Kumeyaay - Mount Guatay or Na-wa Ti'e (Big House)
Mount Guatay or Na-wa Ti'e (Big House) as the Indians call it, lies near Descanso, only a few miles distant from the Cuyamaca Peak. It looms up from all points of view like a giant 'ewaa (house) built for some great chieftain of the golden age. Its massive frame is royally covered by a thick robe of velvet verdure, with plumes of rarest cypress along the northern ridges.
The glory and peace and silence of its broad expanse is ever the same, whether raised to the smiling sun or draped in the filmy gauze of evening's amethyst veil.
Seemingly it might be inhabited by a benign spirit of guardianship, as it looks so serenely and calmly o'er the valley bearing its name. But in the days when the village Hum-poo' Arrup' ma (Whip of the Wind) in the upper edge of the valley rang with sounds of busy activity, it was entirely different.
Then the comely Indian maids, pounding their acorn meal in the Hamoo-ka'e (mortars) on the rocky knoll of the village, were fearful of incurring the displeasure of Na-wa Ti 'e (Big house). Even the valiant warriors, brave in their fierce array, dared not ascend the mountainside, or pluck one branch of the rare trees growing there. Eel-sha-har' (Grows only here) they called them.
For to Na-wa Ti'e (Big House) was given the power of creating the penetrating wind, the blighting frost, the freezing snow, and the driving sleet. When enraged it caused the spirit of Ha-choor' (cold) to spring from out of the center of its heart, chilling the marrow of their bones, and carrying devastation throughout the fertile valley.
SO one and all gazed on it with awe; molesting it not, never venturing up its slopes; ever fearful, ever dreading, lest they might arouse the ire of Na-wa Ti'e (Big House).