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Traditional Lifeways

Tribes

Eastern Shoshone

Video Presenter

Joshua Mann

Calming the Geysers of Yellowstone

During the 150th anniversary of Yellowstone National Park, Joshua Mann, Eastern Shoshone Tribal Historic Preservation Director speaks of the Yellowstone National Park geysers and the story of the bellowing beast beneath the earth’s surface. One of the tribe’s sacred duties in the park is to “calm the geysers” – to monitor seismic activity of the area – to “keep the volcano at bay.” Yellowstone was, and remains, a source of obsidian and medicinal mud among other resources. There are documented prayer and camping sites near the geysers that speak to the importance of this area to indigenous people.

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