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Volcan in Myth and History North of Julian, a rounded, ridgelike mountain, or if you prefer, a chain of mountains, rambles along some 14 miles to taper out in the Valle de San Jose, just south of Warner's Hot Springs. It divides the drainages of San Felipe and Santa Ysabel, and faces, Janus-like, both southwest across the valleys of Pamo and San Pasqual to the sea and northeast to the Desert of the Colorado. Early Spanish travelers through the region fancied some resemblance to a volcano in the shape of the highest peak. They named it Volcan and continued on their way. The name stuck. Had they stayed longer and come to know the Kumeyaay who summered here, hunting the abundant wild game and gathering rose hips, elderberries, acorns, and grass seed, they might have learned a better name for it: Hahachepahg, "Place Where Water Comes Down." Because of its location, the mountain garners both snowfall and rainfall, sometimes torrential, both from winter storms off the ocean and from summer thunderstorms out of the desert. Numerous seeps and springs arise along the mountain's flanks. The San Diego River takes its head hereabouts. Santa Ysabel Creek runs out of springs on the southwest, picks up Witch Creek, stops awhile behind the Lake Sutherland Dam, thence to the San Dieguito River, Lake Hodges, and finally to sea. To the north, Carrizo and Matagual Creeks run out by Warner's to swell the San Luis Rey. Eastward, where the San Felipe joins Banner and Arkansas creeks in the Valle de San Felipe, enough water comes off the mountain and into the desert to cut a swath clear through to the Salton Sea, 50 miles away. In the early days of Julian, Tom and Martha Saunders lived up on Volcan. At first, they had settled along Coleman Creek, intending to raise sheep. But western cattlemen have never taken kindly to the grazing of sheep, for they crop close to the ground, biting right into the root stock in drier years. The Saunders were lucky to have only lawsuits aimed their way. In wilder days of the west, sheep herders were known to disappear mysteriously, their flocks run off a cliff. During their five years on top of Volcan, isolated from the other white settlers, Martha Saunders learned root and herb lore from the Kumeyaay. She made her own soap and stitched her children's clothing out of flour sacks. She learned how to cure the colic with a concoction of gooseberries, and when she hung out the baby's diapers to dry, thorns from the wild rose served as clothespins. References to Volcan Mountain appear also in the myths and songs of the Luiseño, whose territory was northwest of the Kumeyaay. In Luiseño tradition, Volcan is one of the First Born, offspring of the union between the primal pair — Earth-mother and Sky-father.
San Jacinto, Volcan, Cuyamaca, Palomar. Robin Hewitt, 1988
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