San Francisco Peaks - in Native Culture

In Native Culture

The San Francisco Peaks have considerable religious significance to thirteen local American Indian tribes (including the Havasupai, Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni.) In particular, the peaks form the Navajo sacred mountain of the west, called Dook'o'oosłííd. The peaks are associated with the color yellow, and they are said to contain abalone inside, to be secured to the ground with a sunbeam, and to be covered with yellow clouds and evening twilight. They are gendered female.

For the Hopi people, the San Francisco Peaks are associated with the cardinal direction southwest, constitute ritually pure sacred spaces, and are used as sources for ceremonial objects. The alignment of the sunset from the Peaks to Hopi villages on Black Mesa is used to calculate the winter solstice, signifying "the beginning of a new year, with a new planting season and new life." The peaks are seen as the home of the katsinam or Kachina spirits, ancestors who have become clouds following their death. Katsinam are invited to Hopi villages to serve as ethical and spiritual guides to the Hopi community from midwinter to midsummer. Aaloosaktukwi or Humphrey's Peak holds particular religious significance and is associated with the deity Aaloosaka, a symbol of the Two-Horn Society, a religious group among the Hopi dating to the occupation of the Awat’ovi village on Antelope Mesa. Depiction of the peaks in association with calendar-keeping is attested in a kiva at the Hisatsinom settlement of Homol'ovi, which was occupied between AD 1250 and 1425; katsinam imagery dates to the thirteenth century as well. Other Native American peoples also relate Kachina spirits to heavy snowfalls on the Peaks.

There are multiple names for the San Francisco Peaks in local languages:

• Dook'o'oosłííd—(Navajo)
• Nuva'tukya'ovi—(Hopi)
• Dził Tso—Dilzhe’e—(Apache)
• Tsii Bina—Aa'ku—(Acoma)
• Nuvaxatuh—Nuwuvi—(Southern Paiute)
• Hvehasahpatch or Huassapatch—Havasu 'Baaja—(Havasupai)
• Wik'hanbaja—Hwal`bay—(Hualapai)
• Wi:mun Kwa—Yavapai
• Sunha K'hbchu Yalanne—A:shiwi (Zuni)
• 'Amat 'Iikwe Nyava—Hamakhav—(Mojave)
• Sierra sin Agua—(Spanish)
• The Peaks—(Anglo) Arizonans