Mount Diablo is sacred to many California Native American peoples; according to Miwok mythology and Ohlone mythology, it was the point of creation. Mount Diablo and Reed’s Peak were surrounded by water. From these two islands the creator Coyote and his assistant Eagle-man made Indian people and the world.[3]
[edit] Earliest names
Information on prior names for Mount Diablo is found at the organization, Save Mount Diablo: "About 25 independent tribal groups with well-defined territories lived in the surrounding East Bay countryside. Their members spoke dialects of three distinct languages: Ohlone, Bay Miwok, and Northern Valley Yokuts. Most of Mount Diablo, including its peak, was within the homeland of the early Volvon, a Bay Miwok-speaking group, and as early as 1811, the mountain was called [in Spanish] Cerro Alto de los Bolbones (High Point of the Volvon). The Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone from the Mission San Jose and East Bay area, called the mountain Tuyshtak, meaning 'at the day'. The Nisenan of the Sacramento Valley called it Sukkú jaman, or as Nisenan elder Dalbert Castro once explained, 'the place where dogs came from in trade'." A Southern Miwok name was Supemenenu.
It has been suggested that an early Indian name for the mountain is Kawukum or Kahwookum, but there is no evidence to confirm the assertion. According to Indian historian Bev Ortiz and Save Mount Diablo: "The name “Kahwookum” was made up in 1866—with no real Indian connection--referred to the California Legislature’s Committee on Public Morals, and tabled. It resurfaced as a real estate gimmick in 1916 with a supposed new translation “Laughing Mountain” and attributed to Diablo area Volvon Indians."[4]
Current name
The conventional view is that the peak derives its name from the 1805 escape of several Chupcan Native Americans from the Spanish in a nearby willow thicket. The natives appeared to disappear, and the Spanish soldiers thus gave the thicket the name "Monte del Diablo", meaning "thicket of the devil."[5]
General Mariano G. Vallejo, in an 1850 report to the California State legislature, gave this much romanticized story of the derivation of the name of Mt. Diablo from its Spanish to Anglo form, related to the mountain and an evil spirit. Vallejo’s report could be interpreted to align with Gudde’s account. (Kyle, and Ortiz)[3][6]
This name was later applied to Don Salvio Pacheco's Rancho Monte del Diablo, the present-day site of the city of Concord. The name's origin was misinterpreted by English-speaking newcomers to refer to the mountain rather than the thicket. [7]
The name Monte del Diablo (‘devil’s woods’) appears on the Plano topográfico de la Misión de San José about 1824, where there was an Indian rancheria perhaps near a thicket at the approximate site of the present town of Concord. {Pacheco} On August 24, 1828, the name was applied to the Monte del Diablo land grant for which Salvio Pacheco had petitioned in 1827.
In 2005, a man from the neighboring town of Oakley, petitioned the federal government to change the name of the mountain[8], claiming it offended his Christian beliefs. He initially suggested renaming the mountain Mt. Kawukum, and later, Mt. Yahweh. Other renaming suggestions by other individuals included Mount Miwok and Mount Ohlone, after local Indian tribal names. Eventually, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names rejected the petitions, saying there was no compelling reason to change the name.