1. Native American Earthquake and Tsunami Stories from Northwestern California
Vicki Ozaki
Redwood National Park

2. Cascadia Subduction Zone
Driving Force – geography of the Pacific Northwest
Cascadia Subduction Zone
Fuels - active volcanism of the Cascade Range
Geologic Setting - produces the largest earthquakes on earth

3. Last Cascadia Earthquake produced profound effects
on the land and sea
Written stories from Japan
Oral history of Native Americans
Recorded in the geologic record (sediment and trees)
Peat
Tsunami Sand

4. Coastal Cascadia Oral Histories
Ludwin was a seismologist from University of Washington. In addition to this work investigating Native American oral traditions for seismic information, she has also used native stories to help identify landslide locations in the Seattle Fault area. The Ludwin et al 2005 paper (Earthquakes and tsunami as elements of environmental disturbance on the Northwest Coast of North America) compiled Native American oral histories along the Cascadia subduction zone and used them to estimate a feasible time period for which the last large Cascadia earthquake-tsunami event occurred.
Source locations of accounts of earthquake-tsunami stories. Recorded (Ludwin et al 2005)

5. Coastal Cascadia Oral Histories
Estimated Dates from 9 Oral Histories
“This is not a myth…my tale is seven generations old.. There was a great earthquake and all the houses of the Kaikuitl collapsed.”
Geoscience research and Japanese histories give an estimated time of January 26th 1700, 9pm. For a explanation of this work, see IRIS Animations “Orphan Tsunami” animation (
Of the 32 oral histories included, 9 had temporal information that allowed for an estimated time since the last major event. Using standard assumptions (listed below) about duration of a generation and age at which memories are retained, Ludwin et al determined an estimated event time of 1690 AD.
Several of the tellers of these stories were careful to specify that these were not ancient myths but actual events to actual people.
Other included details also match our scientific understanding of the event such as accounts of season specifying winter and time of day is mostly given as night. Stories collected
Assumptions for narrowing date range
--generation is years
--people do not remember events prior to 5 years age
--maximum age possible is 100 years
--someone described as “old” is at least 40 years

6. Coastal Cascadia Oral Histories
Tree-ring & Japanese-records estimated event time of January , 9 pm
Geoscience research and Japanese histories give an estimated time of January 26th 1700, 9pm. For a explanation of this work, see IRIS Animations “Orphan Tsunami” animation (
Of the 40 oral histories included, 9 had temporal information that allowed for an estimated time since the last major event. Using standard assumptions (listed below) about duration of a generation and age at which memories are retained, Ludwin et al determined an estimated event time of 1690 AD.
Several of the tellers of these stories were careful to specify that these were not ancient myths but actual events to actual people.
Other included details also match our scientific understanding of the event such as accounts of season specifying winter and time of day is mostly given as night. Stories collected
Assumptions for narrowing date range
--generation is years
--people do not remember events prior to 5 years age
--maximum age possible is 100 years
--someone described as “old” is at least 40 years
Oral-history-estimated event time of 1690 AD

7. Tribal Territories of Northern California WIYOT
Stories in the RNSP area were collected from 3 coastal tribes: Wiyot, Yurok and Tolowa after the turn of the 1900’s by Alfred Kroeber and other anthropologist from UC Berkeley. Many of these stories of earthquake and tsunamis were compiled in an unpublished paper by Deborah Carver, Ethnologist contracted by Redwood National Park in 1998.
Gold Rush 1949 – Surge of gold mining expeditions resulted in loss of life, destruction of villages, and severely fragmented culture. By the end of the gold rush era at least 75% of the Yurok people died from massacres and disease other tribes in California saw 95% loss of life. The Yurok reservation was established in 1855 and Yurok people confined to reservation. Late 1850’s, forced removal of Yurok children and imposed western education boarding schools. Children taught by missionaries and stripped of their family connections, language, and their culture.
WIYOT

8. American Earthquake and Tsunami Stories
Crescent City
Location of Native
American Earthquake and Tsunami Stories
Humboldt
Bay
Note: Several stories collected south of Trinidad, but not represented on the map.
Yurok names for village sites; E signifies earthquake stories, T signifies tsunami stories
Village names are Yurok since Kroeber interviewed Yurok Indians. We gave not gotten the Tolowa names for the villages.
Alfred Kroeber, Anthropologist from UC Berkeley.
Robert Spott was Yurok and the adopted son of Captain Spot at Requwoi. Robert was born in Weitchpek. Alfred Kroeber referred to Robert Spott as the “last Yurok to graduate from the University of the sweathouse” Knowledge transferred from men to boys in the sweathouse.
American Indian stories recorded at the turn of the 20th century. Early 1900’s by Kroeber.
Provide vivid descriptions of the effects of earthquakes and tsunamis.
Alfred Kroeber and Robert Spott (1939)

9. Geologic elements in Native Stories
Strong Shaking Stories
Subsidence Stories
Tsunami Stories
Stories categorized by:
Strong Shaking Story/Liquifaction,
Subsidence Story/Subsidence Deposits
Tsunami Story/Tsunami Deposit
E – Earthquake
Shaking
Story
E – Liquefaction
S – Subsidence
Story
Deposit
T – Tsunami
Story
Deposit

10. Common Themes in Native Stories:
evening or night
ground shaking
ocean floods
liquefaction
uplift/down drop

11. THINK TSUNAMI Go to High Ground Natural Tsunami Warning Ground SHAKING
Loud ROAR from the ocean
WATER RECEEDNG unusually far exposing the sea floor
THINK TSUNAMI
Go to High Ground

12. How Prairie Became Ocean
Earthquake travels up and down the coast sinking the ground until the prairies are submerged.
“They went south first and sank the ground … he [Earthquake] repeatedly caused the ground to sink in the south. He kept sinking it: every little while there would be an earthquake, then another earthquake, and then another earthquake: that is what he was doing. And then the water would fill those places.
Recorded in 1909 by A.L. Kroeber from Ann a Yurok Woman.
Earthquake and Subsidence

13. Oral history from Crescent City recorded in the early 1900s.
Standing on rocks above the rive mouth a man felt the ground move suddenly. Trees swayed, some fell and the shaking seemed to go on forever.
“When the earth shakes,” the Indian’s father had told him, “look at your canoe. If it’s sinking, get up on the reefs and run for high ground.”
The canoe was sinking, along with the water level. He ran.
The water came. Eventually it left behind a trail of death.
Story from Deborah Carver. Oral history from Crescent City recorded in early 1900’s. Probably Tolowa in origin.

14. Oral history from Crescent City recorded in the early 1900s.
Standing on rocks above the rive mouth a man felt the ground move suddenly. Trees swayed, some fell and the shaking seemed to go on forever.
“When the earth shakes,” the Indian’s father had told him, “look at your canoe. If it’s sinking, get up on the reefs and run for high ground.”
The canoe was sinking, along with the water level. He ran.
The water came. Eventually it left behind a trail of death.
EARTHQUAKE
LIQUIFACTION
Story from Deborah Carver. Oral history from Crescent City recorded in early 1900’s. Probably Tolowa in origin.
WATER
RECEEDING
TSUNAMI

15. (Yurok story told by Tskerkr)
Orekw
Sigwets
Yurok story of earthquake and tsunami….Ocean flooding the village of Sigwets and washed it away and water inundated Orekw. Top Photo: Tskerker. Bottom Photo: Jump Dance. Map from early 1900’s of the villages of Orekw, Sigwets, Atmequar
A Flood
(Yurok story told by Tskerkr)

16. Orick Tsunami Core Tsunami Sand Peat Peat
Gary Carver, former HSU Geology Professor, gained permission from the Yurok Tribe to take cores from the marsh across the highway. The cores showed thick sand unit interpreted as a tsunami deposit and carbon dated to about 300 years BP. Provides geologic evidence that collaborate Tskerkr’s “The Flood” story.

17. Klamath River
Yurok house at the mouth of the Klamath called Layekwu (By the Trail). House was located by trail to the north side of the mouth of the Klamath.
From Robert Spott
“There was a big tidal wave that was larger than ever reported in their history. It was a calm day and the ocean smoothly and quickly receded from the ocean floor in a smooth mass, leaving the bottom exposed beyond Mile Rock. Fish were seen flopping about on the ocean bottom. The Indians moved up the hill to a point about where the Yurok family house stands and waited. When the ocean receded, it exposed a big sandbar, outside the mouth of the Klamath River, running parallel to the shoreline. After a time the ocean moved back in a mass. It totally covered Black Rock, struck the long sand bar at the mouth of the Klamath with such force that it leveled the whole mass of logs and sand off and dumped it into the river. Then the wave moved up the river as far as they could see.”
Minnie McCumber (Robert Spott’s niece) told a similar story. She told of a signal before the wave which told people to move up the hill. She didn’t know what that signal was, but a large earthquake would be a strong signal.
Describes the natural warning for a tsunami – ocean receding and perhaps an earthquake. Response – evacuate uphill.

18. Currently told today by Loren Brommelyn of the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation
Chetco River
Test-Ch’as
means tsunami
in Tolowa
A Flood
Currently told today by Loren Brommelyn of the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation

19. Yurok Oral Histories
Locations of earthquake and tsunami oral histories correlates with tsunami sand deposits and subsidence.
Provide descriptions of earthquake phenomena
In Orick Valley, tsunami water height was estimated based on oral histories at three locations (about 60 feet). Used in tsunami hazard planning.

20. Native American Oral Histories:
Ask permission to use oral histories from the Tribes before using in publications, videos, etc.
Note: NPS has asked permission from the Yurok Tribe to use several tsunami and earthquake stories in Interpretive programs and for public education.

21. Langi Village, Simuelue Island
Islanders knew to immediately go to high ground after an earthquake.
Oral tradition – Experienced devastating tsunami in 1907
Smong
Stories conclude with lessons: “If a strong tremor occurs,
and if the sea withdraws soon after, run to the hills for
the sea will soon rush ashore.”
Smong Simuelue word for Tsunami.
Covers three part sequence – earthquake shaking, withdrawal of the sea beyond the unusual low tide, rising water that runs inland.
Some of the best examples in modern times of societal preparation for tsunami come from intact indigenous communities. An inspiring account comes from Simeulue Island off of Sumatra, Indonesia from the 2004 Indian Ocean ocean tsunami.
Dengler, L., 2011, My Word: Surviving by learning from experience. Times-Standard, Eureka, CA (March 26).
In 2005, I was on a tsunami team studying the impacts of the tsunami in the hardest hit areas of Northern Sumatra. We visited community after community in Aceh where all the buildings had been leveled and very few people had survived. Our last stop was Langi Village on Simeulue Island. Langi was the community closest to the epicenter of the December 26, 2004, magnitude 9.2 earthquake. On Dec. 26, the earthquake damaged many of their buildings and first tsunami surges arrived only eight minutes later. Surges continued for hours, the highest reaching 30 to 40 feet and leveling every structure in the village.
I expected the same desolation to greet me in Langi that I had seen on the Aceh coast. I was wrong. We were greeted by throngs of villagers. In Langi, not a single man, woman, or child died in the tsunami. The people in Langi had the shortest amount of time between the earthquake and the tsunami as any place in the Indian Ocean, and yet every one of them had survived.
Why were there no casualties? Langi has no electricity, no computers, and no technological warning system. What the people of Simeulue Island do have is an oral tradition. They have passed stories about the dangers of tsunamis from one generation to the next. If the ground shakes for a minute or longer, everyone knows exactly what to do. Adults grab the children and use carts to wheel the elderly and sick up the hill to an evacuation site where they have stashed supplies and temporary building supplies.
In California, I often hear people expressing concerns about the Cry Wolf syndrome -- if people are asked to evacuate and nothing happens, they will be less likely to do so the next time. So I was very interested in how the Simeulue Islanders dealt with this issue. Earthquakes are fairly common in Sumatra, but great tsunamis are rare. The last deadly tsunami occurred in When I asked them if they were concerned about “false warnings,” they looked at me as if I were crazy and told me that every earthquake is an opportunity to practice their evacuation skills whether it produces a tsunami or not

22. Indonesia: Earthquakes are common but tsunamis are rare.
Do Like the Simuelue Islanders:
Every earthquake is an opportunity to practice evacuation whether there is a tsunami or not.

23. When in doubt drill it out.
Indonesia: Earthquakes are common but tsunamis are rare.
Do Like the Simuelue Islanders:
Every earthquake is an opportunity to practice evacuation whether there is a tsunami or not.
When in doubt drill it out.

24. Do Like the Simuelue Islanders:
Talk about Smong ….Talk to your family, friends, students, and co-workers and help educate them on how to survive the next tsunami.
Remember what is the fundamental purpose of oral histories. Pass on knowledge from one generation to another. Especially information of how to respond to very infrequent cataclysms where there maybe 100s of years between events. Indigenous peoples disaster management system.