monitoring and environmental management systems that support Indigenous communities’ values and water stewardship, Assistant Director Of Education Tara Muenz collaborates with tribal leaders on assessments that will determine if Fork Branch might support a reintroduction of freshwater mussels, an original staple of the Lenape food culture and one of the most imperiled freshwater faunal groups in the world.
Tribal Chief Dennis Coker is motivated to learn how technology can intersect with traditional ways. This land, he says, is intended to be an edible forest garden for the Lenape community.
“Originally,” Coker explains, “this area had agricultural mismanagement, with collector streams edging farm fields that contained fertilizer” doing damage to stream ecosystems. After some revamping of agricultural best practices, the eastern elliptio mussel (Elliptio complanata) has now been detected in the creek.
Reintroducing different species of mussels is an important goal of this project.
For Chief Coker, part of his purpose as a tribal leader is, he says, “to keep people cognizant of who they are and how unique they are.” He continues, “We are Unalachtigo – People Next to the Big Water. This project is about helping us to reconnect to water as our existence.”
Ongoing water science support is part of the Stroud Center’s important role in that goal.
Seneca Nation of Indians — Beginning the Day With Ganö:nyög
A similar sentiment exists among the Seneca Nation of Indians on the Allegany and Cattaraugus territories in western New York.
The Stroud Center began working with the Allegany community in 2022. Seneca members Chelce Finch and Liz Smith, the respective director and assistant director of the Seneca Arts and Learning Center, introduce themselves by their clans as is traditional in their tribal community.
The learning center serves as an infant-to-preschool-age daycare, Head Start, and essential after-school facility for approximately 60 children, mostly from the Seneca Nation. It is a place that integrates Seneca culture and language in all lesson plans, even in lunch menus!
Mike Gates, director of emergency management for the tribal nation, was researching water management equipment for the Seneca when the Stroud Center’s work came to his attention. He was especially attracted to the Stroud Center’s youth outreach programs.
For the Seneca, Gates explains, a youth program makes sense, as “the planet is left in their care, the children will bring the water teachings into the future.” Through a Bureau of Indian Affairs grant, Gates says he created the Water Protectors program to get Seneca children “out of the classroom and into the water.”
By pairing scientific methodology and meaningful watershed education with cultural teachings, the initiative augments traditional ecological knowledge with modern water science.
Along the Allegheny River, the day starts with the Ganö:nyög, the Thanksgiving Prayer of the Seneca, which addresses and acknowledges 22 elements in the world — gifts of the Sky-world to this Earth, to teach a way of seeking the unity of all things — the good mind.
Water is one of the special elements acknowledged ceremonially each day.
Muenz and Gates’ connection was so immediate and “heartfelt,” says Muenz, that she and her education colleagues from the Stroud Center were invited to take part in this daily cultural remembering.
It was an honor and source of internal meaning for Muenz.
“Water is my family,” says the aquatic biologist; “sharing this deeper ceremonial connection allowed me to feel and express my deep connection and appreciation of water in community with the Seneca.”
Integrating with the cultural aspects of the Seneca created a meaningful experience for the tribal community members who participated in the Stroud Center’s various activities at the river.
The Stroud Center’s participation in the Allegany Territory of the Seneca Nation has been in and at the river, according to Smith and Finch, who both acknowledged that the Stroud Center showed them how to make each activity developmentally appropriate for each age.
The professional development training offered by the Stroud Center introduced 40 teachers and 10 outside participants to an array of water engagement and learning tools through the nationally recognized “Getting Little Feet Wet” curriculum of the Project WET Foundation.
According to Smith, prior to this training, the learning center “used water strictly for sensory play. This training demonstrated other domains as well: fine motor, gross motor, cognitive, and socio-emotional skills. It allowed us to see how this beautiful natural resource can be brought into the classroom and used to expand these other areas.”
At the end of the last session of the year, the Stroud Center provided each classroom with a toolkit of instructional supplies to deliver and enhance the practice skills learned through the curriculum.
Learning about water through scientific methods and connecting to water as a source of ancestral significance has strengthened a throughline of cultural continuity for the Seneca Nation and the Lenape Indian Tribe of Delaware.
Reiterating the words of Autumn Peltier, for Indigenous cultures, “water is a living being.”
By conducting these trainings, demonstrating respect for specific cultural values, and taking the lead from the tribal communities themselves, the Stroud Center has established a bond with these communities in what is just the beginning of a long road together nurturing the good mind.
Click Here to read the entire 2022 Annual Report and more Profiles In Stewardship.
For more information on programs, initiatives and special events, visit the Stroud Water Research Center website, Click Here to subscribe to UpStream. Click Here to subscribe to Stroud’s Educator newsletter. Click Here to become a Friend Of Stroud Research, Like them on Facebook, Follow on Twitter and visit their YouTube Channel.
The Chester County-based Stroud Center seeks to advance knowledge and stewardship of freshwater systems through global research, education, and watershed restoration.
(Photo: Tribal Chief Dennis Coker of the Lenape Indian Tribe of Delaware and Tara Muenz, Strout Associate Director of Education.)
Related Articles:
-- Stroud Water Research Center Celebrates The Life Of Chief Quiet Thunder
-- Feature - The Lenape Nation: A Tradition of Caretaking— People and the Environment
[Posted: April 12, 2023] PA Environment Digest
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