Contra Costa Times
Mount Kawukum? Save Mt. Diablo’s Name
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An Oakley man has proposed changing Mt. Diablo’s name to a fictitious Indian word, Mt. Kawukum, because he believes the mountain’s name celebrates Satan. In March 2005, the U.S. Board of Geographic Names began considering his request and is seeking comment on the proposal. It is expected that the Board will consider the request at its October 2005 meeting.
Save Mount Diablo is opposed to the name change for a variety of reasons, among them that we don’t support the re-writing of history or the loss of a widely known and well accepted geographic name. The Contra Costa Times article below includes accurate information as to how Mt. Diablo was named.
Save Mount Diablo is a non-profit 501(c)(3) conservation organization, supported by more than 6000 local residents, which has been preserving lands on and around Mount Diablo and educating the public to the mountain's natural values since 1971. Preserved lands have increased from 6,788 to more than 87,000 acres. Save Mount Diablo continues to raise funds to preserve the remainder of the mountain. Contact: Save Mount Diablo, tel: 925 947-3535, FAX: 925 947-3603, 1196 boulevard Way #10, Walnut Creek, CA 94595; www.savemountdiablo.org
Our letter of opposition is below.
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The USBGN request for comment is below
For More Info: U.S. Board of Geographic Names http://geonames.usgs.gov
Contra Costa Times article: below
How Mt. Diablo got its Name: Below
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Please write with your opinion to:
Roger L. Payne, Executive Secretary
U.S. Board on Geographic Names
U.S. Geological Survey, Geographic Names Office
Reston, VA 20192-0523
Or FAX or E-mail to:
Fax: (703)
648-4549
E-mail:
jrunyon@usgs.gov
or
BGNEXEC@usgs.gov
Re: Docket 388, California, Proposal to Change Mt. Diablo’s Name to Mount
Kawukum
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April 8, 2005
Re: Docket 388, California, Proposal to Change Mt. Diablo’s Name to Mount Kawukum
Dear Mr. Payne,
We’re laughing about the proposal—our organization would have to become “Save Mount Kawukum”—but this is no laughing matter. Save Mount Diablo doesn’t support the rewriting of history. Our organization was formed in 1971, includes more than 6000 supporters and has helped expand public open space on Mt. Diablo from one 6800-acre park (Mt. Diablo State Park) to twenty-nine parks and preserves totaling more than 87,000 acres.
Your web proposal staff report/analysis of the proposal is well done, but one section relative to the proposed change is incorrect: “the name is of indigenous origin and means “laughing mountain, everywhere seen.” Kawukum doesn’t exist, is misspelled from its first proposal in 1866, and does not mean “laughing mountain, everywhere seen.” Further, stories such as that referenced from California’s Spanish Place-Names (Marinacci, 1997), have also been debunked—there was no “diabolical dance by their Indian foes.”
Every few decades someone proposes to change Mt. Diablo’s name –often using a fictitious ‘Indian’ legend as justification—and is ridiculed in local and statewide media. Generally the reasons stated are religious in nature. In many cases, proposed ‘historic Indian’ names of Mt. Diablo or proposed name changes have been attempts to romanticize or demonize local Indian groups, or to market the mountain for commercial or religious reasons.
There is no such word as “Kawukum” or “Kahwookum” in the vocabulary of California Indian languages. I’ve included a copy of an article “Mount Diablo As Myth And Reality” Ortiz, Bev; American Indian Quarterly, Fall 1989 (specifically pp. 464-466) which explains the mountain’s naming and debunks the name “Kahwookum” as fictitious.
The name “Kahwookum” was made up in 1866—with no real Indian connection--referred to the California Legislature’s Committee on Public Morals, and tabled. It resurfaced as a real estate gimmick in 1916 with a supposed new translation “Laughing Mountain” and attributed to Diablo area Volvon Indians. Other Indian tribes also lived around the mountain; all of them considered it sacred
While there are many Indian names for Mt. Diablo, no one knows what the Volvon called it. The Volvon were persecuted to extinction during California’s Mission era. There are no living individuals of their culture, not a single drawing, photo, or any artifact beyond skeletons and a few Mission records.
Beyond that tragedy, Mt. Diablo’s name is steeped in history, permeates hundreds of thousands of official records, and is well loved—our area is known as Diablo country—and is part of the distinctive identity of the region. Local residents love Mt. Diablo and it figures strongly in events and local history, including large religious ceremonies held at the mountain’s peak. The name Mt. Diablo is well known and accepted, including by California Indians.
Regardless of its name Mt. Diablo is considered sacred by California Indians and by us—that’s why Save Mount Diablo continues to acquire land to expand Mt. Diablo’s parks.
Save Mount Diablo opposes any proposal to change the mountain’s name, especially to a name which is fictitious and has no historic meaning.
Sincerely,
Seth Adams
Director of Land Programs
Save Mount Diablo
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Contra Costa Times
A deeply religious Oakley man has petitioned the federal government to rename Mount Diablo, calling the current name a profane salute to Satan.
In Art Mijares' application to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, the first for this peak, he suggests naming it "Mount Kawukum," a word he believes has American Indian roots.
"Words have power, and when you start mentioning words that come from the dark side, evil thrives," said Mijares.
"When I take boys camping on the mountain -- I don't even like to say its name -- I have to explain what the name means. Why should we have a main feature of our community that celebrates the devil?"
Mijares won't have to face down Lucifer to prevail: He just has to persuade the federal government, the state of California and the Bay Area.
The federal government can change place names only in documents it publishes, which means locals carry significant weight in these matters.
"What we care about is the extent that everyone uses the same name for the same feature," said Roger Payne, secretary to the names board that will eventually vote on the petition.
"It's critical for national security and emergency response. But the board will change a name if warranted and if there's an overwhelming consensus of local folks that want it done."
It might be easier to order a glass of ice water in hell.
The idea immediately drew heat from groups such as Save Mount Diablo, California State Parks and the Mount Diablo Pilots Association.
The peak is a major aviation landmark and provides the name of a 74-year-old state park.
It has been called Mount Diablo for at least 164 years, and references to the mountain permeate thousands of maps, books and historical documents.
Not least of the objections, the nonprofit conservation group Save Mount Diablo would have to become "Save Mount Kawukum."
"We're laughing about the proposal, but this is no laughing matter," said Seth Adams, a leader of Save Mount Diablo . "About once a decade, someone proposes to change Mount Diablo's name, often using some fictitious Indian legend as justification. We don't support the rewriting of history."
The name Kawukum first surfaced in 1866, when a church group tried to change Mount Diablo's name for reasons nearly identical to Mijares', according to noted Bay Area researcher Bev Ortiz.
"We abhor the wicked creature to whom the name is appropriate, and spurn the use of the name for anything noble or good on earth," proclaimed the Congregational Church of San Francisco in its newsletter of the day.
The church proposed Kawukum, spelled then as Kahwookum, "a word learned from an unidentified Indian living at the base of the mountain," Ortiz wrote in a history of the mountain's name. "Despite the fact that church members could not communicate clearly with their consultant, they presumed that 'Kahwookum' meant 'Everything seen' or 'very nearly Pilot Mountain.'"
The church presented a name-change petition to the Legislature. Lawmakers postponed a decision indefinitely, finding nothing offensive in the name Mount Diablo.
Fifty years later, B.S. Sanders revived Kawukum as a real estate gimmick, saying it meant "laughing mountain," a fictitious interpretation designed to lure investors.
Bay Area American Indians called the mountain by several names, such as "Tuyshtak," according to Ortiz.
The name Mount Diablo grew from the Spanish name given to an Indian village set near a willow thicket in modern-day Concord, where Chupcans staged a daring nighttime escape during an 1805 military campaign.
Spanish soldiers said Indians evaded them only with the help of evil spirits and named the site "Monte del Diablo," or thicket of the devil, which American explorers later mistakenly applied to the mountain.
The first official appearance of the name dates to 1841, when the famed United States Exploring Expedition led by Lt. Charles Wilkes recorded the peak as "Mount Diablo."
As for returning the mountain to an Indian word, one Bay Area native is not convinced.
People often profess to honor American Indians when it fits their agenda, said Andrew Galvan, a descendent of the Bay Miwok and Ohlone tribes, which both have ties to Mount Diablo.
"Mount Diablo wasn't even named for the devil," said Galvan, a curator for Old Mission Dolores in San Francisco. "And this name, 'Kawukum,' this is the first I've heard it. How do we even know the word was properly translated?"
Mijares says "Kawukum" is only a suggestion, and that he is open to other names.
"I'll be talking with Native Americans to see whether another name might be more appropriate."
Reach Lisa Vorderbrueggen at 925-945-4773 or lvorderbrueggen@cctimes.com.
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How Mt. Diablo got its Name
(San Juan Bautista, 1790; Cerro Alto de los Bolbones, Oct. 1811; Monte del Diablo land grant, Aug. 24, 1828; peak and range Sierras Bolbones and Montes Diavolo, 1837; Monte del Diablo and Sierra de los Bolbones, 1844; Mount Diabolo, 1848; Monte del Diablo (Original Township boundaries) April 17, 1850; Monte Diablo (Township reoganization) October 18, 1852; modern spelling, Mount Diablo, 1850s
The earliest name of the mountain was apparently San Juan Bautista (Dalrymple 1790). In Oct. 1811, Ramón Abella’s diary mentions the peak as Cerro Alto de los Bolbones (‘high hill of the Bolbones’, i.e., the Indians who live at its foot). The ridge was later designated as Sierra de los Bolbones (or Golgones, and other variants).
The name Monte del Diablo ‘devil’s woods’ appears on the Plano topográfico de la Misión de San José about 1824, where there was an Indian rancheria perhaps near a thicket at the approximate site of the present town of Concord. {Pacheco}
On Aug. 24, 1828, the name was applied to the Monte del Diablo land grant for which Salvio Pacheco had petitioned in 1827. Mariano Vallejo’s report of 1850 tells the story of a fight between a detachment of soldiers from the San Francisco presidio and the Indians at the foot of the mountain in 1806 {discredited date, actually 1805}. The appearance of “an unknown personage, decorated with the most extraordinary plumage,” made the soldiers take to their heels, believing the devil had allied himself with the Indians; then and there they applied the present name to the mountain. This is quite certainly fanciful.
Marshin 1850 stated that Vallejo was incorrect in placing the engagement near the mountain and that it had occurred in the vicinity of a thicket of willows near the house of Salvio Pacheco (i.e. near present-day Concord) at a later date.
The name was transferred to the peak by non-Spanish explorers who associated “monte” with a mountain and applied the Italian form Monte Diavolo or Diabolo.
Belcher (1:119, writing in 1837) calls the range Sierras Bolbones and speaks of “the high range of the Montes Diavolo” on his left (!) as he entered the Sacramento River.
The Wilkes expedition of 1841 definitely fixed the name on the lofty mountain peak. Duflot de Mofras cautiously gives both names in 1844, Monte del Diablo and Sierra de los Bolbones (plan 16).
Finally, Frémont and Preuss, on their map of 1848, give the proper latitude and call it Mount Diabolo. Trask’s and other maps of the early 1850s established the modern spelling, although Monte Diablo is found as late as 1873 (Hoffman).
The orographic identity of the range headed by Mount Diablo was recognized by cartographers in Mexican and early American times. The BGN {Board on Geographic Names} (May 15, 1908) designated the entire range from Carquinez Strait to Antelope Valley in Kern Co. as Diablo Range to distinguish it from the other chains of the coast Ranges. (In recent years the expression “Mount San Diablo” is sometimes heard. Diablo post office is listed in 1917.”
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USBGN request for comment
To: various
"Mount Diablo" organizations:
Dear Representative:
This is in reference to a proposal that the U.S. Board on Geographic Names
has received, to change officially the name of Mount Diablo in Contra Costa
County. As you may know, the Board is responsible by law for standardizing
geographic names for use by the Federal government, and its members must
approve any new name or name change before it can appear on Federal maps
and products. Because local acceptance of any proposed name is very
important to the Board, we would be interested to receive the opinion of
your organization regarding this proposal. We have also asked the
Contra
Costa
County
Board of Supervisors and the California Advisory Committee on
Geographic Names (CACGN) to comment on the issue.
The proposal to rename
Mount
Diablo was submitted to us by a resident of
Oakley, who believes the existing name is derogatory. He has suggested the
summit be renamed to
Mount
Kawukum, a name of indigenous origin that
reportedly means, “laughing mountain, everywhere seen.” (We should note
that the proponent also suggested the summit might be renamed for the late
President Reagan, but we have informed him that the U.S. Board cannot
accept that name, as its Commemorative Naming Policy requires that the
honoree of any new name for a natural geographic feature must have been
deceased for at least five years).
To view a synopsis of this proposal, please visit our website at
http://geonames.usgs.gov/Docket388.pdf (scroll down to the section on
California).
Please submit comments to the address, fax number, or e-mail
address provided below. Also, please include an explanation as to the
reason for your recommendation, regardless whether negative or positive.
We encouarge you to distribute this e-mail to other groups or individuals
who might wish to comment.
As soon as our research is complete and all interested parties have had an
opportunity to comment, we shall present the proposal to rename
Mount
Diablo
to the U.S. Board for discussion and a decision. Thank you for
your assistance in this matter and we look forward to hearing from you. If
you have any questions, please let us know.
Sincerely yours,
Jennifer Runyon, research staff
For Roger L. Payne, Executive Secretary
U.S. Board on Geographic Names
U.S. Geological Survey, Geographic Names Office
Reston, VA 20192-0523
http://geonames.usgs.gov
Phone: (703) 648-4550 (J. Runyon) or (703) 648-4544 (R.L. Payne)
Fax: (703) 648-4549
E-mail: jrunyon@usgs.gov or BGNEXEC@usgs.gov