The already twisted Nantucket Sound wind farm saga just got a bit stranger: A Wampanoag tribal member says it is "fabricated cosmology" that his tribe performs sun ceremonies that need an unobstructed view of the Sound — as the tribe has claimed in a campaign to halt the energy project off Cape Cod.
But the tribal member made the allegation only after his law firm was recently hired by the developers of the Cape Wind project.
Jeffrey Madison, a Martha’s Vineyard lawyer, wrote in a Feb. 9 letter to US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that his father and grandfather were both medicine men of the tribe and "I am stating to you with complete honesty and knowledge that I never participated in, witnessed, or even heard of a sacred spot on the horizon that is relevant to any Aquinnah Wampanoag culture, history or ceremony. Nor did I see, or hear, either my father or grandfather conduct such ceremony."
Madison also submitted a petition to Salazar with eight signatures of other Wampanoag tribal members, saying they did not believe the wind turbines would "materially interfere with any significant cultural activity."