Tomanowos, the visitor from the sky
The Willamette meteorite is still honoured by the people who revered it first.
Key facts
- People and tradition
- Clackamas people, now part of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, Oregon
- Region
- North America
- When
- Ancient tradition to today
The story
The Clackamas people of the Willamette Valley in Oregon knew the great iron mass now called the Willamette meteorite as Tomanowos, often translated as 'visitor from the sky'. In their tradition it brings together the sky, the earth and the water. Rainwater collected in its deep hollows was used in ceremonies, and young people visited it as part of their spiritual preparation.
In 1902 a settler secretly moved the meteorite from land owned by a steel company, and after a court case it was sold. It has been in the American Museum of Natural History in New York since 1906. In 2000 the museum and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde reached an agreement: the meteorite stays on display, tribal members may visit it privately each year for a ceremony, and if the museum ever stops displaying it, it will be returned to the tribes.
What science says
Willamette is an iron of group IIIAB weighing about 15.5 tonnes, the largest meteorite found in North America. Its deep cavities formed as parts of it weathered away during thousands of years lying on the ground. It probably did not fall where it was found: one idea is that it was carried there from further north by ice and the great Ice Age floods.
Did you know?
The Grand Ronde tribes visit Tomanowos each year for a private ceremony at the museum.
The meteorite's cone shape shows how it was oriented as it fell through the atmosphere.