View the Volcanic Places lecture slides

On What People Make of Volcanoes
Richard Stoffle, 2006

Worldwide and throughout time, volcanoes have been culturally special places for humans (Sheets and Grayson 1979, Connolly 1999). While there is no single kind of human response to currently active and past volcanoes, there is a general tendency among traditional peoples who have lived nearby for centuries to believe such areas contain powerful forces and spiritual beings that can serve the betterment of human society at local, regional, and world scales of effect. A number of Federal agencies have funded BARA study teams to bring American Indian people to volcanoes in order to understand the cultural importance of these ceremonial places and the Puha Paths or pilgrimage trails to them.

Volcanoes with adjacent traditional human societies are found at Vesuvius, in Italy; at Mauna Loa in the Hawaiian Islands (Murton and Shimabukuro1974); at Mt. Fuji in Japan; in the volcanic islands of the Philippines; throughout the Aleutians Islands (Black 1981; McLeod 2004); on the island of Bali in Indonesia (Lansing 1994); adjacent to Kilimanjaro in Tanzania; and near Mount Pelee in Martinique, West Indies (Scarth 2002). The volcanoes on the Big Island in Hawaii are each the focus of religious commemoration practices and shrines (Green and Beckwith 1926; Langlas 1994). In Japan, Mt. Fuji has a sacred history that is recounted and responded to in both the Shinto and Buddhist religions (McLeod 2004). In Bali, the Water Temple religion focuses on the volcano and a sacred lake in its active caldera where the prime temple is located (Lansing 1991). On the volcanic island of Camaguin traditional people, including high chiefs, are buried in urns to be transformed into glowing sulfur in the caldera (Burdett 1927). Traditional Bantu people living near Kilimanjaro used pecked volcanic stones in a ceremony to teach youth secret ceremonies (Fosbrooke and Marealle 1952). Greeks worshiped at the volcanic vents where they established temples including one that housed the Oracle of Delphi (Hale et al. 2003).

In southern Nevada there is an old volcano called Black Mountain that sits within the distinctive rim of its caldera. This mountain has become the subject of an American Indian oral history project that has become the foundation of this chapter. The meaning of Black Mountain to Numic and Yuman language speaking Native American people is divided into two periods but derives from one fundamental understanding – it is a volcano. As such, Black Mountain occupies a special place in the cultural landscape of these Indian people. A volcanic eruption is a rare case when the Puha (the power or energy that make the world alive) moves from lower levels of existence to higher ones. In simple terms, it is a place and time when the world is given new life – it constitutes a kind of rebirth.

Within this essay, Black Mountains is viewed as it was during a traditional time before the arrival of Europeans, and as it came to be used when Indian people lost control over other important areas as a result of European encroachment. Traditionally, Black Mountain was a one of a number of places in the region where Indian people went to acquire Puha, which gave itself to people in the medium of songs or other forms of particular knowledge of the healing process. After Europeans moved onto Indian lands, along rivers and springs, and generally threatened to eliminate Indian ceremonial practices, Black Mountain became a region of refuge.

Puha

Numic and Yuman speaking peoples understand Puha as a force that was placed in all things at the time when the world was created. As such it is that spark that keeps the world going and all of its elements thinking, talking, moving, and interacting. Puha itself moves. Generally Puha is viewed as moving down hill often concentrating or pooling in certain places like mineral outcrops, cliffs, and caves. Given that Puha is most closely related to and acts the most like water, it can be understood as returning to the sky to become like rain and snow that are called down from the sky by the highest mountains. Viewed this way Puha has a cycle of movement similar to the hydrological cycle.

Except for that point in time and space when Puha moves back into the sky to again fall to the earth like rain and snow, Puha normally is neither created nor moves uphill. The major exception to this is when volcanoes erupt. At this moment, the earth is renewed as Puha moves up from the lower portions of the earth to make whole volcanic mountains, volcanic cones, magma mesas, lava tubes, basalt bombs, and obsidian deposits. When water is near the eruption it also makes hot springs and mineral deposits including both red and yellow paint. Large volcanic events often create their own craters which form a rim around a central peak or cone and make another special space that itself has a role in Indian culture.

Indian people have shared their thoughts about the meaning of volcanic eruption events and the physical changes in the earth they create. They have talked about a range of volcanic changes and about the different kinds and concentrations of Puha that exist in each. In all, the UofA team has interviewed Indian people at more than fifteen volcanic places (see footnotes). The types of volcanoes and volcanic related elements these people have discussed are as follows:

Volcanoes - Active When Indian People Were Present

Sunset Crater – corn rocks, northern AZ

1. Mt. Trumbull – sherd rocks, Arizona Strip

Volcanic Presence in Canyons with Rivers

1. Grand Canyon – Colorado River, northern AZ
2. Black Canyon – Colorado River, boundary of AZ-NV
3. Black Butte – Pahranagat River, NV

Volcanic Cones, Tubes, Caves and Mesas

Buckboard Mesa and Scrugham Peak – Nevada Test Site
El Malpais – western New Mexico
Shiprock Plug – northwestern New Mexico
Shoshone Mountain – Nevada Test Site
Volcanoes at Petroglyph National Monument – New Mexico

Volcanic Bombs, Minerals and Springs

Obsidian
Crystals
Hot Springs