Cuchama and Sacred Mountains

By W.Y. Evans-Wentz

Book Overview

W. Y. Evans-Wentz, great Buddhist scholar and translator of such now familiar works as the Tibetan Book of the Dead and the Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation, spent his final years in California. There, in the shadow of Cuchama, one of the Earth's holiest mountains, he began to explore the astonishing parallels between the spiritual teaching of America's native peoples and that of the deeply mystical Hindus and Tibetans. Cuchama and Sacred Mountains, a book completed shortly before his death in 1965, is the fruit of those explorations.

To Cuchama, "Exalted High Place," came the young Cochimi and Yuma boys for initiation into the mystic rites for their people. In solitude they sought and received guidance and wisdom. In this same way, the peoples of ancient Greece, the Hebrews, the early Christians, and the Hindus had found access to inner truth on their own holy mountains: and in this same way must the modern person find the path to inner knowing.

Surveying many of the most Sacred Mountains in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia, Evans-Wentz expresses the belief that the secret power of these high places has not passed away but only awaits the coming of a New Age. This new age, in accord with the oldest prophecies of our continent, will be a time of renaissance, the long-waited era of harmony and peace among all peoples.

This renaissance shall be uniquely American, a renewal based on the values so long honored by the Americans before Columbus, and so ruthlessly trampled by the "civilized" Europeans who overran them. No other race of people has been as spiritual in their way of life than the original Americans, notes Evans-Wentz. Perhaps none other has known such martyrdom. Yet the secret greatness of the Indian religion still lives, ancient as the Earth itself, yet ageless in its power to renew.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0804009082
• ISBN13: 9780804009089
• Release Date: July 1981
• Publisher: Ohio University Press
• Length: 227 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

sacred mountains

Dr. Evans-Wentz has done a wonderful job. I met him a few times, back in the early '60s, in San Diego, and he mentioned that he was working on this book. It is great to see it get published. I have been up to the top of Cuchama mountain, which was reached from the town of Tecate, California. So happy to buy and read the book, last year. The author has written many other great books, and his ability to research and write well is commendable. I have all of his books, and am pleased to have this one also.

Heartfelt intro to the sacredness of mountains

I found this book in City Lights ... on my own quest around sacred mountains of the world. It was fun to find Evans-Wentz had anticpated much of my route ... many years before. Cuchama is also Mt Tecate, a mountain on which young American Indians were set to spend the night, coming down with their vocation in life. Well edited by Frank Waters, with what were to me fascinating additional observations. A great intro to the phenomenon of the sacredness of mountians, from a man who lived his life by such things.