Matthew and I hiked up to the recently renamed Peeskawso Peak on Monument Mountain, just north of Great Barrington. What El Capitan and Half Dome in Yosemite are to the American art of photography, Monument Mountain is to the establishment of American literature.
William Cullen Bryant wrote his poem, Monument Mountain, in 1815; in 1850 Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville took shelter from a thunderstorm in the cove seen below. Here’s my contribution – Peeskawsko Peak.
Even though our Mohican hosts are strong enough to survive centuries of encroachment of people out of England and Europe, market forces have identified a power in letters they fear is too much for them to bear, and so Squaw Peak atop Monument Mountain is to be known as Peeskawso Peak, at least until we’re un-woke by the rising red tide. Until downtown Stockbridge becomes Indiantown again, this sort of window-dressing has a bad odor.