The Sutter Buttes of Northern California’s Sacramento Valley are where life began and where life ends. Playing a role in the traditional creation and afterlife stories of the Maidu and Wintun peoples, this small mountain range was a place of ritual for their ancestors, who once lived within view of the Buttes.
For more than two decades, the Shoshone and Paiute peoples, scientists, environmentalists, the federal government, Nevada citizens and politicians have wrestled over the fate of Yucca Mountain.
There are many who contend that there is something inherently sacred about places that cultures adopt as holy sites. Of all the Earth’s sacred places, this idea seems most embodied in the city of Jerusalem.
In the remote and rugged high desert of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula lies a land with immense historical and spiritual significance to the world’s three great monotheistic religions. The Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions all have deep ties to the landscape and monuments of this region.
The conflict surrounding the estimated 24,000 petroglyphs — ancient carved rock images — west of Albuquerque, N.M., demonstrates that even a national monument is not safe when it comes to suburban development.
The conflict surrounding the estimated 24,000 petroglyphs — ancient carved rock images — west of Albuquerque, N.M., demonstrates that even a national monument is not safe when it comes to suburban development.
In December 2001, a federal judge ruled in favor of a Historic Preservation Plan that protects the Bighorn Medicine Wheel and Medicine Mountain in Wyoming, a site considered sacred to Native Americans. A Wyoming timber company had challenged the plan, which was negotiated with tribal organizations, state and local governments, as a hindrance to logging.
Hidden in the mountains of northern New Mexico lies Blue Lake, or Ba Whyea, an ancient sacred site for the Taos Pueblo community. After the U.S. government appropriated Blue Lake and the surrounding area and placed it under the control of the Forest Service, the ensuing battles for Blue Lake
The Holy Island of Lindisfarne has been a Christian holy site and pilgrimage center since 635, playing a pivotal role as a cradle of Christianity in Northern England and Southern Scotland. Nature and spirituality are very much linked here through a line of “nature saints,” of which St. Cuthbert
The Bay Area’s oldest shellmound at Huichin, now Berkeley, was a massive burial site