When the Mountain Dwarfs Danced: Aboriginal Traditions of Paleoseismic Events along the Cascadia Subduction Zone of Western North America

Geological evidence demonstrates that recurrent great earthquakes have been generated at the Cascadia subduction zone, off the west coast of North America, throughout the Holocene. Such major earthquakes and associated tsunamis would have had devastating impacts on Native villages along this coastline. Native oral traditions of such disasters, along with earthquake figures in myth and ceremony, are examined for evidence of the nature of such past geological events and the impact they had on human populations.