page_title: Mount Taylor (New Mexico)
section_title: Native American traditions
hierarchical_section_title: Mount Taylor (New Mexico) / Native American traditions
caption_attribution_description: English: Mount Taylor seen from the village of Encinal, New Mexico.
context_page_description: Mount Taylor is a dormant stratovolcano in northwest New Mexico, northeast of the town of Grants. It is the high point of the San Mateo Mountains and the highest point in the Cibola National Forest. It was named in 1849 for then president Zachary Taylor. Prior to that, it was called Cebolleta by the Spanish; the name persists as one name for the northern portion of the San Mateo Mountains, a large mesa. Mount Taylor is largely forested with some meadows, rising above the desert below. The ancient caldera is heavily eroded to the east. Its slopes were an important source of lumber for neighboring pueblos.
  Mount Taylor is the cone in a larger volcanic field, including Mesa Chivato. The Mount Taylor volcanic field is composed primarily of basalt and straddles the extensional transition zone between the Colorado Plateau and the Rio Grande rift. The largest volcanic plug in the volcanic field is Cabezon Peak, which rises nearly 2,000 feet above the surrounding plain.
context_section_description: To the Navajo people, Mount Taylor is Tsoodził, the blue bead mountain, sometimes translated Turquoise Mountain, one of the four sacred mountains marking the cardinal directions and the boundaries of the Dinetah, the traditional Navajo homeland. Mount Taylor marks the southern boundary, and is associated with the direction south and the color blue; it is gendered female. In Navajo mythology, First Man created the sacred mountains from soil from the Fourth World, together with sacred matter, as replicas of mountains from that world. He fastened Mount Taylor to the earth with a stone knife. The supernatural beings Black God, Turquoise Boy, and Turquoise Girl are said to reside on the mountain.
  Mount Taylor is also sacred to the Acoma, Hopi, Laguna and Zuni people.
caption: A southwest view of Mount Taylor, as seen from the village of Encinal, NM.
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