The nine volcanic plugs that shoulder up through the Central Coast were here before any name for them existed. The Chumash called the great rock at the chain's end Lisamu'; the Salinan called it Lesa'mo'. Both peoples regard it as sacred — and that is nearly the only thing they agree on. The Salinan hold the established right to climb it, tied to solstice ceremonies and a tradition that the story passed down among them explains: a hawk and a raven once destroyed the two-headed serpent Taliyekatapelta, which had coiled around the rock's base. The Chumash believe it should never be climbed at all. From 1889 to 1969, the Army Corps of Engineers blasted an estimated 250,000 tons from Morro Rock for breakwater stone. In 2022, Chumash tribal members paddled in on traditional tomols and passed recovered fragments hand to hand back to the base. The rock is still being argued over, and still being returned.
