The Names on the Water

Read the little signs as you pass the falls and you'll notice something — the names aren't ordinary. Seneca. Mohawk. Oneida. Cayuga. Onondaga. Erie. Tuscarora. Wyandot. Mohican. Delaware. Huron. Fall after fall after fall, the names of the Native nations of this land and beyond. Let me tell you about that, because it's a choice somebody made, and it's worth sitting with.

When Colonel Ricketts opened this glen and found himself with two dozen unnamed waterfalls, he could've named them anything — after himself, after presidents, after the towns down the valley. He named a handful for his own family and friends, sure. But for most of them, he reached for the names of the nations — the Haudenosaunee, the people of the Iroquois Confederacy, and others whose homelands ran across this whole northeast. And the tallest of them all he named Ganoga, from a Native word that's said to mean "water on the mountain." Stand under that ninety-four-foot falls and tell me there's a truer name.

Now, I'll be square with you, the way Quinn was — these are the names one nineteenth-century gentleman chose to honor those peoples. They're not a map of who called this exact rock what, in their own tongue. The real history of the native peoples of Pennsylvania is deeper and harder than a row of pretty waterfall names. But here's what I'd leave you with. Names are a way of remembering. And because of the ones Ricketts chose, every single day, hikers from all over the world come to this glen and say these names out loud — Seneca, Mohawk, Cayuga — the names of nations, spoken over falling water, more than a century on. There are worse ways for a memory to stay alive. Listen to the water say them as you climb.