Oak Flat (Figure 1) in Arizona is known to be a significant sacred place. Known as Chi'chi Bildagoteel, it is sacred to the San Carlos Apache and to other Indigenous peoples. It is honored and cared for by the tribes who have lived close to it for millennia, whose relatives are buried there: "Since time immemorial, Native Peoples have traveled to Oak Flat to participate in ceremonies, to pray, to gather medicines and ceremonial items, to honor those buried within its boundaries, and to seek and obtain personal cleansing and healing" (https://www.indian-affairs.org/protectoakflat.html).
They want to continue to preserve it, undamaged by mining.
It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. But that listing won't prevent it from being destroyed. It is now slated to become an active copper mine in the near future, due to large amounts of money, influence, power, corruption, and disastrous U.S. court decisions. Its immense copper deposit is considered "high grade," so mining it is lucrative. The Land there will be completely destroyed, no matter how mining is done.
Copper is both medicine and poison, depending on the dose. Copper as medicine can be an antimicrobial agent, stopping many pathogens. Copper amplifies communication for both the living and the dead.
But water pollution from copper mining can be deadly:
In November of 1995, a large flock of migrating snow geese, heading south for the winter, took refuge from a snowstorm and landed on the unfrozen surface of an open pit copper mine on the outskirts of Butte, Montana. The old mine, called the Berkeley Pit, had been inactive for decades, but it was full of dissolved heavy metals and highly acidic water. 342 of the geese died during that event, autopsies showing perforated esophageal ulcerations from drinking the water. https://duluthreader.com/articles/2016/12/14/107612-lessons-from-the-most-toxic-open-pit-copper-mine
The Apache will not be able to return safely to Oak Flat. Mining will make it too toxic, too dangerous for the living.
Oak Flat is referred to by Apache as their "corridor to the next world," "direct corridor to the Creator," and "cornerstone of our religion." As a corridor to the next world, it is a doorway for spirits to move between this world and the next. But if the Land there is excavated and destroyed by mining, it could also become haunted by increasing numbers of migrating spirits of the dead who have lost their way.
Spirits of Indigenous peoples in Polynesia and the Americas are known to return at death to ancestral lands in the West, a reverse retracing of the route their ancestors first took when historically migrating East. In Polynesia and on the California coast, portals and corridors like this can be referred to as "jumping-off places" and "leaping-off places" for the spirits of the dead. So as a corridor to the next world, Oak Flat is one of many known portals, doorways into the afterlife.
This return migration is found in many other traditions in and beyond Polynesia and the Americas. It is widespread around the World, including in Europe.
Spirits of the dead find their way in the next world by migrating back to their ancestral homes, very often to places in the West. West, as a direction to the Land of the dead, can encompass the full range of Sunsets on the western horizon on and between the solstices.
The association of the West with the dead must be an ancient concept because it is so widespread. It is archetypal in its prevalence; this has been acknowledged in psychology. Karl Jung stated, “The west is the land of the dead, the sun sinks in the west, it is there that the day, and life itself, sink, so to speak, into eternity” (1941).
Pomare and Cowan commented, “Beautifully these Maori-Polynesian folk-beliefs link up with those of Gaelic Lands—of Brittany, in France, of the Scottish Highlands, and of the West of Ireland, with its poetical tradition of Hy-Brasil, far in the west . . . A phrase meaning ‘Gone West’ is a very ancient Gaelic saying for death” (1987, 48-9).
The map below shows a few of the possible sea routes between North America and Polynesia.
Figure 2. Possible Polynesian navigation routes to North America (Source: Lou-Anne F. Makes-Marks, Google Earth Pro™).
What appears in this map at Figure 2 as a star diagram resembling the constellation of Cassiopeia is exactly that. The Polynesians deliberately settled islands in the shape of star formations as a navigation aids. This constellation is in the shape of the frigate bird, who guides the navigators, like the constellation does.
The uppermost route shown in North America goes to Haida Gwaii. The center route aims at the Farallon Islands, off the coast of San Francisco. The bottom route to the south goes through Oak Flat on its ways to Chaco Canyon.
A general rule is that the early incoming route of Polynesian settlers can be reversed to become the route of their dead descendants back to their ancient homelands, with variations existing. There are multiple other routes across the Americas and the Pacific.
Oak Flat and Chaco Canyon are archaeological evidence of early Polynesian settlements in North America, along with Haida Gwaii and the Farallon Islands, off the coast of the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as other places in the Americas.
The routes in Figure 2 from (1) Haida Gwaii through the Hawaiian Islands to Cape Reinga in Aotearoa, (2) Farallon Islands to the Chatham Islands, and (3) Chaco Canyon through Oak Flat to the Chatham Islands are likely paths of spirits of the dead back to their ancient homelands.
The Apache's Oak Flat sits precisely on the route from the Chatham Islands through Tahiti to Chaco Canyon. So it must also be on the route of the dead from Chaco Canyon and Oak Flat back home. Return routes of the dead don't go through the settlements of the living; their routes can be diverted, often higher, off mountains and cliffs, or over water.
Cape Reinga, Chatham Islands, all the islands mapped as Cassiopeia, Hawai'i, Rapa Nui, and many other locations in the Pacific and the Americas have jumping-off places for the dead.
Part of ancient Indigenous spiritual Traditions, these paths of spirits of the dead are to ensure that the dead go back to their ancestral homelands and that they don't stay to haunt the living. A disruption in the path could ensure that they would.
These routes are not the only ones. There are many other ancient paths across the ocean, the Americas, and the world. Some of them are routes for the return of the dead as well.
References:
Jung, Karl. 1941. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology/ETHZ, Lecture, 27 June, Vol. VI, Zurich, 210.
Molina, Alejandra, and Emily McFarlan Miller. 2021. "Why Oak Flat in Arizona is a Sacred Space for the Apache and Other Native Americans." Religious News Service. https://religionnews.com/2021/03/05/why-oak-flat-in-arizona-is-a-sacred-space-for-the-apache-and-other-native-americans/
Pomare, Sir Maui, and James Cowan. (1930) 1987. Legends of the Maori. Vol. 1. Auckland, NZ: Southern Reprints.
