Llao (Chief of the Below World)

Llao is the chief of the below-world in Klamath tradition, dwelling within the mountain the Klamath know as the site of Crater Lake (Mount Mazama). He is the antagonist of Skell, the chief of the above-world: in the widely recorded narrative the two hurl fire and stone at one another from their mountaintops until Llao is driven back into the earth and the shattered peak fills with water to become the lake. Klamath consultants describe the two beings as continuing to skirmish along the caldera rim, and the prominent cliff named Llao Rock preserves his name. While the fullest published versions of the battle were shaped by later retelling, Llao's identity as a below-world power tied to the Crater Lake landscape is grounded in the ethnographic and community record.

Domains

• underworld below world
• volcanic fire

Powers

• to hurl fire and red-hot rock from the mountaintop
• to rule and summon the beings of the below-world

Sources

• Llao is the chief of the below-world in Klamath tradition, an adversary of the above-world chief Skell whose destructive battle at Mount Mazama is said to have created Crater Lake.: Ella E. Clark, Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest, University of California Press, 1953. (secondary); Douglas Deur, In the Footprints of Gmukamps: A Traditional Use Study of Crater Lake National Park and Lava Beds National Monument, National Park Service, Pacific West Region, 2008. (secondary)